Here is a cool question asked by Muslims; I read the Quran but I don’t understand Arabic, so I don’t get anything out of reading the Quran. should not I just be reading in English?
and then these people tell you, you have to memorize the Quran, there is so much reward from memorizing the Quran, and there are so many Huffaz out there that memorize the Quran. I don’t even understand what it means. Shouldn’t we be telling people to read the Quran instead of memorizing it?
You know what as we heard this question we realized something, to every action there’s an equal but opposite reaction. We have an extreme in this community, we have on the one hand people that want to emphasize the memorization of the Quran and not emphasize understanding Quran at all, that you just become a trophy once you memorize Quran and you are going to lead Taraweeh, and you’re going to be reciting beautifully, and people are going to be saying what an awesome Tajweed and Qira’at you have and you have no concept of what’s being said. that is one extreme and that extreme gives birth to the other extreme, which says: you know what these people? they’re just reciting Quran for no purpose, and they’re just making beautiful sounds but what’s the actual message, we should forget about memorization we should focus all of our energies on reading Quran and understanding. These are two extremes, the truth usually in these kinds of things, lies somewhere in the middle, and for so many questions people ask we realize more and more and more that they’re actually a reaction to another extreme that makes them want to justify the opposite extreme, and not consider the answer lies in the middle.
The answer is at the end of the day memorizing Quran is one of the most spiritually enriching and powerful acts that we can do, memorizing the Quran is actually fulfilling the legacy of the Prophet himself sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, one of the most beautiful verses Surah Al-Ankaboot describes that the ayat of the Quran live in the chests of those who believe, the ayah doesn’t live on pieces of paper, the Ayatullah live inside of Mushaf, the place the ayat is stored in this world are inside the chests of believers. It’s an amazing thing to say and so I want more and more of those of ayahs in my chest, I want to memorize as much of them as I can, that’s something that you should struggle with, and want for yourself. why wouldn’t you want to memorize Quran if your parents are going to be raised with crowns on their heads on Judgment Day? On the one hand, we should be memorizing the Quran and on the other hand, the Quran complains itself “Don’t they reflect deeply on the Quran or their hearts made up locked up? so reflection on the Quran and memorizing Quran actually hand-in-hand and let me add one more thing, this is the balance of our religion, this is where things really get so epic, these two things are not mutually exclusive, when I memorize Quran I’m repeating the same ayah yes or no? over and over. I’m repeating the same ayah and the more repeating it, the more I’m thinking about it, and the more I’m thinking about it, more realizations come to my head, reflection is actually facilitated by the act of memorization, that is how it’s facilitated. then you recite Quran with Tajweed and what Tajweed does is that you give every letter its due, you pause, and you take your time with every single word which means it slows you down. Doesn’t it? Tajweed slows you down and when it slows you down your mind is not just pronouncing every word like you should, it’s giving your mind the opportunity to think about every word instead of rushing through the whole thing, and not giving each word or letting each word have its effect on you, even the science of Tajweed actually full fulfills the purpose of thinking and reflecting on the Quran, that’s what it’s there for.
This stuff is so interconnected, what we have done is we have ripped it apart, “I just want to read English transition” or “I just want to learn Tajweed and not reflect. SubanAllah. These are the things that Allah commands us to keep or means to keep together, and we keep them putting them apart.
So the answer really lies at the end of the day in balance, when you have one extreme it will certainly lead to the other extreme, and may Allah SWT keep us from extremes and truly allow us to be the middle of Ummah.