How North Africans Memorize the Quran
Hassan Saeed
Read time: 6 minutes
North Africans follow a traditional method that has been used for hundreds of years to memorize the Quran.
This method, used across many countries, has different versions, all sharing core ideas.
What is special about this method is that students not only memorize the Quran but also learn to write its verses from memory.
There is a branch of science dedicated to studying how the Quran is written. (علم رسم المصحف)
The tools used in this method:
A small wooden board.
A pen carved from sugarcane.
Ink made from burnt sheep wool.
A small clay rock used to rub on the wooden board after washing it with water, to make the board smoother for writing the next time.
The teachers, once students who completed memorizing the Quran using the same method, are known for their strong memorization of the Quran.
The 4 stages of this traditional method:
First stage: Learning how to read
Children as young as four years old can join the program.
They begin by learning the Arabic alphabet.
On the wooden board, the teacher writes the Arabic alphabet using the special pen and ink.
The teacher reads each letter aloud, and the student repeats after them.
Once the student completes learning the alphabet, the teacher tests them to ensure they do not confuse similar-looking letters.
The student progresses to the second stage once they have mastered all the letters.
Second stage: Starting memorizing the Quran
After wiping the board clean, the teacher writes the first Surah, Al-Ikhlas, on the board using the special pen and ink.
The teacher reads every word aloud, and the student repeats after them.
Then, the student tries to memorize the new Surah by themselves.
Once the student memorizes the Surah, they recite it from memory to the teacher.
If the teacher is satisfied with the student’s memorization, they instruct the student to wipe the board clean.
The teacher repeats the same steps with the next Surah after the student wipes the board clean.
This process continues until the student memorizes a few short Surahs of the Quran.
Third stage: Learning how to write
In this stage, instead of using the pen and ink, the teacher uses a pencil to write on the wooden board.
The student then traces over what the teacher wrote with ink to learn writing.
The steps from 2 to 6 from the previous stage are repeated.
This process continues until the student completes memorizing 10 or 20 pages of the Quran.
Fourth stage: Starting to write independently (Dictation)
Here, the student uses a slightly bigger wooden board since they are increasing the amount of their daily Quran memorization.
Since the student has learned how to read and write by now, the teacher stops writing the verses of the Quran on the wooden board for them.
Instead, the teacher recites the verses of the Quran, and the student writes them on the board using the special pen and ink.
The teacher then reviews the board and corrects any spelling errors made by the student.
Afterward, the teacher reads the verses aloud, and the student repeats after them.
The teacher asks the student to read the new verses independently to ensure they can read them correctly.
The steps from 3 to 6 from the second stage are repeated.
This process continues until the student memorizes the entire Quran.
Revision of what was previously memorized is done simultaneously with the daily memorization of the Quran.
Once a student completes memorizing the entire Quran, they start over again from the first Surah, Al-Ikhlas, and repeat the same steps.
Depending on how well a student has memorized the Quran, they might revise the entire Quran up to five times or even more before graduating from the program.
Source:
Learn How I Memorized the Quran: