How Many Know the Entire Qurʾān

As to how many people approximately know the entire Qurʾān: it is probably, if not in the hundreds of thousands, at least a number that would be hard to estimate. But an example gives the sense of it. In Mauritania there is a tribe of several thousand of whom none of the men do not know the Qurʾān by heart — every single one; it is like a prerequisite for that tribe. They all memorise the Qurʾān. And the women: some of them memorise the entire Qurʾān, and most of them memorise at least about a third.

In Mecca it is very interesting. There are a million people there, and one feels sorry for the Imam, because he has got a microphone. If he makes a mistake, one just hears voices from all over breaking in and correcting him, from everywhere. It is actually not encouraged to do that — one is supposed to give the Imam a break and let him correct himself — but people are so overzealous that it is like a knee-jerk response: they hear a mistake and they correct it. It is an interesting phenomenon.

In a mosque in America there might be about seven or eight who are ḥuffāẓ, which is a small number. But Pakistan is filled with people who memorise the Qurʾān; West Africa is filled with people; Egypt is filled with people who memorise the Qurʾān; many in Syria, and many women in Syria — there has been a recent phenomenon of women memorising the Qurʾān in Syria, many, many women; Turkey; all over the Muslim world. And many of the best Qurʾān reciters are non-Arabs. In fact, some of the best are Malaysian women.

There is a practical note to this as well. There is the account of a bookshop in London, where someone who did not know the Qurʾān by heart and needed to check something would simply ask the person at the desk to call out: is there a ḥāfiẓ in the shop? — is there anybody here who memorises the entire Qurʾān? And someone would come. It is very common; it really is very common. In a mosque at prayer, one will at least have one or two who memorise the entire Qurʾān, and many who memorise large portions of it.

And it really is the book that has created literacy in the world. If one goes to a country and they say that the people are illiterate — the vast majority of people traditionally in the Muslim world could read and recite the Qurʾān, and many could understand it, because Arabic was the lingua franca. It was the Latin of the Muslim world; it is the sacerdotal language.