Sorting task 1: separating Quranic from non-Quranic sentences

According to the results, the participants reliably separated the Quranic sentences from the non-Quranic sentences. As per the individual results, participants can be grouped in the following four categories:

A. Those who accurately separated sentences into two piles of 15 (Quranic), and 30 (non-Quranic), respectively. They were participants 6, 7, 8 and 10

B. Those who allotted fewer than 15 sentences to the Quran pile. They were participants 3, 9 and 11. However, all sentences they assigned to the Quran pile were actually Quranic, and there was no non-Quranic sentence in the Quran pile.

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C. Those who assigned more than fifteen sentences to the Quranic pile. They were participants 2, 4 and 5. Although they had more than 15 sentences in the Quran pile, all 15 Quranic sentences were in the pile too.

D. There was one participant (i.e., participant 1) who, despite having identified 15 sentences as Quranic, had only assigned ten Quranic verses to the Quran pile. Five of them were actually non-Quranic. His was by far the lowest score in terms of correctly identifying Quranic sentences.

While results from group A are clear-cut and show solid and reliable memory of the

participants for the Quran, participants in groups B, C and D allocated a variable number of sentences to both piles. This distribution offers an interesting window on the participants’ memory of the Quran. Participants in group B, for example, assigned only those sentences to the Quran pile they were sure about. Hence, although all the sentences they assigned to the Quran pile were Quranic, not all the Quran sentences were included. So, some of the Quranic sentences were assigned to the non-Quran pile. In group C, on the other hand, participants tended to include more sentences in the Quranic pile than in the non-Quranic pile. The Quran pile, however, included all the Quran verses. It means that these participants were not taking any risk of missing out a Quranic sentence and therefore erred more on the side of inclusion than exclusion. In other words, they did not want to relegate a Quranic sentence to the non- Quranic pile.

Table 7.1 shows combined results for all participants. The rows show the number of actually Quranic and actually non-Quranic sentences, and the columns show the number of sentences judged as Quranic and non-Quranic by the participants.

Combined Judged as Quranic Judged as non- Quranic

Total

Quranic 156 09 165

Non-Quranic 30 300 330

Total 186 309 495

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The Chi- Square results for all participants were highly significant. Results obtained from Fisher’s exact test were also highly significant.

Participant χ² Df P < 1 11.5 1 0.01 2 21.523 1 0.01 3 40.469 1 0.01 4 16.422 1 0.01 5 28.127 1 0.01 6 45 1 0.01 7 45 1 0.01 8 45 1 0.01 9 36.564 1 0.01 10 45 1 0.01 11 36.45 1 0.01

Table 7.2: The Chi- Square results for the number of Quranic and non-Quranic sentences out of total sentences

Figures 7.1 and 7.2 show the distribution of sentences into Quranic and non-Quranic categories, respectively. The participants were to separate 45 sentences into two categories. Each graph represents the judgement of each participant by two colours: in graph 7.1 red indicates sentences that were judged Quranic whereas blue indicates sentences that were actually Quranic. In graph 7.2 purple indicates sentences that were judged non-Quranic whereas black represents sentences that were actually non-Quranic. The sum of the two colours representing ‘actual’ i.e. red (graph 7.1) and purple (graph 7.2) amounts to the total number of sentences i.e. 45.

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Fig 7.1. Distribution of sentences that were judged Quranic by non-Arabic participants

Fig 7.2. Distribution of sentences that were judged non-Quranic by non-Arabic participants

Overall, participants were more likely to put non-Quranic sentences onto the Quranic pile than vice versa.

The above results indicate that the participants had reliably secured the Quran in their

memory. The strong memory of the participants for the Quran text was demonstrated by their significantly high recognition of Quran sentences when randomly presented in a pool of non-

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p11 Se n te n ce s Participants Judged Quranic Actually Quranic 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 p1 p2 p3 p4 p5 p6 p7 p8 p9 p10 p11 Se n te n ce s Participants

Judged non Quranic Actually non Quranic

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Quranic sentences (matched to the Quranic ones for language and style). This is an important finding because Quranic sentences were presented out of context: they were individual and isolated sentences picked up from different parts of the Quran at random. On the basis of the above finding, the experimental hypothesis, that is, the non-Arabic speaking memorizers, on the basis of their memorization, would be able to separate Quranic sentences from non- Quranic sentences was accepted.

In addition to the above results, participants’ behaviour while performing the task was also indicative of their superior memory for the Quran, showing that they had a strong mental representation of the Quran text as compared to the non-Quran text. Although their speed of response was not measured, there was a noticeable tendency for the Quranic verses to be responded to more quickly than the non-Quranic ones.10 Most times when the participants saw a Quranic verse, they immediately recognized it as familiar. Most of them, especially, participants 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11, after reading the first two or three words of a Quranic verse, would start reciting it from memory and would keep on reciting till I asked them to stop. In contrast, they were not fluent in reading sentences from unseen Classical Arabic texts and were, at times, finding it difficult to pronounce them correctly. I will come back to this issue in the final chapter.

7.2.2 Sorting Task 2: separating grammatically correct sentences from grammatically