Hello everyone, first time on this forum, seems pretty interesting.
As some of you might know, it’s a part of the Islamic faith to memorize certain parts of the Quran, our holy book, and many elect to memorize the entirety of it verbatim. I started around 3 years ago, and in about a month I’ll have memorized the entire book.
Just to give you some context, the Quran is about 600 pages of Arabic, split up into around 6000 verses in 114 chapters, with the chapters and verses varying in length. As you go through it, you’ll find verses that are similar in content and similar in phrasing, with some exactly the same in phrasing. Some parts of the Quran, such as chapter 12 (Joseph), are simply stories of important figures, and follow a story, while other parts are more about laws, values, and theology (so they don’t follow a story, but rather specific themes).
I’m sure you guys have a lot of experience applying different memorization techniques to different types of things you want to memorize, so I wanted to give you an example of how I’m able to retrieve certain parts of the Quran by memory.
Some chapters/verses I’m very familiar with and are able to roll off the tongue without any conscious effort on my part, such as chapter 18 (10 pages) since I recite it around 1 time a week. Other smaller chapters I’ve memorized and recited since I was a kid, so those also don’t require any effort on my part to recite correctly either. Other chapters require effort to retrieve from memory, and I usually do this by understanding the context and the meanings of the verses since Arabic is my second language. A big part of retrieval for me (and for most people I’ve talked to), is being able to visualize where the verses are on the page (ie: hear a verse, picture it in the middle of the right page), and that allows me to orient myself and know where the verse is from. Parts of the quran are also solidified in my memory by listening to them a lot, in the same way that you’re able to memorize a song fully by listening to it enough.
Now that I’m at the end of my journey of having memorized every verse, I wanted to see if there are any techniques that could help with retaining the entire book in memory long term. I’m going to take my MCAT in a few days, and Anki (I’m guessing yall know what that is) has genuinely changed the way I look at memorization because I’m able to recall very specific information about the most niche biochem/physiology subject after months of not thinking about it like I memorized it yesterday.
Any help would be appreciated
