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- Country of residence: Iraq
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Youssef Shaheen, an autistic Palestinian child, memorizes the Qur’an and solves difficult arithmetic operations
The child Youssef was able to complete the entire memorization of the Holy Qur’an, as he has a strong memory that enabled him to memorize the entire Book of God. His mother tells her story with her son, where she says that in the beginning, since the birth of her child “Youssef,” she did not know that he had autism, but this was discovered when He entered school because his teachers noticed that he did not understand anything during the study period except only arithmetic operations and numbers, and when his mother took him to examine him, she learned that he was suffering from autism - according to what was reported by the Palestinian “Ma’an” news agency.
She added that her child's inclinations were clear in his love for numbers and arithmetic operations, so much so that he could solve arithmetic problems that were difficult for his siblings without referring to the calculator, noting that "Youssef" could not speak until he was in the third grade, but he always carried the Qur'an in his hand. His hand all the time before going to school, and he loved for his mother to recite verses from the Qur’an to him while he repeated them. He did not like for his mother to be busy with household chores for him, but rather he always wanted her to recite the verses of the Holy Qur’an in his ears. In addition to that, his grandmother was 70 years old. For years, she memorized several parts of the Holy Qur’an, keen to repeat the Qur’an in front of him while he sat next to her and listened to her, in addition to his love of listening to the sheikhs reciting the Qur’an on television screens until he began to distinguish their voices.
His mother explained that she tried in various ways to teach him the letters of the Arabic language since he was young, but she was unable to do so, but she found it much easier since his connection with the Holy Qur’an, so she was able to do so through the Holy Qur’an.
Autism is a general or widespread developmental disorder whose effects appear in and are reflected in many other aspects of development. Such effects also appear in the form of behaviors that indicate deficiencies on the part of the child - the book (Autism: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment) by Dr. Hazem Khaled.
It is noteworthy that the child “Youssef Shaheen” was not the only case of autism who was able to complete the memorization of the Holy Qur’an. He was preceded by the Egyptian boy “Ibrahim Muhammad,” who was not more than 17 years old and a resident of the 10th of Ramadan in Cairo, where he completed the memorization of the Holy Qur’an and won the place. The first in the competition for memorizers of the Holy Qur’an, and like him is “Muhammad Jawhar,” an Eritrean national who is 13 years old. He also memorizes the entire Holy Qur’an, is good at the rules of recitation, and enjoys the beauty of his voice tone and good performance - according to the Emirati newspaper Al-Ittihad - and many other autistic children who have memorized the Book of God.
It should be noted that there are studies that have proven the benefit of listening to the Holy Qur’an in treating patients with autism, including a previous study entitled (The Importance of the Holy Qur’an in the Communication Process for the Autistic Child) conducted by the Director of the Doha International Center for Special Needs, Dr. Hala Al-Saeed. She did this through her work with autistic children, and “it has been proven that some of them respond when they hear the Qur’an, and some of them start screaming and crying when they hear it. This prompted her to use the Holy Qur’an audibly as a training method that works on communication in all fields for this category of children, so she did this.” The study is to identify the extent to which autistic children respond to hearing the Holy Qur’an in the process of communication and learning,” according to (the website of the Tafsir Center for Qur’anic Studies) and (Al-Arab Newspaper).
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