The Right Age to Teach Quran

Learning to read Quran is a subject I return to again and again, because it is so important to me and also because it has been a journey for both me and my children.

At times I struggle to ensure that there is a lesson everyday, but I am seeing the benefit of five straight lessons over five days as Little Lady slowly progresses and gains confidence in her reading.

One issue that has come up is the right age to teach your child Quran and by what age they have finished. An Alima (lady scholar) once advised me that a good age is four for girls and five for boys as she found them harder to get to sit still. Children younger than this would get told off for making mistakes, but not really understand why they were being told off. In contrast the excellent teacher who taught my younger cousins used to take children as soon as they were potty trained, rewarding them with sweets and praise when they did well.

My dad started teaching me when I was five and I finished Quran when I was seven. I don’t want to set the same standard for my children. I had no understanding of the gravity of what I was learning and I made mistakes in my pronunciation. I also stopped when I was in my early teens. When my periods started, I used it as a reason to skive off and my dad couldn’t pick me up on this even when he knew I couldn’t be telling the truth. Accordingly I forgot a lot of what I had learned and memorised.

Recently a very good friend reminded me that the daughter of an acquaintance had just finished Quran – also reminding me she was Little Lady’s age (who hasn’t yet started Quran). On another occasion she reminded me that I really should send Little Lady to the mosque to learn Quran because she was growing up and she only had until she was 13 or 14 to learn. I didn’t agree with this. In fact the more I thought about this, the more it troubled me. I wasn’t in a race with anybody else’s children, each child learns at his or her own pace. Perhaps also we have different aims: for some to finish quickly, for others to read accurately, for other’s still to understand what they read. You can’t put an equivalent time-scale on these things.

Also I don’t want Little Lady to stop reading when she hits her teenage years. I want this to be a life-long endeavour for me and my children. Our holy book is not just a book, but the living, miraculous, perfect word of our Creator (SWT) – to be read daily, to be instructed and guided by and for us to check and correct our understanding and reading of.

So for me there is no right age to begin and finish. I love the stories of the women who recite whilst pregnant and breast-feeding in the hope it will impact on their children, I love the grandmother’s who teach the toddlers to say “La-ilaha-il-Allah” ("There is no God but Allah"), I love the teachers who sit their students down for the first time and ask them to recite “rabbi zidni ilma” ("O Lord! Increase me in knowledge."), I am as impatient as any mother for the day each of my children finishes Quran. Still, I am in no rush. As long as we study together a little every day, I feel that I am going some way towards not shirking my duty. I hope this journey brings us closer to pleasing Allah (SWT) and he allows each of us to benefit from his Book.

Rasulullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) said: “The best of you are those who learn the Qur’aan and teach it. ~ Bukhari Vol 6 - 61:545