The Splitting Asunder
One of many Muslims’s life goals is to memorize the Holy Quran. However, most Muslims can only recite a few short full chapters of the Quran from memory. There are a few millions of Muslims who have learned and memorized the complete text of the Holy Quran word for word. These Muslims are called Huffath. All of these amazing people can recite the text from memory word for word with great ease. Most of the time, the Huffath also have beautiful voices that touch hearts and lift the spirits of listeners. As for the rest of us, including myself, this goal is very hard to achieve especially when you are a visual learner. How could one recall pages of words—six hundred and four of them to be exact! Some learners also don’t even know what the words mean because their mother tongue is not Arabic. Despite these obstacles, many Muslims would still love to memorize the text and understand its meanings.
My personal journey with learning the Quran and memorizing it has been very hard. However, after I started using flash cards that have colorful symbols/illustrations, I can now recall the words for the page from memory. I noticed that the symbols give me stations to mark sequence and reminded me with meaning. My anxiety when reciting from memory went down. I felt calmer and more focused on the correct way of recitation. My brain was applying the recitation rules, and I didn’t have to worry about what the next verse is going to be. My professional Quran recitation teacher also noticed this progress and encouraged me to keep using this method since that it does help me.
Since that many of my friends have the same struggles with memorizing the Holy Quran, I decided to share my experience with every learner of the Quran. I hope that this workbook helps many others memorize and understand this chapter from the Quran as well.
The illustrations/pictures are based on the simple meaning of the Arabic words. Sometimes symbols are used instead of illustrations/pictures to help the learner remember verbs or to provide a clue that triggers their memory. Luckily, the Quran is full of references to the physical world that we live in. God all mighty asks us to look, observe, and examine the beautiful universe that he has created for us. However, these symbols/illustrations are not to be used to explain the Quranic text in any capacity. This should be left to scholars, and I am definitely not one of them! Please be advised that any illustrations created by myself or anyone using this workbook have to abide by the Islamic rules of responsible expression. The most important rule is that verses that talk about God Almighty or his attributes must never be illustrated physically in any form since that this is beyond our limited thinking or imagination in this life.