A shaky surah should come back sooner

Two surahs were revised on Monday. Al-Mulk went through cleanly from start to finish. Al-Qalam needed two prompts in the middle and the student mixed up a pair of ayahs that begin with similar words. A simple waiting list would treat both the same and bring them back next Monday. That is fine for Al-Mulk. For Al-Qalam, a week is long enough for the weak passage to slip further, so that next Monday's revision starts from a worse place than this one ended.

The hifz tracker on our website now asks one question when you mark a surah revised: was it solid or shaky? A solid surah comes back after seven days, as before. A shaky one comes back after two. It is a small change, and the thinking behind it is useful whether you use Durra or a notebook.

Why the gap should depend on how it went

Memorization is held in place by being recalled, and the right gap before the next recall depends on how firm the memory is now. A surah you just recited without hesitation can safely wait a week. A surah that wobbled is better heard again while the correction from today is still fresh. Coming back after two days gives it a chance to settle before it has time to drift. Once it goes through cleanly, mark it solid and it returns to the normal cycle.

Two and seven days are our defaults, not rules. Many teachers set their own rhythm, and if yours asks you to repeat a weak surah every day until it is firm, do that. The point is only that the gap should not be the same for both.

What counts as shaky

It helps to agree on a plain test so the rating does not drift with your mood. A reasonable one: mark a surah shaky if you needed a prompt, if you went back to restart a passage, if you skipped or swapped an ayah, or if you confused two passages that sound alike. Otherwise mark it solid, even if one ayah felt slower than you would like.

This keeps the rating honest in both directions. Some students mark everything shaky because nothing feels perfect, which fills every day with revision and leaves no room for new memorization. Others mark everything solid because shaky feels like failure. Neither helps. The test asks what happened, not how you feel about it.

A note for planning, not a verdict

We have written before that a record of practice should describe the sitting rather than pass judgement on the recitation. That still holds. Marking a surah shaky is not a grade and it says nothing about you. It is a scheduling note that tells the list to bring this surah back sooner. Durra does not listen to your recitation and has no view on its quality. Whether a surah is truly held, and how to fix a passage that keeps slipping, remain questions for your teacher.

If the same passage is shaky three revisions in a row, that is worth taking to your next lesson rather than simply repeating. Repeating a mistake at home can fix it in place, and a teacher can often spot the cause, such as a stopping place in the wrong spot or two similar passages being learned as one, in a single listening.

How the list decides what comes first

Once surahs come back on different gaps, the order can no longer be just how long each has waited. A shaky surah revised four days ago is two days past its mark. A solid surah revised eight days ago is one day past. The shaky one has waited less time, but it is further overdue, so it comes first. The tracker sorts by how far past due each surah is, and when two are equally overdue the shaky one goes ahead. Surahs with no revision date at all still sit at the very top, for the reason we gave in our last post: until you have revised them once, you cannot vouch for them.

Your notes stay with you

Solid and shaky marks are kept in your own browser alongside your revision dates, and nothing is sent to us. They are included in the tracker's backup file. If you restore a backup into a list that already has dates, each surah keeps whichever record is newer, so a fresh solid mark on one device is not overwritten by an older shaky one from another.