Reviving Quran Memorization Through Writing
A few years ago, my children were enrolled in a full-time Quran school here in Toronto. Like many students pursuing hifdh, they made good progress, yet occasionally they'd struggle with certain passages that proved especially challenging to memorize. It was during a time like this that I noticed something interesting. When some of my children didn't pass a section of the Quran, their teacher would instruct them to write out the Quran passages they were struggling with.
One afternoon, I found them at the dining table, carefully copying out Quran onto a piece of paper. When I asked them why, they explained that their teacher told them to write out the section they didn't pass that day. I found this intriguing as I am also a student of the Quran but had not yet heard of this technique. I normally tracked their hifdh progress in the agenda their teacher maintained, but it was soon after this that a clear pattern emerged: every time they wrote out a portion of the Quran by hand, they passed that section the next day.
This observation sparked curiosity in me. There had to be something to this approach. Not long after, I came across videos of Quran students in Africa using the ancient lawh tradition, where they write the Quran on wooden boards and stone slates as they memorize it. I researched further and discovered this Quran memorization technique has been practiced for centuries across many parts of the Muslim world. In yet another video, I found the hifdh students of Mauritania were also writing out the Quran they were memorizing on the lawh. I distinctly remember their teacher remarking how writing the Quran helped his students memorize and retain their hifdh. The act of writing every letter and every vowel also meant students were less likely to memorize mistakes.
What struck me most was this: writing plus repetition created something more powerful than repetition alone. Yet this beautiful, proven Quran memorization tradition remained largely unknown. Many people, myself included, weren't even aware it existed. Unlike simply tracing Quran passages once and moving on, writing with intention and repeating the process seemed to take the memorization to another level entirely.
Today, our Quran students face a different challenge than those who came before. Many are overstimulated by screens and electronics. Finding focus, sitting with intention, truly engaging with Quran memorization for extended periods has become harder. I felt that a reusable Quran writing workbook, one built specifically for hifdh students, could offer something meaningful to families navigating these modern realities. Not as a replacement for traditional methods, but as a tool that brings back what worked for centuries, adapted for today.
Last Ramadan, I connected with an amazing team of Muslims who shared this vision. Together, we designed a Quran workbook specifically with hifdh students in mind, accounting for different ages and levels. We thought carefully about every feature that would make it genuinely useful, with coil binding to lie completely flat, durable dry-erase pages for repeated use, and clear layouts that make writing Quran comfortable for students of all ages. We wanted Muslim families to be able to use them together, and we wanted entire classrooms and madrasas to benefit from them. We started with the last four Juz, with plans to expand in the future insha'Allah.
Our goal was never to create just another Quran tracing book. It was to revive a forgotten tradition and bring a truly purposeful Quran memorization tool to families and students who need it most.
As you and your family begin this journey with Quran by Hand, I ask Allah that it becomes a source of barakah in your memorization of the Quran. May Allah grant us all the strength to preserve His words, the focus to engage deeply with them, and the sincerity to memorize purely for Allah's sake. Aameen.
Umm Yunus Nusaybah