At the age of 12, after finishing Prathom 6, Shakireen Malilee left normal education to study to become a hafiz. Originally from Prachuap Khiri Khan, he moved to an Islamic boarding school in Min Buri, a Bangkok suburb, and devoted himself to the ancient art of memorising the Koran. Every day for eight hours, Shakireen recited from Islamic holy scripture and committed each word, each verse, each page, each chapter into his young brain. After four years, he had memorises the entire book, roughly equivalent of memorising every single word of a 500-page tome. At 16, he achieved the rare honour of being called a hafiz.
Every year during the holy month of Ramadan, which is now in its second week, hafiz are in demand around the country. They are invited by mosques to lead nightly prayers where for 30 nights, they recite the entire Koran in a mellifluous, song-like baritone for the faithful. Each night during the fasting month, prayers last nearly two hours; each night a hafiz reads from memory one chapter, or juz, from the holy book, so when the month ends, the congregation hears every single word from the book's 30 chapters, which is considered a great blessing.
A hafiz is a bearer of an ancient tradition that dates back to the beginning of Islam in the 8th century — it was before book printing, when the sacred words of God given to Prophet Mohammed had to be imprinted into memory and preserved there. Even though now every Islamic household has a copy of the Koran, the hafiz, in the Middle East or here in Thailand, are regarded with utmost respect for their stunning feats of memory and concentration, and often for their beautiful recitals of Arabic verse.
Shakireen, who also studied the art of Koran recital in Cairo, runs his family's palm plantation in his hometown in the South and is about to open his own hafiz school there. For the fifth year in a row, the goateed man with a mild manner has been invited by Bangkok Mosque on Surawong Road to stay for a month to lead nightly prayers — his sonorous recital impressed the congregation so much that he kept being called back. During the day Shakireen can be seen revising the chapters he's going to read that night, and once the night-time solah begins at around 8.30pm, his melodic voice fills the hall.
"God has blessed me to become a hafiz," says Shakireen, 31. "The Koran is like a long, continuous poem. Some people remember the verses by picturing them, but for me, I spent years training my tongue to recognise all of them so that they can come out spontaneously.
"Becoming a hafiz is hard — at the school where I studied, each year only four or five students pass the test out of 100 — but I've always liked reciting the Koran since I was young, and this is what I want to do.
"When I went to study in Egypt, I was already a hafiz. But the teacher there was so strict and he made me recite from the first chapter again almost word by word. The precise articulation of each sound, each letter, each phrase, is very important when you're reading from the holy book."
He adds that one of the rites of passage for a hafiz student is a shahada, where a novice recites the entire Koran from memory in one day. Usually it starts at dawn and finishes at 8 or 9pm, with a few short breaks along the way.
At Haroon Mosque on Charoen Krung Road, three young hafiz have been invited to stay and lead the prayers during this Ramadan. Thanon Soheng, 25, is a chubby man from Chachoengsao who's the most senior; together with Tawatchai Kantawiti from Bangkok and Harees Sangsawang from Prachuap Khiri Khan (both 23), the trio take turns every night at the long prayers.
Haroon Mosque, a 150-year-old place of worship near the river, invites hafiz to stay over every Ramadan. Last year, they had a Narathiwat native, and the year before, they had a Cambodian hafiz who studied in Thailand.
To become a hafiz, a boy (or a girl) has to start young, says Thanon.
"I started at 12, just like most of the students in my class at the school in Min Buri," he says. "Sometimes there are children as young as six or seven beginning the course. The young mind is better with memory. The latest you can start is probably at 14 or 15, but beyond that, it's almost impossible. Your head already has too many things at that time."
Thanon spent four years memorising the Koran at an Islamic school in Min Buri. He had a formal education until Prathom 6, and after starting the hafiz course, he commenced long-distance learning until he finished Mathayom 3. That is the path of most Muslim boys who decide to dedicate their lives to religious studies, especially demanding hafiz practice.
In Thailand, there are over a dozen major hafiz schools, which usually teach other Islamic subjects, as well as many smaller institutions. All of them are boarding schools, and classes begin after morning prayers at 5am and continue until evening. The biggest hafiz school is in Yala province, with over 1,000 students, many of them coming from overseas such as Cambodia, China, Pakistan and Indonesia. In the eastern suburbs of Bangkok in Min Buri and Nong Chok, there are five or six schools (some of them have a parallel normal education). As Shakireen says, the hafiz course is extremely challenging and each year a school can produce only a small number of new graduates.
Thanon remembers working hard to memorise a page of the Koran every day during his studies. A regular test included the teacher reciting a verse randomly, and he had to continue from that point on right away. Hafiz students also study different "melodies", which render their recitals of the holy word more soulful. Some hafiz schools require study of the meaning of the Arabic verses — knowing the meaning helps you notice when you make a mistake in reciting.
However, most Thai hafiz don't focus on learning the scripture's meaning. Thanon said he understands about 30%, and Shakireen about 60%.
"I teach new students most of the year, and during Ramadan I go to stay at different mosques," says Thanon, who was invited for a Ramadan residency at many places before coming to the centrally located Haroon Mosque this month. "Usually, mosques in Bangkok want the hafiz who are of top quality, with a beautiful voice and fluent melody. But even if we remember the whole book, it can still be difficult. Sometimes we get confused since the Koran has many repetitive words. It's important that we revise the text every day. This is a sacred practice, and once we memorise the book, we can't be ignorant and forget it."
Hafiz schools, like all schools, deal with a lot of young children and teenagers, and Thanon says that there are students who misbehave and who decide to leave their studies.
"There are so many distractions," he says. "To devote yourself to the study of something this difficult requires a lot from children. But once you've become a hafiz, you're like a walking scripture. Islam is with you all the time. People respect you, and you have to carry yourself beyond reproach."
Fasting all day, praying almost all night — that's what devout Muslims do every Ramadan. Thanon and the other two hafiz, Harees and Thawatchai, have finished revising the chapters of the day and are now getting ready to break the fast at the mosque along with 100 other members of the faithful.
"Then we have an hour of rest or so before the night prayers begin," says Thawatchai. "Ramadan is a period of intense devotion, where Muslims remember the teachings of Allah and recite the Koran. It's a beautiful month of prayers, and we're honoured to be a big part of it."
Every Ramadan, hafiz are in demand around the country.
