Returning to the Qur'an After Long Absence

There is a particular quality to returning to the Qur'an after years away. It is not like returning to a book you once read. The Qur'an does not stay still while you are absent. Or perhaps it is more accurate to say: you do not stay still. You return changed, and the Qur'an meets you where you are.

The scholars speak of the Qur'an as a living interlocutor. Ibn al-Qayyim writes that the Qur'an 'speaks to you according to your state.' The verse that consoled you at twenty will instruct you at forty and humble you at sixty. This is not because the text changes but because the reader does.

What does the tradition say about the one who returns? The Hadith literature is remarkably gentle on this point. The Prophet, peace be upon him, is reported to have said: 'The one who recites the Qur'an and is proficient in it will be with the noble, righteous scribes; and the one who recites it and finds it difficult will have a double reward.' The one who struggles is not diminished. The return itself is honored.