Purifying your intention
First and foremost, the most important thing is to purify your intention. From the basic teachings of our religion is that every deed is rewarded according to its intention. The Messenger of Allaah, peace and blessings be upon him, said:
“Verily actions are by intentions, and every man shall have what he intended.” [Saheeh al-Bukhaaree and Saheeh Muslim]

Know that you are about to embark on a journey to carry out one of the greatest and most blessed deeds, a journey that will make you from the best of people amongst mankind, a journey that will make you one of the protectors of Allaah’s Speech and revelation. The rewards for memorising the Qur’aan are immense and so it is important that your heart is purified from anything that will taint your intention and as a result give you no fruits for the time you spent memorising and reciting the Qur’aan.
There are many people who memorise the Qur’aan but this doesn’t automatically make them from the people of the Qur’aan. They may have done so to please other than Allaah and seek His Pleasure and as a result, Allaah does not accept this deed from them and they will be punished due to the shirk they have committed. We cannot stress the importance of the issue of intention and due to not wanting to make this post too long for you to read, we are keeping it short but there are many books and articles written on this topic which you can refer to.

Make tawbah (repentance to Allaah)

There is a famous verse of poetry attributed to Imaam ash-Shaafi’ee (rahimahullaah) in which he wrote:

شكوت الى وكيع سوء حفظى . فأرشدنى الى ترك المعاصى

وأخبرنى بـأن العلـم نــور . ونور الله لا يهدى لعاصى

I complained to Wakee’ about my poor memory

So he advised me to leave off sinning

And informed me that knowledge is a light

And that the light of Allah is not bestowed upon a sinner

It is narrated that Imaam ash-Shaafi’ee complained to his Shaykh (al-Wakee’) about his weak memory after seeing the ankles of a non-mahram woman caused him to forget much of what he memorised. To many of us living in the West, hearing this shocks us because every day we are exposed to images much worse than this and our hearts have hardened so much due to the evils around us that we don’t appreciate fully the effect this incident had on Imaam ash-Shaafi’ee.

Therefore, it is important that prior to starting to memorise, you repent to Allaah from any major or minor sins you have committed and that once you do start, you continually increase in your daily istighfaar (seeking forgiveness). No one amongst us is perfect and if we were to sit and ponder on the number of sins we commit in just one day, we would be ashamed to stand in front of our Merciful and Loving Rabb. Remember that you need to strive within yourself to abstain from sin and with each aayah you memorise, make it a point to implement its teachings in your character and life. Because the Qur’aan is not just there to be recited, but to be acted upon as well. And no one has more of a duty to act according to the Qur’aan than those who carry it in their chests.

Learn to recite fluently

The third point is that if you want to memorise the Qur’aan but your reading of Arabic is not fluent, we would strongly advise you to work on improving your reading fluency first. By this we don’t mean learn tajweed but rather that you should be able to read the verses of the Qur’aan well enough in the same way you would for example be reading a book in english. Yes there are some difficult words that even fluent readers would be a little tongue-tied with and this is fine. But if you know that you struggle reading from the mushaf and depend highly on just using audios to learn the Qur’aan, then please believe us when we tell you that you won’t be able to progress too far in memorisation, nor will your memorisation be as strong as that of someone who was using and reading from the mushaf. There are many reasons for this and inshaaAllaah, we will be writing a post soon solely on this point.

Get a copy of a Mushaf

If you have read any tips on memorisation, you’ll know that one of the points that is always mentioned is to always memorise from the same copy of the mushaf. From personal experience, we can tell you that this is without a doubt an important element to strengthening your memorisation as the mind memorises with sight as much as it does by other means.

We recommend you get yourself a good medium-sized copy of the mushaf written in a clear script that is easy for you to read and compact enough for you to carry around with you. I (Aboo ‘Abdillaah) use the green A4 sized mushaf from saudi, the kind you find all over the haram whereas I (Ummu ‘Abdillaah) use a smaller A5 sized mushaf which is still written in the same script. Some people prefer to use a much larger mushaf as they cannot see very clearly on smaller ones. Whatever you choose, just make sure you discipline yourself to always use that copy.

