Trying to memorize Tafseer

[Soldier of Allaah]

Assalaamu'alaykum wa rahmatullaah,

Is there a good way to memorize tafseer; how should one go around doing it?

Should i read small chunks or surahs of tafseer and then memorize or just do random aayaat and memorize them (e.g. if im going through a book where aayaat are stated, i memorize the tafseer of those aayaat)?

I find it hard to remember what the background/concept of the meaning of the aayaat are and i want that imagination (not necessarily word for word translation) running through my mind when reciting inshaallaah.

Is there a way to link them in with the Arabic.

Bear in mind i am learning Arabic.

[ahmed frihy]

Assalamo alikom
I ask Allah for forgiveness,for I felt sad when I read your question.
Do not memorize anything read to understand and that way you shall never forget. Take it easy , read small surt tafseer and start by the simple ones , then gradually the more complex ones and so on. Use easy to understand tafseer.
Assalamo alikom

[faheemkamran]

i think its best to go with learning the lughat ul arabia it would make it easy to memoriza the translation and then you can go on further to arabic grammer and thirdly step on to the whole tafseer for lughat ul arabia you gand finde a download link here http://www.learningquranonline.com/download-quran.htm

[Soldier of Allaah]

Jazaakumullaah Khair

[ibn al-Taalib]

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
السلام عليكم
My dear brother masha'Allah @ your sincerity, but i don't recommend memorizing tafsir. I instead recommend understanding tafsir. Why?
Because there are maany tafsirs and each of them are volumes upon volumes long, so i don't think it would be possible, unless you have such an extreme form of autism or some other disorder where you can memorize pages with a single look (these people usually can't understand the material well anyways). And even if you tried memorizing tafsir, it would probably take you way too long anyways.
And what's the point of memorizng something (especially an explaniation) if you don't take the time to understand it well anyways?
So i emphasize understanding over memorizing.

And the same thing goes with the Quran. There's a number of athaar where the Salaf would say things along the lines as "We wouldn't memorize 10 verses of the Quran until we understood what they meant".

As for the background of verses, while yes this is very important, i don't think it's really a good idea to completely restrict the Quran to soley what happened in the 6th century. Because the Quran is the Word of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and is a message for all people and all times. So the reality of a number of verses hasn't happened yet, such as the emergence of Ya'juj and Ma'juj (to my knowledge), the end of times, etc. And it is a very deep book, so some verses have many layers of meanings.

So to soley restrict the Quran to only the background of what happened back then is flawed in my view, as is soley restricting the meaning of the Quran to only 1 tafsir.

Just some advice and may Allah سبحانه وتعالى bless you and faciliate and guide your journey to Him amen

And Allah سبحانه وتعالى knows best

was salam

[Soldier of Allaah]

Jazaakaallaahu khairun.

I agree with you and the other brothers saying that understanding is much better. What i meant by memorizing was with understanding as well so that when it comes to a specific set of aayaat, i can easily remember the meaning of it - i guess this comes with learning Arabic rather than English tafseer.

Baarakallaahu feek.

Wassalaamu'alaykum wa rahmatullaah.

[ibn al-Taalib]

Oooh i see; forgive my misunderstanding brother.

Yes, i would definitely recommend learning the Arabic language. Spending like a year or two conentrating on learning the Arabic language (and learning it well) will be one of the most beneficial things you can do now, and will open many doors for you insha'Allah.

And when you find yourself having a good enough hold on the Arabic language that you can start reading books (even if you have to look up a word or two or three in every sentance), then i think you'll find Tafsir ibn Kathir to be one of the easiest out there to read. Plus you'll gain a lot of useful vocabulary insha'Allah.