Whatever your future Qur’an goals are, and whatever vision you have for how the ideal ‘You’ will interact with the Qur’an, at the most practical level, you will need to develop the daily habit of picking up the Qur’an and studying it every day. One of the reasons I’m such a fan of the Daily Qur’an Habit is that it doesn’t matter where you’re starting, and it doesn’t even matter where you ultimately want to end up – you will only reach your goals with the consistency that comes from daily interaction with the Qur’an.
It really doesn’t matter how ‘religious’ you are either. I know many people who go out of their way to make sure people know how religious they are. They are often making up for a lack of confidence in their faith which is a result of not having daily interaction with, and guidance from, the Qur’an. I also know people who are not from particularly religious backgrounds, and just genuinely want to learn and improve themselves. They are often believers who know that the Qur’an is the source and the main substance of Islam, so they go about building the daily habit. You may even be one of them.
When starting on this journey you may look at the Qur’an and in all honesty see nothing but squiggles and dots. And that’s okay. It doesn’t matter where you are, all the matters is the direction in which you’re heading. You are in the best position to really connect to Allah, because you don’t have the veneer of religiosity. If people don’t see you as religious, you don’t have to worry about meeting their expectations, which is a stone’s throw away from putting people before Allah – which you probably don’t want to do. If people do see you as religious, that’s fine, as long as you are conscientious of that fact and don’t let it interfere with your Daily Qur’an Habit (which no-body sees).
It’s much easier to give yourself this gift of the Qur’an by making this little addition to your life than it is to start thinking about all the things you may have to stop doing if you become ‘religious’. Frankly, I say don’t be religious. Just read the Qur’an everyday, benefit from it as much as you can, and go about your business. Everything else will fall into place. If you don’t build this habit first and foremost, the spirit and message of Islam will likely be lost on you as you fumble around joining this group and that, trying to work out the new ‘Islamic’ rules of how life should work – those rules only make sense when the Qur’an is in your heart.
I’m not a religious authority of any sort, and I’m certainly not here to tell you what you ’should’ be doing. I’m just here to give you tips and tools if you happen to want one of the life results I want. On a personal level, the Daily Qur’an Habit is certainly well up there for me.
If you’re already convinced, I would recommend subscribing to this blog which will gradually be filled with ideas, strategies, tools and resources that will help you build the daily habit. I would also recommend joining my new Face-Book group “I Want the Daily Qur’an Habit”. It is my goal to make this FB Group an extremely useful resource to all of its members, by regularly giving everyone valuable content. If we never meet again, let me leave you with a genuine prayer. I pray that you live your vision of how you ultimately want your relationship with the Qur’an to be.
