Iqra' (teaching and reciting to others)

Iqra' means causing another to read; the jurists keep this lexical sense, whether the aim is listening and remembrance or teaching and memorisation. ¹

Qira'a (reading) and tilawa (recitation) mean the same thing, and recitation is most often used for the Qur'an, though some take it to be wider. ¹ Mudarasa is two people reading to each other in turn. ¹ Idara is a group reading a portion each in turn. ¹

Causing someone to recite for remembrance and for listening to the Qur'an, especially from a person with a good voice, is recommended. The jurists cite a report about Ibn Mas'ud in which the Prophet asked him to recite to him, and stopped him at a point in the surah. ¹

Iqra' for teaching and memorisation is in general a communal obligation (fard kifaya) on those qualified to carry the religious sciences; what a person needs for himself is an individual obligation. Carrying them means keeping, teaching, reciting and verifying them. ^{1 2}

Related rulings include taking payment for teaching; see the entries on teaching, hire and i'tikaf. ²

The Sheikh says that the subject of reading is very serious, because it defines a nation's culture against world culture. He says the first command that came with revelation was a command to read, and asks why many children dislike books, citing the first verse of Surah Al-Alaq ³.

He tells the story of the first revelation as the hadith narrates it, and asks how God would charge his Prophet with something the Prophet did not do well, given that he was unlettered; the recording gives this narration without a chain ⁴. He lists three causes of forgetting: many sins, leaving the mind idle through constant reading, and not loving books ⁵. He holds that little reading narrows the horizon, and that children have tied reading to the school textbook alone ⁶.

He holds that the nation is a nation of reading, and that every act, from prayer to dealing with people, begins with God's name ⁷. He suggests that a reader summarise for his household what he has read at lunch or dinner, and holds that the nation is bound together by the book; he asks young people for the names of the Companions, and they know only a few ⁸.

A viewer asked how a person can come to love reading. The Sheikh answers that people oppose what they do not know, and that many see no benefit in books because they do not know their value ⁹.