By Muhamad Amir Akmal Mohammad Sahrin

We intend this reading as means of inspiring others to search and connect with the Quran.

Our journey with the Quran began from a relatively young age in late primary school.

Previously learning inconsistently from one teacher to another before finally ended up learning from someone much closer.

Alhamdulillah in the family, we were blessed to have someone who was able to teach the Quran coming in the form of our grandmother. She was blessed with the desire to learn and teach the Quran.

Completing and mastering various Qira’at while also attaining certification for her recitation allowing her to teach. Despite that she was constantly still practising and learning other Qira’at.

Ever since I started learning under my grandmother, she was the only Quran teacher I learnt from and through her was how I first connected with the Quran.

Learning the Quran from my grandmother became something that was more or less a weekly commitment on weekends for most of my time (when I was available) from primary school up until early last year when in the blessed month of Ramadan, Allah SWT has taken her into His mercy.

In fact, during the events leading up to her passing, she was often sickly and we could not have our usual weekly Quran class.

After her passing, I had intended to find another place to continue this Quran Journey but due to being busy with work and distractions the process of finding a Quran class was something that I procrastinated on. 

As the end of the year approached, and we managed to squeeze in a time to pause and reflect on the year that has passed.

Realization struck that most of the year had passed us by and that the connection once had with the Quran had been lost with the passing of my grandmother.

IT WAS MUCH MORE, NOT JUST THE CONNECTION BUT THE PRACTISE AS WITHOUT THAT WEEKLY ROUTINE, WE HAD LET THE DECEPTION OF OUR “BUSY” LIFE FILLED WITH WORK TRICKED US INTO NOT ESTABLISHING OUR OWN ROUTINE AND CONNECTION WITH THE QURAN.

In that reflection, I was blessed with the insight to see and realise the times spent reading the Quran through the years with my grandmother was a form of guidance and protection.

Yet it was also a realisation that I did not have a real proper connection with the Quran for myself. Now all that was left for me was the self feeling lost and empty.

“And He found you lost and guided [you].”

Surah Ad-Duha 93:7

Alhamdulillah, Allah SWT had already given us a teacher for our other aspects of Deen.

A teacher that also happens to conduct a Quran class. It was then that we made the resolve to come and study under our teacher to make it easier on ourselves by not wasting more time procrastinating in our efforts trying to search for some other Quran class as we had been in the past year, just wasting away our time.

There was one right in front of us all this while. A decision made for us by Allah will never be the wrong choice and we were duly blessed in our first few lessons.

In the first few lessons we stepped in one of the things that caught our attention from what our teacher mentioned was “why you all read the Quran like robots. There’s no heart/soul, no feeling”.

He then said, “Or maybe it’s just my heart that can’t feel it”.

These two lines hit us hard. After which we reflected on long and hard about.

All these times we just had the notion that having proper tajweed and rhythm would allow our recitation to sound nice and that would be sufficient to “feel” the recitation of the Quran.

But no. To feel the Quran, it goes much deeper than just making our recitation sound nice. Even those without nice recitation can make our hearts feel the verses of the Quran that is recited because reciting the Quran is more than just about producing sounds.

We also reflected about the second line quite a bit. Sometimes it truly does feel despite hearing nice recitation, our hearts do not feel moved, and that line spoken by our teacher makes us wonder have we truly let our hearts be so hardened that the recitation of the beautiful verses of that are words of Allah not make our hearts tremble.

Not even abit?

How do we attain that level?

How do we make our hearts feel alive from reciting or hearing others recite the Quran?

We are still unsure having just begun this journey to connect again with the Quran, but what we are sure of is that Allah has presented us with the best teacher for us, to guide us through this journey.

And we are sure that through this we will improve and attain a better connection with the Quran than that we had before. Our own personal connection for ourselves.

We also believe with the right intention of gaining closeness with the Quran which are divine words from Him, He will teach us and guide us through our teacher and classes.

May Allah place and make the Quran alive in our hearts. Ameen.

“Recite, and your Lord is The Most Generous, Who has taught by the pen – taught humanity what they knew not.”

Al-Alaq 96:3-5

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