How long to complete Hidayatun Nawh?

[faisal ahmad]

Salaam,

I'm just coming up to the end of the Madina series and have also done sarf separately. I just wanted a rough idea how long it would take to complete the study of Hidayatun Nawh if one can dedicate around 2 hours a day? From SP recordings or other Internet sources (i.e. via mainly self study)

Jz for any estimates/advice...

[Sunni_Student786]

Mashallah brother. Nearly done with the Madinah series? Congratulations.

[maaz]

I haven't done the medina series just the first two qasas. Anyways I honestly think hidayatun nahw for self study without a teacher would be fairly challenging. We are covering in SP right now and it's essentially a full semester, so 6 months. We are covering about 5-6 pages per week. The book and preparing properly does take a fair bit of time and it is also fairly cryptic, and you can hit a wall pretty hard and not able to find your way to the intended meaning of the author. Not everything is translated 1:1 from the dictionary. Anyways if you have access to SP recordings or any other teacher then inshallah it will help. Also there are levels to this book, deciphering the text, understanding the intended meaning, understanding the example, learning and internalizing the rules, and finally being able to explain it to someone in your own words. I don't think for a beginner one reading of the book gives you that, you'd need to read it slow and internalize it all, and not move on until you know it well enough to teach it or cover the book more than once. I hope that helps.

Also, two hours isn't a standard. I mean to say you could cover only four lines one day in two hours. And sometimes 2 or 3 pages. Obviously based on aptitude but also on what part of the text you're in.

[faisal ahmad]

Jz for the replies.

Br Maaz - yes I've heard/read that a few times that with classical texts its best to complete more than once, my question was with regards to completing it first time. How many hours a week do you end up spending on HN? On average. Jz again...

[maaz]

Not as much as I should. It takes me I would say 1.5-2hrs to get through a brand new page. Without reading any translations or anything first, or without knowing what he is going to explain and possibly 30mins/pg for familiar topics. with SP, Mufti Yusuf covers many discussions to a certain percentage, so by the time you get to HN the discussions are at least familiar. Also the time spend on deciphering decreases as you progress, because you understand how the author writes. Also, time is dependent on what you're after, and the depth you want. Like, when I have a committed week, each word is analyzed, bab, sarf pattern, passive/active, each sentence is split into major portions, I try to by best to put every word into a box with a label, plus dictionary work. Although I admit I haven't covered every page like this, otherwise I'd be acing SP right now. Sometimes I just rely on Mufti Yusuf's recordings and take notes in english so at the very least I get the grammatical concept. The days I'm planning on reading I strive to cover the pages to that depth. The days I won't be able to read, I rely on recordings and attempt the grasp the concept.

Also, what type of covering of grammar concepts does the medina books cover? If you haven't had ANY discussion of grammar, then I would really start with Shaykh Faraz's Ajrumiyya. Like, with SP, when Qasas is covered, its covered with many many discussions of Grammar, so when you get to HN, you actually have the tools to decipher. Its hard to advise without knowing one's capability. You could give it a go, first 20-30 pages see how it is.