This Amazing Hafiz Recites The Entire Quran In One Standing

In the UK, he is considered to be amongst the top tier of Huffādh. But it wasn't always this way. I'm about to share the story of a young Hāfidh whose story is an immense inspiration and source of motivation.

This is the story of 'Abdullāh Hanook.

'Abdullāh Hanook recently did something you wouldn't imagine someone as young and someone from the UK being capable of doing.

You hear about Sayyidunā 'Uthmān ib 'Affān, Tamīm ad-Dārī, Sa'ī ibn Jubayr and Imām al-A'zam Abu Hanīfah (may Allāh be pleased with them all) reciting the entire Qur'ān in a single rak'ah. Qatādah who would complete the Qur'ān every night in the final days of Ramadān. Imām ash-Shāfi'ī who would complete the Qur'ān twice daily.

Subhān Allāh, in 2023, we have a young 15 year old in the UK, Hāfiz 'Abdullāh Habook who has completed the entire Qur'ān in one rak'ah leading his father, fellow hifz class peers and their respected teacher in 6 hours. He achieved this many times in several other sittings. He also was blessed to recite the entire Qur'ān in 2 rak'ah at Masjid an-Nabawiyy and in 1 rak'ah in front of the Ka'bah.

How Hafiza 'Abdullāh Hanook memorised the Qur'ān

'Abdullāh Hanook began his journey to memorise the Qur'ān when he was 8/9 years old and finished when he was entering high school. That's in year 7 in the UK, when he would have been 11/12 years old. So it took him about 3 to 4 years to complete his memorisation.

What route did he take to memorise the Qur'ān?

He was doing his memorisation part-time after school hours at a local madrasah. The route he took was to first memorise Juz' 'Amma (the 30th part), and then he moved to the first two Juz' (1st and 2nd parts). But then he went and memorised the back 6 ajzā' (which includes Juz' 'Amma) which is about 120 plus pages. The reason he returned to the back was because he found it easier to memorise the smaller surah. Once he complete the last 6, he then returned to the third Juz' and continued all the way through to the 24th Juz'.

What was his routine?

Remember he was in primary school but despite that fact, he was very dedicated. He would wake up around 7am and stay awake from Fajr in the winter months and in the summer, he would sleep after Fajr and then wake up at 7am. The beautiful thing is that his siblings and parents would all wake up to pray with him. There was a support system and a productive environment at the house.

After reading Fajr, he would spend an hour learning his sabaq (new lesson). But prior to this, before sleeping he would repeat his portion (which was a page by choice) around 10 times by looking. Although he never used to listen to it, it was something that I did. I would listen to the āyāt before sleeping but by repeating each āyāh 10 times each while listening to a recitation. Listening can help in many ways. Doing this gives you a head start in the morning when you actually have a focused memorisation session. You will your path to fluency a lot quicker, have familiarity and ease in memorisation.

'Abdullāh would then learn his sabaq-dhor from 8am-8:30am. This is also known as the sabqi. This is the recent memorisation of the past two weeks or up to a month.

He would then make his way to primary school and spend the day there. He would get back home and relax from around the hours 3:45pm-4:45pm. Soon it was time to go the mosque. So he'd make his way to the masjid for 5:00pm for his Hifz class. During the commute he would revise his dhor (the past and older memorisation) up to whatever amount was possible.

When in class, they would need to recite their new memorisation (sabaq) in the first hour (between 5pm-6pm). In the second hour (6pm-7pm), they would have to recite the recent memorisation (sabaq-dhor) to the teacher. I'm not aware of whether he would recite his dhor after that or not. It's something I intend to clarify.

How was the amount of memorisation determined?

This was down the student. You could memorise however much you could but there would be general target. By the end of every month, the number of pages memorised would be averaged out and a target amount of memorisation would be set for sabaq. So for example, if you averaged memorising a page a day, it would typically result in adding 50% more in the month to follow. So if it were a page on average, the following month would be a target of memorising 1.5 pages a day.

What helped him stay connected and committed to the memorisation?

The role of his mother was vital. She would always make sure he was on top of his Qur'ān such that he was like his shadow. She would monitor him and kept him connected to his Qur'ān. When 'Abdullāh had only done around 3 ajzā' of memorisation, his brother had complete the memorisation of the Qur'ān which gave his mother a jolt of inspiration. She wished that all the 5 brothers become Huffādh and there were no Huffādh in the family history.

Motivation also came from his elder brother. He looked up to his elder brother as a Hāfidh. But his brother was also someone that kept an eye out for 'Abdullāh. He would make him read when he came home from the mosque if he didn't read everything he needed to. 'Abdullāh would hate that and thought he was being picked on. But today 'Abdullāh realises why his brother did that and now wishes his brother picked on him even more than he did.

