Dawoodi Bohras take up challenge of memorising Quran

The Dawoodi Bohra community has institutionalised a practice that its spiritual leader Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin has often expressed a desire for: ‘Hifz Quran’ or a memorisation of the Quran by as many community members as possible

Mumbai: The Dawoodi Bohra community has institutionalised a practice that its spiritual leader Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin has often expressed a desire for: ‘Hifz Quran’ or a memorisation of the Quran by as many community members as possible. A person who memorises the holy book is known as a hafiz, and Syedna Saifuddin has in several sermons hoped that there be “at least one hafiz in every Bohra household”.

Nine-year-old Taiyeb Gandhi, the youngest student of Mahad al-Zahra, a Quranic Institute, took four years to memorise the Quran. (HT Photo)

Following the Syedna’s guidance, the hifz movement gained momentum, and from six-year-olds to septuagenarians, Dawoodi Bohras around the world overcame great challenges to memorise the holy book and strive to live their lives in accordance with its teachings. Mahad al-Zahra, a Quranic Institute, has globally certified 7,572 huffaz (the plural of hafiz), 4,196 of these in India and 842 in Mumbai. The students have memorised all the 30 sections of the Quran comprising 114 chapters and over 77,000 words spanning over 6,000 verses.

Nine-year-old Taiyeb Gandhi, the youngest student of the institute in Mumbai, took four years to memorise the Quran. “We have religious classes near the centre where children learn about namaz along with their schooling,” said Taiyeb’s mother Tasneem Gandhi, who lives at Virar. “The teachers there said the best way to learn is through audio, and so we have audio recordings of the Quran recitation. Children pick up words like they memorise nursery rhymes without knowing the meaning. My son, who was five years old when he began, started picking up words and phrases by listening to the audio tapes.”

Gandhi said her son learned the language very fast though the pronunciation of Arabic words is not simple. “It happened instinctively and has helped him in learning other languages in school as well,” she said. “It has also sharpened his concentration skills and made him more methodical.” Gandhi revealed that she had to chalk out a schedule in which the child had a specific time for Quran memorisation and then for other things, including relaxation. “We cut down his screen time so that we could fit in everything in his day,” she said.

Mahad-al-Zahra conducts oral assessments of students as and when they finish one phase of memorisation and proceed to the next. Taiyeb has cleared all the exams. Gandhi said it was “gratifying and humbling” to have a hafiz in the house. “It is not an easy task,” she said. “With the start of Ramzan, which is a month of praying to Allah and doing good deeds, the Quran holds a special place.”

If Taiyeb is the youngest, Mazgaon resident Sakina Kachwala, 75, is the oldest hafiz. “It took me seven years to memorise the whole Quran and clear all the exams,” she said. “I feel a kind of ‘sukoon’ (peace) and I can feel the change in me. I now also teach others to recite the Quran.”