The Holy Quran with Five Volume Commentary (Vol 1) — Page cccxviii
GENERAL INTRODUCTION The practice of committing the Quran to memory was not confined to the time of the Holy Prophet or the early Caliphs. Even after written copies of the Quran began to be multiplied and became easily available, the Quran was in each age committed to memory by large numbers of Muslims. A modest estimate is that between one hundred and two hundred thousand Muslims have learnt the Quran by heart during all periods of Muslim history and sometimes the number of such persons was very much in excess of this estimate. European writers, not being conversant with the sentiments of Muslims and the degree of love and devotion inspired by the Quran in their hearts, are reluctant to believe that the purity and accuracy of the text of the Quran should have been safeguarded by Muslims in this manner. They find that history does not record the instance of a single person who had learnt the whole of the Bible by heart and it therefore seems to them incredible that the entire text of the Quran should have been committed to memory by large numbers of people in each generation. It must be remembered, however, that it is one of the outstanding characteristics of the Quran that its language is very rhythmic and that it lends itself very easily to memorization. The eldest son of the writer, Mirzā Nasir Ahmad, who is a B. A. (Hons) of the Punjab University and M. A. of Oxford University, had under his direction committed the whole of the Quran to memory before he started on the course of his secular studies. In a small place like Qadian, two doctors and several graduates know the Quran by heart. One of these two doctors committed the whole of the Quran to memory within the space of four or five months. The father of Sir Zafrulla Khān, Judge of the Federal Court of India, committed the Quran to memory within the space of a few months after he had attained the age of 50 years. Ḥāfiz Ghulām Muḥammad, who was at one time the Missionary of our Movement in Mauritius, committed the Quran to memory in the space of three months. When the writer was on Pilgrimage to Mecca, he met the grandson of Munshi Muḥammad Jamālud-Dīn Khān (who had for a number of years been Minister in Bhopal State) and he told the writer that he had succeeded in committing the Quran to memory within one month. These instances show that the text of the Quran is couched in language which lends itself easily to memorization. It has been related to the writer by very aged persons that Mirzā Gul Muḥammad, great grandfather of the founder of the Ahmadiyya Movement who lived in the time of the Mughal Emperor, 'Alamgir II, used to maintain five hundred people at his court who knew the whole of the Quran by heart. Mirzā Gul Muḥammad was a chieftain who exercised authority over only 250 square miles of territory. In some parts of India, which is a country where the Arabic language is not widely understood, it has been the practice of a majority of Muslims through the centuries to commit the Quran to memory. сехсіі