A Critical Examination Of The Claim Of Punishment For Forgetting The Quran
Although it is true that human memory is naturally subject to decline, this argument contains an internal tension. Treating the Qur’an as ordinary information governed solely by neurological laws does not fully align with the Qur’an’s own self-description and status. Revelation repeatedly refers to itself as dhikr—that which is meant to be consciously remembered, repeatedly recalled, and actively kept alive. In this sense, forgetting the Qur’an cannot always be reduced to a purely biological event; it may also reflect a matter of priority and choice: whether a person placed this knowledge at the center of life or gradually pushed it to the margins.Moreover, divine justice does not only account for human limitations; it also accounts for responsibility attached to exceptional gifts. If a person is granted the ability, time, environment, and opportunity to memorize the Qur’an, the preservation of that memorization can become a moral responsibility rather than a neutral cognitive event. “Forgetting,” in such cases, may result not merely from the brain’s natural decay but from sustained neglect, lack of revision, and shifting priorities—and it is precisely here that accountability may arise.To claim that forgetting the Qur’an is never blameworthy risks an oversimplification. If moral character alone were sufficient and textual preservation held no meaningful weight, then the strong emphasis on memorization, the elevated status of huffaz, and the collective duty of safeguarding the Qur’an’s exact wording would become difficult to justify. Islam places value on lived ethics, but it also assigns profound significance to the precise preservation of revelation. Setting character and text against each other disrupts this balance.Therefore, the central question is not whether humans are biologically capable of forgetting, but whether revelation can be treated like ordinary knowledge without consequence. If it cannot, then memory loss, in certain contexts, cannot always be regarded as an innocent natural process; it may, at times, signify ethical disengagement rather than mere cognitive limitation.