2
My lessons on the path of learning Quran:
• Do not underestimate the importance of a partner/company which learns Quran with you: if anything, the one thing which ensured I was learning consistent and quality Quran every week was the fact that I had fixed a time and day weekly to meet my memorisation partner. Alhamdulillah, this motivated me to learn (even if just the day before our meeting) and furthermore, spurred me on to learn more than my partner
• I have experimented with many methods of learning and I feel this is essential for most memorisers of the Quran as different people are different types of learner (auditory, visual, kinaesthetic, stronger types of memory store: short/long, different levels of complementary knoweldge: Arabic, Islamic)
• Some of the methods which I tried:
METHOD
– madrassah style, similar to yours splitting an hour session into 3 parts : jadeed, muraaji’ and previously memorised. I found this was good up to a new juz but then became difficult to maintain with more than that
LEARNING STYLE
I tried a few methods in the following order – most of them overlapped in terms of usage
1- reading the Arabic a few times, then reading a translation of the meaning to familiarise myself with it and then return to learning the paras I had selected. This led me to go through extensive thinking to try to recollect the memorised Quran which my Shaykh advised me against.
2- just ratta learning Quran from my own mushaf and repeating again and again – this was good quality but took a long time and was quite monotonous
3- writing the Quran I was to memorise down and then reading it from what had been memorised – this was very effective in memorising Quran but meant I was looking at a number of copies of the Quran – my written version, my personal mushaf and translation
4- listening to the Quran to be memorised but found it too fast to recall and hard to focus on without seeing it visually
5-reading the tafsir of the ayaat to be memorised – in my mind contemplating the words and story, knowing the Arabic words and then the memorisation and connection between ayaat was so much easier – I could learn my weekly amount in a fraction of the time and join it easily to what was previously learnt. The only thing I have found with this as a result of giving it less time is that the quality of memorisation was not as strong as earlier methods.
• Closing points
- Dont stop learning even for one day as its a door for Shaytaan to stop learning
- Recognise the endgoal and reward
- One of the most important points which I cant underemphasise is the need for self-motivation through the use of rewards just like Allah(SWT) reminds us of Jannah and Jahannum: I found setting myself a reward for:
a) weekly learning goal: this varied from golaabjaman 
to giving myself personal relax time doing things I enjoyed or in extreme circumstances witholding myself from something I really enjoyed (this was super-effective)
b) learning the whole of Suratul Baqarah: I bought myself a quite expensive gift which really helped me achieve my goal 6 weeks prior to my target date
(shared by a dear brother جزاه الله خيرا)
JazakAllaahuKhair, great post. Take it easy on the golaabjaman though
It’s not me eating the gulaabjaamans!
Out here I have another sweet of choice: Qala Qand 
Sister Fajr wrote an excellent piece on Hubut … you should put it on your blog somewhere in shaa’ Allaah.
Hubut (هبوط)
This Qur’an, as much as it is the Gift of Allah which He gives to whom He wishes, it is also the test of Allah for many of us. If we’ve made a sincere decision to memorise the Qur’an, this Book which took 23 years to come down to Earth… we also need to realize that it’s not really going to be one simple, easy, straightforward road from the moment of ‘Azm (resolve) to the day of khatm (completion). It is the case that we’ll face many obstacles on the way, and one obstacle which is not always spoken about is a particular one which I call: Hubut – هبوط (an Arabic term meaning ‘diminution, lack of motivation, laxity, mental blocks, laziness, weakness, slackness’ – you get the idea)
In the course of your Hifdh, watch out for the ‘Hubut’ moments. Those days when you can’t seem to memorise anything, you have a mental block & your motivation feels like it’s just faced the firing squad. Yep, you know what I’m talking about… it’s a strange phenomenon faced by everyone but for the student memorizing Qur’an these ‘down moments’ are public enemy no.1, they can really mess you up and throw you off-course if you don’t know how to deal with them. Some students face major moments of ‘futur’ (laxity) and as a result; they abandon memorisation entirely and never reach their goal of Hifdh al-Qur’an (even though they have memorised over half the Qur’an done). Yeah, it happens.
It’s a frustrating period of time which makes a person sad, disheartened and feel like they’ll never achieve anything. So the one who used to memorise 2 pages a day is reduced to memorizing only a few verses, the one who used to wake up earlier than crows finds himself in hibernation and the one who used to make time for Hifdh despite his busy schedule can no longer be bothered with things.
So why does it happen and when does it happen?
Well, I guess that’s one for the psychologists to answer but in general, these moments can occur randomly and for different reasons. As a student you’ll have always been told to steer clear of sins (the wise advice of Wakee’) and this is because sins bring about these moments of hubut faster and more frequently than anything else – and once you begin to suffer from it, it creates the perfect atmosphere for one to abandon and forget the Qur’an. It’s a major tool of Shaytan which he uses to mislead the slaves of Allah from becoming constant in good deeds (watch him enter hubut into all your ‘ibadat). But sometimes in a person’s attempts of avoiding sin, they fall into the other ‘less known’ causes of hubut:
Stress
Work overload
Long periods of not listening to or reciting Qur’an
Emotions running high or low/emotional instability (such as anger, over-excitement, depression, mood-swings, giddiness etc).
