This article is to clarify where ‘barakah’ actually comes into play when reading the Quran, according to God Himself. To begin with, there are three distinctions I’d like to make:
- Reading mindfully: To read something one understands (semantics) and pay attention to the content (pragmatics).
- Reading without understanding: To read something one understands without paying much attention to the content (semantics but no pragmatics).
- Phonemic practice: To sound out the vowelised Arabic script of the Quran not understanding what is being sounded out (no semantics nor pragmatics).
None of these distinctions are intended to be pejorative: they are merely terms I intend to use so that the points I make here in good faith are clear.
My point in this post (like all others I write on this theme):
It is one of the greatest obligations (wujūb) in the shari’ah to read the Quran mindfully. That means reading the Quran in a language we understand and paying attention to what God said. Bar legitimate impediments, sufficing with phonemic practice is wrong. God puts it plain and simple.