{"id":26,"date":"2014-03-23T21:29:03","date_gmt":"2014-03-24T01:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/?p=26"},"modified":"2014-05-08T22:04:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-09T02:04:19","slug":"recitation-week-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/2014\/03\/23\/recitation-week-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Recitation (Week 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

In week three, we read about and listened to Qur\u2019an recitations.\u00a0 For this blog entry, I decided to do something a little different: honor my grandfather through the arts, by filming him recite a couple of short surah from the Qur\u2019an, and then using that video clip as a springboard to talk about him in this blog entry.\u00a0 Inshallah<\/em>. The video can be viewed \u00a0here<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The two surah that he recited, Surah al-Hamd and Surah Qul Huwallahu Ahad, are the first verses that he recites during namaz<\/em>.\u00a0 My grandfather is Iranian, and thus speaks Farsi.\u00a0 However, although he is not fluent in Arabic, he knows enough Arabic to be able to not only read verses from the Qur\u2019an and understand them, but also recite them, an ability that he earned simply from studying the Qur\u2019an so much.\u00a0 This is despite the fact that he is old and is stricken with Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and has forgotten the names of many of his old friends.\u00a0 \u00a0He still remembers and can still recite many Qur\u2019an verses by heart.\u00a0 His ability to recall the Word of God speaks for the power of the Qur\u2019an.\u00a0 The words are so natural.\u00a0 It is meant to be understood and internalized.<\/p>\n

The power of the word is discussed in Kristina Nelson\u2019s \u201cSound of the Divine\u201d article.\u00a0 She iterates that \u201cthe Qur\u2019an must be heard, not really end\u201d (p. 258).\u00a0 To that end, when preschool children memorize the Qur\u2019an, \u201cthey memorize more than words: They are encouraged to master the sound of the Qur\u2019an, even before they can comprehend its meaning\u201d (p. 258).<\/p>\n

Although my grandfather\u2019s recitation is neither melodic nor elaborate, it is from the heart.\u00a0 He meant what he was saying.\u00a0 That is something he will not forget: his faith.\u00a0 He was, and still is even now a very devout Muslim.\u00a0 Up until a few years ago, he fasted every day of Ramadan, and prayed three times a day (in Iran, Muslims pray three times a day, not five).\u00a0 He fasts when he can, and prays when he remembers, which is again permissible, given his old age and status.\u00a0 Interpreted correctly, Islam is a forgiving and reasonable religion.\u00a0 It does not have impossible expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In week three, we read about and listened to Qur\u2019an recitations.\u00a0 For this blog entry, I decided to do something a little different: honor my grandfather through the arts, by filming him recite a couple of short surah from the Qur\u2019an, and then using that video clip as a springboard to talk about him in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6337,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/fvafa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}