Thinking too much
Eating/sleeping too much
Not finding a companion to work with or a teacher to assist you
Too much empty time
Boredom
Receiving too much criticism from others
For sisters, you may notice hubut near the times of your menstrual cycle and hence you face mental blocks either before, during or after your period.
So what do we do?
Good question, my friend!
But a better question is: ‘What would you do if you were on your way somewhere important and something blocked your road?’ Or ‘What if you were going home from university or work but as you come to the tube station, the Underground folks tell you that the Northern Line has been suspended’ (doesn’t that always happen?) and your route home has now been affected. What do you do?
Your answers would probably include things like:
- Avoid the blockage
- Get around it or move it out of your way somehow
- Find a different route
- Wait a while for things to clear
- Don’t rely on London’s Transport! J
Please, Fajr… something more detailed?
Ok, ok…
· First thing first: When you’ve hit your moment of ‘hubut’, it’s important that you do not end up doing the dreaded, which is: stopping your Hifdh altogether. You can decrease your portion if necessary, but never halt it. Instead, to make up for things, try to increase your listening of Qur’an so have your Surah playing in your iPod or cassette player, around the house, in the car, on your way to work etc. If you are familiar with your hubut and know that it’ll only last a few hours or a day, then maybe take a break from Hifdh for that time period and do something different until your laxity passes by.
· If your moment of hubut is due to something physical (e.g. you’re tired, hungry, or stressed etc) then you need to satisfy this first and overcome it. So sleep well, eat well, relax, and maybe get a massage and do some stretches if your menstrual cycle has made you feel like a hippo stuck in mud lol.
· Stay away from anything which will lower your spirits or demotivate you – be it junk food (this is crime I say), loneliness, laziness, boredom, lack of support, friends/family who may criticize your efforts (be kind and patient with them but take a break as well) basically whatever does not float your boat and gets you down.
· Having some organisation in your life is like having salt and vinegar in your fish and chips. Really, it does wonders to be tidy, neat and organised – and it actually leads you to become more organised and focused at mind. With Hifdh of Qur’an, you need space. That means physical space (periods of solitude to contemplate and memorise) as well as giving yourself mental ‘space’ – if you overwhelm your brain with a hundred ‘things to-do’ and stick-it notes that are scattered in your mind, you just won’t find the focus, motivation or time for Hifdh.
. Routines are the best! You may enjoy living in the fast lane and being like a spontaneous person, but sometimes you need those ‘mundane’ routines in life. Think of them as ‘Thawabit’ – constants that hold you down whenever you feel like you’re about to fall off the road. If for example, you have a regular routine of coming home from work, showering, eating and then sitting down for half an hour to memorise half a page, then when you’re hit by hubut one day, you will naturally still be composed and find it easier to continue with that routine compared to someone who has no routine for their Hifdh – and were you to miss that daily half an hour of Hifdh, you will actually feel weird like something is missing! (Well, it is.)
· Stay active. Have workout sessions where you physically exercise your body, and depending on how fit you are, I would recommend doing rigorous exercise at least two or three times a week – it’ll make you more alert, creates a sense of passion/ambition in life, keeps things like depression, laziness and tiredness at bay and guess what? It’s a sharp sword against hubut and futur.
· Have a deadline, always. Set one deadline for overall Hifdh (e.g. by July 2010) and have another deadline for every commencing week and month etc. Make sure you write these deadlines in different places – on your work desk, in kitchen, as a reminder on your phone, or if you’re a typical Londoner have it engraved on the front of your oyster card! This way, whenever you are faced with hubut, you still have a focus and something to work towards, no matter what.
And the list goes on… Seriously, books can be written on this topic.
A point to note: If you look back at the pre-mentioned causes of hubut, you’ll notice a common factor… they are mainly causes which preoccupy and affect one’s heart. Hence, to avoid hubut, avoid anything which affects the healthy state of your heart, e.g. having too much attachment to this world.
Realise that through the course of memorising Qur’an you will be undergoing a form of training whereby you attain characteristics of a believer insha’Allah – e.g. firm and correct belief, patience, zuhd, gratitude, contemplation, determination, courage, humbleness, you gain good judgement, sound mind, kindness & ease in character (riqqa), and so on bi’ithnillah.
So it’s a training period to see you through life… and naturally any form of training will consist of testing moments or obstacles and hence hubut (as much as it’s an annoying and frustrating occurrence) it actually serves a purpose in the long run – so don’t be disheartened and definitely do not give up J
I ask Allah to keep us and our resolves firm. May He protect us from the downfalls and pitfalls upon this path. Amin
جزاك الله خيرا for the heads up.