Al-Insomniyya

So it finally happened - I got to a point where I missed a day, then another..then 6 days went by. This was compounded by the heartsinking constant feeling knowing that different parts of my previously learnt parts were anywhere from very strong to weak to crumbling to gone. This last week has been horrible - almost like a bereavement, a feeling of hollowness and emptiness as I simply didnt even touch the Quran. I sincerely hope this is because a connection is developing between myself and Allah and his words, and less so because I've fallen behind in my plan and goals. But today I started reading again, and made a plan and instantly feel better. As when we fall down, its more important to learn and make ammends rather than sulk. The two biggest problems I've had until now: I've not had a consistent plan for everything that I've learnt i.e. revision Stumbling across unfamiliar words, because I hadnt learnt them advanced enough in ANKI WHAT HAS TO...

A post I've been wanting to write for a while, and that is how my Quranic Arabic is progressing, inadvertently (but very satisfying) as a by-product of doing Hifz via understanding. So all these years (at least 3-4 now) I've acquired vocabulary via ANKI i.e. rote learning and made reasonable progress. I've always heard and read you acquire best via reading, but from previous experience I became dependent on that context and couldnt always recognise vocab in other contexts, especially as I didnt (and still dont) have a great knowledge of sarf, and that the same word can appear in different forms according to the Arabic morphological system. One thing I will say however, I am won over - having gone through Surah Kahf and now most of Surah Baqarah - reading (or in my case memorising) really works. If I open a page of the Quran in Surah Baqarah (from a section I havent already done), there are only 3-4 words that I dont recognise i.e. I can translate 90%. From a cursory l...

I've kept up my half a pages, but again losing track of previous sections, let alone the first half of Surah Baqarah or even Surah Kahf. I've booked a week off in second week of February and need to use that round the clock.

I wrote a post earlier where I mentioned some of the things I've had to sacrifice, such as gym, the decision to discontinue my spoken Arabic class after the completion of A level in the summer, watching TV etc. But there are also other things - less 'concrete' things as it were - that you have to sacrifice if you want to pursue hifz. And these include wider reading. A friend mentioned a book that Shaykh Hamza Yusuf had based a talk on, on advising on the detrimental affects of TV (called 'Remotely controlled' if you were wondering). I considered ordering that today, then looked at all the unread books on my shelf that I had ordered in a similar fashion. Its the same reason I cant listen to the talks recently on interesting topics such as Islamophobia by Sh Yasir Qadhi and an aqeedah series by Sh Hamza Yusuf (not necessarily saying I agree or disagree with either of them). The ongoing 'mawlid debate' between dawah man and Imam Asim. Let's be honest as m...

Notes: Learning half a page took only 20mins. Maybe just easy passage (no repition from previously). But also on top of ANKI vocab again so no stumbling points alhamdulillah.

Notes: Much happier/smoother now that ANKI is back on track. I've separated the Baqarah deck from the rest so that at least that gets done. Revising the last 5 pages x 5 is vital. Today the first time was very rusty, but by the time I had done it 3-4 times and by the fifth time it was much better. But had I left it for tomorrow it would have been very difficult. 443 days from now until target date of March 31 2017. Given today is day 77, thats a total of 520 days.  Therefore today is day 77/520