Get an audio set of a good recitor

In the same way you will only memorise from one mushaf, we advise you to choose one recitor to assist in your memorisation. Download a set of audios (preferrably of high CD Quality) onto your iPod or mp3 player and use it to listen to the portion you are memorising or for reviewing sections you have already completed. When it comes to choosing a recitor, we strongly recommend that you listen to one of the following:

• Mahmood Khaliyl al-Hosary
• Muhammad Siddeeq al-Minshaawy
• ‘Abdul-Baasit ‘Abdus-Samad
• ‘Abdur-Rasheed ‘Ali Soofi

This point is something a lot of people seem to find difficult to stick to. The majority of Muslims are inclined to listening to the recitation of popular recitors (such as ‘Abdurrahmaan as-Sudays, Sa’ood Shuraym and Maher al-Mueqli) or ones with a very beautiful melody or rhythm (such as Mishaary Raashid, Faaris ‘Abbaad and Muhammad al-Barraak). No doubt, the recitation of the Qur’aan is beautiful in itself and listening to a recitor with a beautiful melody increases it in beauty. However, we advise you to stay away from listening to these recitors and sticking to one of the above for several reasons but the most important being the following two:

1. As someone who, by the Will of Allaah, will become a Haafidh, it is important that you learn tajweed (at least the basics of it) and recite with it. The recitors we have recommended are from the professional Qurraa (those who have mastered the science of tajweed, have had their recitation corrected from al-Faatihah all the way to an-Naas by a Shaykh and in most cases have been granted an Ijaazah in more than one recitation of the Qur’aan). Their recitation and application of the rules of tajweed is of the highest precision and listening to them will help you to learn and apply the rules of tajweed without you even realising it. It will also improve your pronounciation of the letters (makhaarij) as you will be hearing exactly how they should sound.
2. The second reason is that because these recitors are reciting with tarteel, they do not have any distinct melody or rhythm. In contrast to the melodious recitors, when you listen to the Qurraa your focus is on the sound, beauty and perfection of the recitation in its raw form whereas if we were honest to ourselves, most of the time when we are listening to the more melodious recitors, we focus more on the uniqueness and beauty of their melody. We’ve both come across many brothers and sisters who everytime they hear a recitation with a nice melody, switch to that recitor until they hear the next beautiful melody. They become so lost in trying to imitate that recitor’s melody that when they have memorised a portion of the Qur’aan and try to read that portion along with a recitor they are not familiar with, suddenly they become confused and cannot complete it. This will never happen to you if you listen to the Qurraa.

Find Yourself a teacher

Although we mention this, we know it is not something that everyone is able to do. As we mentioned before, Ummu ‘Abdillaah memorised the Qur’aan without a teacher or anyone else helping her. Each one of us can judge for ourselves whether we need a teacher or not. If you are someone who is prone to making mistakes and have not previously read the entire Qur’aan to a good recitor, then it is best to find yourself someone who can listen to your memorisation and correct it. On this point, we feel its necessary to clarify that you do not need a teacher who has an ijaazah (a formal chain leading all the way back to the Messenger of Allaah, peace and blessings be upon him, certifying that someone has memorised the entire Qur’aan, has mastered the rules of tajweed and recites it in the way it was revealed to the Prophet by the angel Jibreel). As someone who has not yet completed memorising the Qur’aan, what you need is someone who can pronounce the Arabic letters and read Arabic well. What most people here in the West fail to understand, is that if you were to go to the Arab countries and ask someone with Ijaazah to teach you, a good teacher who is dedicated to their work will tell you to go to a memorisation school where the focus is to simply memorise and read fluently (not learn tajweed) and thereafter learn the basics of tajweed (and perhaps also memorise the two poems Tuhfat-ul-Atfaal and Muqaddimat-ul-Jazaariyyah). Once you have completed these two conditions they will sit and teach you towards obtaining an ijaazah. So if you have not completed memorising the Qur’aan or cannot even read Arabic fluently, don’t make it a condition upon yourself that you will only learn from someone with an ijaazah. If you know of someone who can read Arabic well and doesn’t have an ijaazah, go to them and ask them to listen to you read or to teach you how to read fluently.

Make memorisation of the Qur’aan your number one priority

If you really are sincere and true in your desire to memorise the Qur’aan, you need to make it your number one priority. Everything else in your life should work around this goal instead of the other way round. Merely saying you want it isn’t enough, your actions are what will prove the statement of your tongue. And if Allaah sees you striving to succeed in it, He will make it easy for you as He has said in Soorah al-’Ankaboot:

وَالَّذِينَ جَاهَدُوا فِينَا لَنَهْدِيَنَّهُمْ سُبُلَنَا وَإِنَّ اللَّهَ لَمَعَ الْمُحْسِنِينَ

As for those who strive hard in Us (Our Cause), We will surely guide them to Our Paths. And verily, Allaah is with the Muhsinoon (good doers). [Al-'Ankaboot 29:69]

And lastly, make lots of du’aa (supplication)

The final point is a reminder that you should constantly make lots of du’aa to Allaah and ask Him to make this path easy for you, to make you of the People of the Qur’aan in this life and the next, to make you of those who recite His Book during the day and during the night, to make the Qur’aan the light of your heart and your refuge in times of hardship and sorrow, to make you strong against the plots of Shaytaan as he tries to deter you from the Qur’aan and to make you from those who emulate the Qur’aan in their characters.