The interviews with the informants showed that memorizers’ only focus was on correct and accurate reproduction of the text. The memorizers’ job is to memorize the Quran for errorless verbatim recall i.e. their input and output have to be completely identical. The importance they place on accurate pronunciation and exact recall cannot be overemphasized: memorizers have neither to add nor delete a word from the Quran text. This emphasis on exact recall explains the amount of rehearsal and repetition they engage in. In other words, they do not and cannot take risk with their memorization. It was clear from the conversation with the participants that since mispronunciation or misquoting Quran is considered a sin, memorizers need to internalize every detail of the text. The interviews revealed that memorizers attend to every word of the Quran because if they forget, there is no way to retrieve it because they do not know the language. One participant said this:
We memorize and remember the Quran as it is written down. We rehearse it so often to make sure that we recite it correctly (SM05).
It means that memorizers do not reconstruct text from memory not only because they don’t know the language but also because they are not allowed to do so. They don’t and can’t take the risk of reconstructing the text, because that is too dangerous and blasphemous in that one might replace or confuse a word of the Quran with a non-Quranic word (see chapter 8 for a detailed discussion on this point).
Although the Quran teachers said that knowing Arabic is helpful in the sense that it guards against committing grammatical mistakes, they insisted that they would not leave recall to their knowledge of the Arabic. According to a Quran teacher:
The knowledge of Arabic does have an influence on memorization and recall. If I forget a word or the exact word does not come to mind, then the knowledge of meaning and/or the grammar can help in providing a word which fits in the context. I, however, won’t do it
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because it is blasphemous and sinful. Therefore it is always recommended to memorize the Quran carefully and meticulously (SM04).
The Quran is memorized and recalled in a fixed order i.e. the order in which it is composed. So much is the emphasis on correct recall that during the night prayers in Ramadan
(Muslims’ holy month of fasting) there is almost always another memorizer (called Fatih or Sami) standing behind the Imam—the one who leads the prayers. The job of the Fatih/ Sami is to correct the Imam if he happens to make a mistake in recitation or forgets a verse. The Fatih or Sami normally recites the correct verse aloud and this alerts the Imam about the possibility of a mistake. To correct himself he either repeats the same verse or goes a few verses back and starts reciting from there. This practice shows that every precaution is taken to guard against any incorrect recall. According to two participants:
The presence of Fatih or Sami is motivated by the fact that sometimes, in the speed and flow of recitation during prayers, a memorizer may not realize that he has skipped a verse, or has simply forgotten some verse (s). It is, therefore, important that someone should be there for a backup recall (SM02).
When a memorizer makes a mistake in recall, he realizes it most of the time. The Quran is so rehearsed and practised that a memorizer can have an intuitive realization of a mistake he makes in recitation. Although there is always a possibility of self-correction, a memorizer may not know that he has made a mistake. The presence of a Fatih or Sami is to guard against such situations.
The above excerpts from conversations with participants indicate thatthe memorization is high risk in religious terms since the motivation to ensure it is reproduced accurately is very high. Plus, memorizers are duty bound to (re)produce the verses intact, so every effort is made to curtail and minimize any possibility of committing an error in recall. In chapter 4 it was suggested that the memorizers might not want ever to get the text wrong, even in rehearsal, because it will contaminate the memory for the correct version. The issue of extreme avoidance of errors will be taken up in the final chapter as it may provide a key explanation with regard to non-Arabic speaking memorizers’ awareness of the morphological patterns of Classical Arabic.
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5.8 Discussion
In this chapter I have examined the practices and processes involved in Quran memorization. The data just presented have shown that the memorizers in the present study had four key features to their acquisition: immediate repetition while reading, immediate repetition while not looking at the text, delayed recall, and repetition at different intervals depending on the amount of text they have memorized. Moreover, after completing memorization, the memorizers rehearse the Quran for the whole of their lives. While the first three conditions match the typical learning patterns described in the second language learning research literature, the fourth one, that is, life-long rehearsal is untypical of memorization practices discussed in literature.
What surprised me was that Quran memorizers were not involved in deep cognitive processing of the text. Their apparently long term memory of such a long text is, rather, a function of repeated rehearsal, and determination to memorize the text. One of the main themes that ran through the interviews was their devotion to, and affective association with the Quran. They are driven and motivated by a purpose and a cause: to preserve the word of God and to have the best reward in the life hereafter. Their memorization can be said to be controlled more by emotional involvement than cognition.
Conversations with non-Arabic-speaking memorizers led me ponder over the memorization practices of the native-Arabic speaking memorizers. I hadn’t seen, till I interviewed the non- Arabic speaking memorizers, that I would need to talk to Arabic speakers to know about their memorization practices. To hint at an answer, I had an informal interview with three native Arabic-speaking memorizers. Conversations with them revealed that there was no
fundamental difference between the two sets of memorizers (i.e. Arabic and non-Arabic speaking) in relation to memorization practices. Arabic-speaking memorizers like non-Arabic counterparts, engage in frequent and regular rehearsal at short intervals. Their reason for doing so was that they had to remember each and every word of the Quran, and if they didn’t rehearse on regular basis they might not recall the text correctly. Similarly, they reported using one particular copy of the Quran for the purpose of memorization, indicating that they were using it as a mnemonic resource.This explanation notwithstanding, not engaging with the meaning when one knows a language even if partially is an interesting phenomenon.
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One Arabic-speaking participant, however, said that when he recalls he feels as if he is reading from a story board. That is, because he understands the language and follows what is being said or described in there, his recall is probably based on the meaning too. This is a different perspective on memorization and recall and no other participant in this study (Arabic or non-Arabic) alluded to this aspect. As this research project deals mainly with memorization practices of non-Arabic memorizers, we cannot ascertain how far recall based on meaning as pointed out by one Arabic-speaking memorizer might be representative of Arabic memorizers as a whole.
What remains to be seen is if the intensive and extensive rehearsal of the text reported by the Quran teachers-memorizers leads to some awareness of or sensitivity to morphological features of Classical Arabic. This question will be explored in the next chapter.
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