I really should learn to listen when I receive good advice.
For the last year or so (even before my Ramadan project), I have been trying to find a teacher with whom I can study the Qur’an, specifically its vocabulary and structures. I felt there was only so much that I would be able to learn by my own reading. I asked all sorts of people for suggestions, and I tried the obvious routes like Discover Islam and the Islamic Awareness Centre (where in fact I briefly took a class). However, the emphasis at those organisations is very much on educating recent converts to Islam, and the class I took focused on the basics of Islam, using a translation of the Qur’an.
One person I met told me that I should learn to recite the Qur’an first, and then understanding the text would become easier. This seemed back to front to me – how would I be able to read out something whose meaning I didn’t fully grasp? – and I insisted that I needed to learn about Qur’anic language before anything else. When I met him again recently, I asked him if he’d had any ideas about where I could study, and once again he told me that I should first learn to read out the text – and this time he made some phone calls, and found me a teacher.
And to my great surprise, he was absolutely right.
I am now taking classes in tajweed, the correct pronunciation when reciting the Qur’an, and suddenly the text has opened up to me and I am finding it much easier to understand. I don’t quite understand why that is (though of course the word “Qur’an” comes from the root “to recite”); the only analogy I have come up with is the way that Shakespeare makes more sense when read aloud. Not all of the vocabulary is known to me, but I prepare using a translation before the class; the process of reciting essentially makes the distinctive style and structure of Qur’anic language clearer to me.
I think it’s impossible not to be affected by the profound beauty of the language in the Qur’an. By repeating after my teacher and listening to his explanations I am learning about tafkheem and tarqeeq, ghunnah, qalqalah, mudood, and all the other “special effects” that apply to letters and words. I have found some great resources online, such as this [pdf] and this [link to download pdf], as well as Quran Explorer. I am also keen to read The Art of Reciting the Qur'an by Kristina Nelson. (And by the way, this site is amazing, “an annotated linguistic resource which shows the Arabic grammar, syntax and morphology for each word in the Holy Quran”.) But while these resources are a help, they could never replace a teacher, because when learning tajweed you need (well, I need) constant correction.
Doing this has reminded me that I rarely read Arabic (fus'ha) aloud; the sounds are always in my head, and on top of that, I tend to hear each word in my mind separately. (For those that don’t know Arabic, I should explain that in “proper” Arabic, words are connected by vowels which depend on the grammatical status of the word.) So being forced to pay close attention in these lessons to the types of consonants and the i'rab is incredibly useful.
More than that, the process of engaging with Arabic very actively is really energising and enjoyable; while I spend hours a day reading Arabic texts, it’s a relatively passive process. Now my brain is starting to work quite differently, and I have noticed I am reading and listening in a more focused way. (In the past I found the same thing happened when I wrote in Arabic on a regular basis.)
Believe it or not, these lessons are giving me so much stimulation and satisfaction that on the days I have a class in the evening I actually wake up in the morning looking forward to it. Now I only wish I had starting learning tajweed sooner.
Next time someone advises me on a subject I know little about, I’ll be sure to listen.
