Review. Revision. Recall. It's the maintenance of your Hifz.
It's the oxygen of your journey. It's memory management. You have got to engage with it. As I always say, doing Hifz gymnastics every day will keep the memory in stay!
You will have seen from my revision posts that there are many ways to go about it. The following method is another one of them.
This method is great for those who:
- might not get much time due to a busy schedule
- can't maintain consistency with doing large amounts of revision every day
- struggle with stacking revision every week
- wants to strengthen their Qur'ān memorisation
- has memorised the entire Qur'ān
How does it work?
Normally, we would expect someone to review a juz'/para or more on a daily basis, but this system is focused on doing a quarter with spaced repetition. This is a method that was shared with me and is prescribed by Mawlana Yunus Patel as an approach for ease for those who find less time.
- Before and after every salāh/namāz, recite 3 rukū' repeating it 1, 3, or 5 times. The default number is 3 but it can be reduced or increased per your needs. A rukū' is a paragraph marked with an 'ayn in the non-'uthmānī script which is the equivalent of 1/2 quarters of a hizb. You should do this off memory, but if need be, do once looking, twice without (if repeating 3 times which is preferred).
- You will have used spaced repetition of the same 3 rukū' at least 10 times in the day.
- The next day, take the next set of 3 rukū' (or the equivalent) and repeat in the same way.
- You can even recite the 3 rukū' instead in every prayer throughout the day.
- In 6 days on average, you will complete a Juz'. On the 7th day, you can recite the entire Juz' with a the rukū' sets per salāh in the same way.
- So in a month, you can do 4-5 ajzā' with repetition, and in 7 months revise the complete Qur'ān in this way. There are 558 rukū' (240 quarters in the 'uthmānī script), which means you can do at least two complete readings each year.
What day one will look like
| Salāh | Revise |
|---|---|
| Fajr | Before and after praying you will revise 3 rukū' repeating it each time |
| Zuhr | Before and after praying you will revise the same 3 rukū' repeating it each time |
| 'Asr | Before and after praying you will revise the same 3 rukū' repeating it each time |
| Maghrib | Before and after praying you will revise the same 3 rukū' repeating it each time |
| 'Eshā' | Before and after praying you will revise the same 3 rukū' repeating it each time |
| Totals | If you repeat them once, you will have done 10 repetitions for the day If you repeat them three times, you will have done 30 repetitions for the day if you repeat them five times, you will have done 50 repetitions for the day |
The next day will be the same but for the next 3 rukū'.
What would a week look like?
Let's look at what the week will look like using the first Juz' as an example.
| Day | Revision | The Rukū' |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Revised 3 rukū' | From the start of Sūrah al-Baqarah till the end of the 3rd rukū' (يايها الناس اعبدوا ربكم) which is when the 4th page is complete (15-lined). You will have repeated them before and after each salāh. |
| Tuesday | Revised 3 rukū' | From the start of the 4th rukū' (وإذ قال ربك للملائكة) till the end of 6th rukū' (يبني إسرائيل اذكروا) - this completes just over a quarter of the Juz'. You will have repeated them before and after each salāh. |
| Wednesday | Revised 3 rukū' | From the start of the 7th rukū' (وإذ استسقى موسى) till the end of the 9th rukū' (وإذ قلتم نفساً) - this completes half of the Juz'. You will have repeated them before and after each salāh. |
| Thursday | Revised 3 rukū' | From the start of the 10th rukū' (وإذ أخذنا ميثاق بني إسرائيل) till the end of the 13th rukū' (ياأيها الذين امنوا لا تقلو رعانا) - this completes three quarters of the Juz'. You will have repeated them before and after each salāh. |
| Friday | Revised 3 rukū' | From the start of the 14th rukū' (وقالت اليهود) till the end of the 16th rukū' which will be the end of the 1st Juz' [Juz' complete]. You will have repeated them before and after each salāh. |
| Saturday | Revised all of them together | Take each 3 rukū' from the Juz' and repeat them per salāh, before and after. |
| Sunday | Choice | You can take a break or start the second Juz', or even better have yourself tested on the Juz' you've completed this week. |
How many rukū' are there per Juz'?
| Juz' | Rukū' number | How to do the 3 rukū' divide? |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16 | 5 days |
| 2 | 16 and a bit | 5 or 6 days |
| 3 | 17 | 5 or 6 days |
| 4 | 15 and a bit | 5 days |
| 5 | 17 and a bit | 5 or 6 days |
| 6 | 14 and a bit | 5 days |
| 7 | 19 | 6 days |
| 8 | 17 and a bit | 5 or 6 days |
| 9 | 18 and a bit | 6 days |
| 10 | 17 and a bit | 5 or 6 days |
| 11 | 16 (end of Yūnus) | 5 or 6 days |
| 12 | 16 and a bit | 5 or 6 days |
| 13 | 19 (end of Ibrāhīm) | 6 days |
| 14 | 22 | 7 days |
| 15 | 21 and a bit | 7 days |
| 16 | 17 | 5 or 6 days |
| 17 | 17 | 5 or 6 days |
| 18 | 17 | 5 or 6 days |
| 19 | 19 | 6 or 7 days |
| 20 | 16 | 5 or 6 days |
| 21 | 19 and a bit | 6 or 7 days |
| 22 | 18 and a bit | 6 days |
| 23 | 17 | 5 or 6 days |
| 24 | 19 and a bit | 6 or 7 days |
| 25 | 20 | 6 or 7 days |
| 26 | 18 and a bit | 6 days |
| 27 | 20 | 6 or 7 days |
| 28 | 20 | 6 or 7 days |
| 29 | 22 | 7 days |
| 30 | 39 | Technically 13 days but I would advise to spilt by a sūrah approach (6 sūrah a day). |
| Total | 558 rukū' | 558 / 3 = 186 days if done every day to complete a Qur'ān |
What about the 'Uthmānī script?
With this script it is arguably easier. If you use the 'uthmānī script, you can take the 240 quarters (maqra') which are 8 per Juz' taking 2 a day. If you review 2 quarters each day, you're doing a Juz' every 4 days. This is the equivalent of taking one quarter a day per Juz' in the non-'uthmānī (indo/pak) mus'haf. If you take one quarter, you're doing a Juz' every 8 days.
My thoughts
As I always do, I experiment. This is definitely a great system and you can easily get multiple readings of a Juz' within a week and a year using it. You can even stack your revision together as you go along with this system (like the Ottoman method). I'd done that tweak to this. It was great.
One of the things I liked to do with this one was to stack each day. So for example:
- Day one: 3 rukū'
- Day two: 3 rukū' + 3 rukū' (adding onto the previous day)
- Day three: 3 rukū' + 3 rukū' + 3 rukū'
- and so on...
I also tried to do this week upon week too. Meaning once I finished week one and completing a Juz', I went back to that the next week but combined it with the next one.
It all depends on your schedule. You can tweak it as needed and as would be easily implemented.
Give it a try and let me know how it goes.
Allāh grant blessing.
