In this episode, we travel deep into the heart of Mauritania—one of the most remote and spiritually rich nations in the Muslim world—where the sands of the Sahara cradle a centuries-old tradition of Qur’anic memorisation and Islamic scholarship unlike any other.
From the capital city of Nouakchott to the quiet village of Noubaghiya, we witness first-hand how young children memorise the entire Qur’an using nothing but a wooden board (Lawḥ), their voices, and an unshakable discipline passed down for generations.
We meet legendary scholars, such as Shaykh Muhammad Hassan al-Khadeem, and uncover the secrets behind their extraordinary memorisation techniques—including the powerful use of poetry, the role of desert solitude, and the oral traditions that modernity has long forgotten.
Along the way, we test ChatGPT on Arabic grammar with a Mauritanian scholar, visit a sea of tents housing students from across the globe, and sit with some of the sharpest minds in the Muslim world—individuals who have memorised volumes of Islamic texts by heart.
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