What happened after he complete his memorisation?

When he complete his memorisation, he didn't come to truly appreciate or understand what he had achieved. But he also didn't have a strong memorisation when he complete it. His Qur'ān was weak to a point that he carried a guilt.

He would carry a guilt because he felt he knew he wasn't strong in it. The very definition of a Hāfidh is the one you can recite from any where in the Qur'ān and any time. Although, there will be times where you may need to practice, he needed to practice all the time.

His guilt though wasn't matched by a motivation to remove it. It lingered on. He was showered with praises and labeled with Hāfidh sahib. He was immersed and overwhelmed by the perks while neglecting the strength of his Qur'ān.

So what drove him to make his Qur'ān strong?

How he made his Qur'ān strong after memorising the Qur'ān

Everything changed when his teacher, Shaykh Syed Rāqib Bukhārī came from Madinah to teach in Luton, UK. He instilled the thought to his students that you are not truly a Hāfidh until you can recite the entire Qur'ān in one sitting.

He would encourage the students to aspire to become stronger in their memorisation. To this effect, there was an older student who had complete his memorisation and Shaykh Rāqib trained him to recite the entire Qur'ān in one sitting from memory. This both shocked and inspired 'Abdullāh. He too wanted to reach the same level of ability.

The revision method used

'Abdullāh was now aged 12 at the point where he needed to strengthen his memorisation. So he started revising at first by doing a quarter a day. This was a quarter day for 4 days, and then he would do the entire Juz' on the 5th day. This would continue until he complete 5 ajzā'. Then he would recite all 5 in one sitting.

Then he would move on to the next 5 ajzā' in the same way but also revising a Juz' a day from the previous 5 ajzā'. Once he complete 10 ajzā', he would recite them all together. Apparently, it would take around 2-2.5 months to get to the level of doing all the Qur'ān in one sitting. For me the numbers don't add up here and is something I can clarify, in shā' Allāh.

The following is a table based on this for a 7 month period (31 weeks) recite 5 days a week.

When 'Abdullāh had finished his memorisation it was like the average Hāfidh in the UK (which isn't very strong). But after going through this process, he was very strong.

Paying attention to the similar verses

When doing the quarter at a time, he would also be required to write down and memorise all the Mutashābihāt because the teacher would test him on them. So if there's a similar verse elsewhere he would ask him to recite that. So 'Abdullāh would look at the similar verses in each quarter and then do them together as he moved from one to the other. So if he was revising the first quarter, he would focus on the similar verses in that quarter but when doing the second quarter, he wouldn't only look at the similar verses in the second quarter but also return to the first quarter as well. He used the same stacking system with his revision for the mutashābihāt.

When he finished reciting the entire Qur'ān in one sitting for the first time, he thought he was done. He had accomplished everything. What more could he do! It wasn't to be. He was asked to do it again and again. When he did it the first time, he didn't want to do it again. It took a lot out of him and he wanted to stick to a 3 or 5 ajzā' daily revision system. This wasn't to be as his teacher wanted him to do it again. As a result, to date, he has now recited the entire Qur'ān in one sitting 17+ times to date.

One of the recent events in the UK was "Qur'ān Revision Day" - an event where aspiring Huffādh and Huffādh gather for revision in London. 'Abdullāh took part in this and the event started at Fajr and ended at 'Ishā'.

'Abdullāh though complete the entire Qur'ān quicker. 'Abdullāh recited the whole Qur'ān that day without any mistakes in 6 hours. Two days before the event he went over the entire Qur'ān by doing half of the Qur'ān each day. In fact, he does this every time he recited the entire Qur'ān in one sitting as a means of preparation this. When he prepares he always has someone listening to him. Having someone listen to you is what makes your memorisation stronger. If you don't have that, you can listen to the Qur'ān or get a buddy.

For this event, 'Abdullāh woke up at 4am, read Tahajjud prayer and after Fajr he started reciting Qur'ān around 6:22am till 12:22pm in at atmosphere where he was looking at so many others who were doing the same thing. The atmosphere really made him feel proud and inspired him further. He complete the Qur'ān between Fajr and Dhuhr. This was his quickest ever. No breaks in between!

His relationship with the Qur'ān has been nurtured by a great teacher such that he feels at lost without the Qur'ān. He says he has experienced that if you hold onto the Qur'ān, you will receive things from Allāh and He will attach things that you want to you. He loves Juz' 16, Surah Maryam and Surah Tā Hā.

Alhamdulillāh! May Allāh bless him and us.

I hope you're inspired!