Memorizing the Qur'an

I never knew that a sacred text could hold so much meaning to life thousands of year after its relevance. The Qur'an is still very present in a Muslim's life - infact, it's more than just a religious text, it's a guide on how to live everyday life. In "Approaching the Qur'an," Sells describes the call to prayer as punctuating "daily life five times, drawing people out of their Everest preoccupation to matters of ultimate concern." If everyday, religious activities interrupted our activities, we'd have to always, constantly contemplating prayer, always thinking about Islam and the Quran.

In the HBO movie, it reiterated the importance of the Qur'an. From the age of 7 and up, children are taught to memorize the entire Qur'an. It becomes the sole lesson, even if the kids don't speak the language the Quran was written in. The movie includes a bit on how the 10 year olds boy's school was shut down from a government crackdown on extremist Islam. Now it was said in the movie because the boy performed so greatly at the competition, but I feel that the governments reasoning was solid. The teacher was only making the boys memorize the speech and "tajwid" ( the rules of recitation) but not the meaning of the Qur'an. The reason behind the Quran competition is to encourage the memorization of the Quran to understand and interpret it correctly. The religious conservatism plaguing the middle eastern world is because of the tainting of the Quran that Muslim leaders have instilled in their people by misinterpreting the Qur'an. In the film, the media personality says that all the problems are caused by people misusing the teachings of the Qur'an. So if the children of this generation are able to learn the entire Qur'an, perhaps they can correct the faults of the Islamic world.