You can liken the journey of memorising the Qur'ān like that of building a house. By that I mean a physical house. So with the bricks, the cement, the structure, the roof, the rooms, the walls and the foundation.
When you are memorising the Qur'ān it is like you are involved in building a house where the central components are the bricks and the cement that holds the bricks together. Without the cement, there are no walls, and without the walls, there is no house.
In the same way, when you're memorising al-Qur'ān, the verses are your bricks and when you're linking of them together, that is your cement. Or take another example of a playhouse or a toy house made of plastic. This small house have blocks, sockets or tabs that will connect to other blocks like a Lego House or Jigsaw puzzle. If you don't connect them fully and properly, there will be a weakness in the build and will cause a break in the house.
Likewise, when memorising the Qur'ān, we can experience weaknesses and breaks in linking together different verses in our memory. This can be a common struggle even for the most experienced person. Whether this is trying to:
- recall the beginning of the next verse
- the end of a verse
- the beginning of the next page
- the beginning of a rukū'
- the beginning of a hizb
I'm going to share different methods of how you can go about it dealing with such struggles in a way that ensures that you can remember verses with the flow you want to achieve and not struggle when trying to recall what comes next.
When memorising verse by verse
When memorising verse by verse, people tend to recite the whole verse from start to finish but then in order to remember the next verse they will also include the first word of the next verse. This is not always the best thing to do.
It is better to recite a group of words that are complete in meaning. For example, let's look at Surah al-Baqarah, verses 127 and 128:
وَإِذْ يَرْفَعُ إِبْرَٰهِـۧمُ ٱلْقَوَاعِدَ مِنَ ٱلْبَيْتِ وَإِسْمَـٰعِيلُ رَبَّنَا تَقَبَّلْ مِنَّآ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلسَّمِيعُ ٱلْعَلِيمُ
And ˹remember˺ when Abraham raised the foundation of the House with Ishmael, ˹both praying,˺ “Our Lord! Accept ˹this˺ from us. You are indeed the All-Hearing, All-Knowing. (127)
رَبَّنَا وَٱجْعَلْنَا مُسْلِمَيْنِ لَكَ وَمِن ذُرِّيَّتِنَآ أُمَّةًۭ مُّسْلِمَةًۭ لَّكَ وَأَرِنَا مَنَاسِكَنَا وَتُبْ عَلَيْنَآ ۖ إِنَّكَ أَنتَ ٱلتَّوَّابُ ٱلرَّحِيمُOur Lord! Make us both ˹fully˺ submit to You and from our descendants a nation that will submit to you. Show us our rituals, and turn to us in grace. You are truly the Accepter of Repentance, Most Merciful. (128)
So say you're memorising verse 127, you should recite all of it and then recite a complete sentence as highlighted in the verse that follows. Rather than saying the first word alone. Make sure you also have a little gap between your repetitions as you combine.
Reciting two verses together
Often when people are memorising, they will memorise a verse, but haven't repeated it much and then move onto the next verse. When they have moved onto the next verse, they will repeat both verses together a number of times. What happens as a result is that they seek to memorise quickly and in a way that is more relaxed - less intense.
You should instead seek to also repeat them for a larger number of times individually and collectively.
Reciting everything you have memorised for the day
Another thing that happens is that students will memorise the portion of the day as due but then won't return to it until the next day or the following week. Or say, they've memorised a page or ten lines, the mistake would be to not repeat everything together 10, 20, 30 plus times. So you repeat everything individually and then also collectively.
Writing down the sequence
Another method that can prove useful in order to memorise is to write down the sequence of verses by jotting down the initial phrases of each verse as makes sense. You can then use these to develop a means of remembering every verse and linking them well. For those who do this, they often keep a notepad or a document that they've made with the start of every verse written down.
Likewise, I have also seen students writing down the last few words of a verse in order to remember how verses end as this can sometimes be a difficulties in certain surah.
Linking pages together
This is more of a concern for those who use a mus'haf that starts and ends with complete verses. Often students may struggle to recall the start of the next page.
One of the methods of dealing with this is to not memorise the final verse of the page that you are memorising but memorise it alongside the next page. Alternatively, memorise the page with the starting verse or phrase of the next page.
Another way is to link by meaning and stop where the topic or discussion changes. For example, take verses 21 to 27 of Surah al-Kahf. You can do verses 21 to 26 but leave verse 27 to connect with the other page. Or take verses 54 to 61 where you can memorise verses 54 to 59 but do 60 and 61 separate where the story of Musa and al-Khidr begins.
Or for example, verses 75 to 83 where you can do verses 75 to 82 and do from 81 separately which begins the accounts of Dhul-Qarnayn. This story actually goes across one page and ends at the start of the next page. This illustrates the other way you can memorise where you memorise the last verse of a page with a full page and then the first page of the next page as well.
If you take the approach of topics then, at times, you may find that a topic ends at the end of a page and a new one starts on the next page. Like Surah al-An'ām verses 69 to 73 and 74 starts on the next page with another topic.
Quarters (rub' or thumn) or paragraphs (rukū')
Sometimes you might be memorising according to quarters or paragraphs and this can also lead to forgetting the start of the verses. Again, apply the same principles of either combing the start of the verse that follows as a whole or taking a phrase from it.
These are basic methods that you can use without complicating things. Another crucial element to this is connecting to the meaning of the verses to help you remember.
May Allah make it easy for you.
