In 1973 communism was at its peak in Russia, the whole world was saying that very soon the whole of Asia will turn red. At that time, an Indian Muslim went to Russia for training. This is his story:
He said that on one Friday he asked his friends to get ready for Jumaah prayer. However, they said Mosques have been turned into stores in this country, some mosques are turned into motels for tourists, only one or two mosques in this city remained as they were.
Even so, they are closed most of the times. I asked them to just lead me toward a mosque. When I reached there the mosque was closed. A person in the neighbourhood had its keys. I requested him to open its gate so that I could perform my prayer.
He replied in fear “Okay I will open the gate for you but I would not be responsible if you face any harm.”
I said “Brother! I am a Muslim in India and shall remain a Muslim in Moscow too. I pray in India and I shall pray in Moscow, Russia too, no matter what.”
He opened the door and I saw the Mosque was in very bad shape. I cleaned it up in a hurry and tried to make it as good as I could in such a limited time. After that, I said the call for prayer (Azaan) in a loud voice.
Many old people, women and children gathered at the door of the mosque when they heard the call for prayer, but no one came inside.
I wasn’t able to say jumuah prayer because I was alone so I had to pray Zuhur instead. When I came out people were looking at me as if I’ve done something new.
Later a kid came to me and invited me to his house for tea. His voice had such sincerity that I wasn’t able to refuse him, so I went to his home.
His family had already cooked a variety of dishes for me and were extremely happy. I had my lunch and after tea, I asked a little kid who was sitting there whether he could recite the Quran.
The child replied “Yes sir! we all know how to recite the Quran!”
I opened my pocket Quran, placed my finger on a verse and asked him to recite it to me. The boy looked at me, then looked at Quran and then look toward his parents. I thought “he doesn’t know how to recite it but then why he said that he can?”
I recited that verse. يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آَمَنُوا قُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ and the boy immediately continued reciting it without even looking at the Quran. I was very surprised and looked at his parents and asked what’s happening?
They smiled and told me that “Quran is banned here. If a person is caught having even a single verse of the Quran, his whole family will be killed. That’s why we can’t keep Quran in our homes.”
Me: If no one here has even a single copy of the Quran, how how this child memorized it?
They: We have many Hufaaz (those who had memorised the Quran) here doing various jobs. Some of them are tailors, some are shop keepers, some are farmers and some sells vegetables.
So, we sent our kids to them pretending that they are there to work but in reality, they are memorizing the Quran there. That’s why even though we don’t have even a single copy of Quran but all the kids you see here and in all the Muslim families are hafiz.
So when you put your finger on a verse, the kid was not able to read it but when you recited it, then he recited d whole chapter. And you had stopped him otherwise he was going to recite d whole Quran.
That day I saw not one but many miracles of Quran. A society where Quran was banned, whole generation became hafiz. I tested many kids and all were hafiz.
That day I truly understood the meaning of the verse
إِنَّا نَحنُ نَزَّلْنَا الذِّكرَ وَإِنَّا لَهُ لَحَافِظُونَ
Indeed, We alone have revealed this Glorious Admonition (the Qur’an), and surely We alone will guard it. (15:9)
People can ban copies of Quran but how can they ban what are in the hearts!
