salaamu alaikum

"pocket qurans are cool but how do you manage to carry it around so taht it doesnt suffer any disrespect? loosely being thrown around, etC? isnt it kinda hard? ive been wanting to bring a quraan with me to school but its semi risky i feel. "

i used to have the same dilemma. how to carry it around without disrespecting it? i was always taught to not even hold the quran like any other book, and hold it up to my chest with my right hand, just for respect. for pocket qurans tho, its all gravy if you got the upper shirt pockets, as long as you dont go in the bathroom n stuff, but i dont always rock shirts with pockets up there. i usually dont actually. so for me, its a matter of necessity. i havent been reviewing lately, at all, and ramadan is less than a week away. i dont put the quran in my bookbag cuz that thing gets thrown around, put on the ground, etc. not in my back pocket cuz id sit on it. i do put it in my regular side pocket, and i try to take as much care of it as possible.

an extreme example is the super glorified, glitterified, shrined Qurans that adorn the top of people's shelves, but theyre never taken down. never read through even once. They just collect dust. i think thats the greatest disrespect. you see a student of quran's Mus'haf, and you can tell how many juz they know. Because half the pages will be in perfect shape, and then when it gets near the end, the pages are ripped, half coming out, SWOLLEN. because these pages are sifted through everyday, all the time. they are read, all the time. the Quran is not just the book, but the words.

WALLAHI, i'm not any more attached to the quran than anybody else. and of all people, I should be. but i'm not. during the time of the sahaba, if you would walk through the streets at nighttime, the houses would be radiating with the recitation of Quran, during tahajjud hours. like the buzzing of bees. i remember a brother gave a small talk on how the sahaba would review their quran. they would have a set amount they would read every NIGHT, and finish every week. this is only how they would review. recitation was their passtime, their hobby. Imam Shafii read the quran like six times in a day JUST to find an ayah that was proof for Qiyas. these people lived the quran. and today, we can barely read a few ayat besides what we read in prayer without feeling tired.

yea, so i kinda went off on a tangent. it wasnt aimed at anybody but me though. i gotta say this stuff sometimes so i can get affected too. but back to the topic, i need this pocket quran to review. i keep it in my pocket, and even though thats not the best place, its better than me not reading at all. especially during ramadan.

ramadan: here comes the challenges i was talking about earlier. i cant refuse challenges. basically, a brother came up to me last night at isha, and told me to finish taraweeh in annapolis early. like the 21st or something. then come back to ISB, and do a late session taraweeh for the cats who are gonna be staying in I'tikaaf. last year, this one brother did that. his taraweeh would be after the main taraweeh ended, starting at like 11:00 and ending around 1 or 2. but he read 5 juz the first night. 3 the second. etc. finished in 10 days.

yall are prolly like why? basically, even though it isnt required, people wanna hear the entire quran during Ramadan. but they also wanna go masjid hopping and hear different ppl. different masajid go at different paces. so if they leave one night to go to a different place, and they come back, they might miss a small portion, because the two jama'ahs might be at different places. so they just wanna finish the quran, so then they can go around and go to any taraweeh they want. something like that. cept this is not gonna be in the beginning, but at the end. so its more for the ppl of i'tikaaf.

but dude asked me to do that. finish in annapolis, then come to ISB and do these late night sessions and finish again in a few days for the brothers in i'tikaaf. they will listen to an entire quran. they wont be up at night gossiping like little girls (it happens). and itll be a form of tahajjud. and itll only help me as well. i was like hey

i'm game.

i gotta talk to my teacher about it today so he can talk to the annapolis ppl and tell them when im finishing n stuff. but about challenges, theyre fun. occasionally, i like pushing myself. (not in school tho, god forbid 0_0) its the priceless feeling of adrenaline as youre scrambling to make ends meet, get ready, be ready, and make it thru, and then relaxing afterwards. the best time of the day during ramadan is RIGHT after you finish witr. like yessss, i actually made it thru THIS juz! its all easy from here. then the next morning youre worried bout that night.

haha, funny how i started this off as a comment to the previous post and it turned into this. i got class in 20 mins. so imma end this off riiiiight here.

walaikum assalaam

EDIT: i just read thru this, and i realize how incoherent this whole thing was. s-m-h.