Rituals of Remembering: Narrativizing Qur’anic Memorization Among Huffaz (Memorizers of the Qur’an) in Canada

The memorization of the Qur'an is a practice as old as revelation. Its completion to memory is considered a communal obligation, is the accomplishment of millions of Muslims around the world and is the aspiration of millions more. However, literature on Qur'anic memorization falls along repeated topic lines, including marginal subsumption within a broader discussion of recitation; scientific examinations of its cognitive and/or health impact; co-optation or repression by states or orthopraxic forces (and related resistances); and practical pedagogical approaches. When memorizers are engaged, they are often anonymized and homogenized, collapsing what personal narratives they have into a series of generalized observations to guide practitioners. In Canada, the topic of Qur'an memorization is almost entirely unexplored, despite the growing presence of tahfiz programs in major cities and graduates who started/completed their memorization in Canada where the Qur'an is less present in the soundscape overall. This original ethnographic account, derived from interviews with memorizers of the Qur’an in Canada, aims to overturn these tendencies by centering the stories and journeys of huffaz to better understand memorization: as a ritual practice unto itself, with its own habits and trajectories for individual and collective change. This paper argues through these testimonies that memorization is not simply committing the verses of the Qur'an to memory, but a highly ritualized, relational language performance-practice immersed in transnationality and global networks, the learning of which is internalized to transform understandings of self, community and futurity.