Motivation for Reading the Holy Quran with and without Translation

Abstract

Motivation means a lot when human does something which is not very common in day to day life. Literature review indicates that there are rarely available studies on motivation for reading the holy Quran in Pakistani context. Therefore, the current study intends to find out basic types of motivation for reading holy Quran, factors involved that motivate to read with and without translation in their L1. Last but not least, gender based motivational (if any) difference. To research a quantitative study was adopted in which a survey based questionnaire was filled via Google form from randomly selected 218 students of 7 universities of Sindh, Pakistan. Collected data is descriptively analyzed by Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS Version 22). The findings revealed three most important motivating factors for reading the holy Quran: (1) it is the best book for mankind (∑4.6422); (2) it is a guideline to live better and happier life (∑4.6009); (3) it is compulsory for every Muslim to read (∑4.5642). Moreover, university students are more intrinsically (∑41.1651) than extrinsically (∑34.0642) motivated for reading the holy Quran. Meanwhile a great difference is being found in university students’ motivation for reading the holy Quran with and without translation. The Mean score of reading without translation is ∑9.8073 and with translation is ∑4.9862. An independent t-test informed that there is no significant difference between male and female students’ motivation for reading the holy Quran. The research claims that youth are losing their intrinsic motivation for reading the holy Quran because of extensive use of social media. It suggests that university students should read with translation because it helps their academic as well as personal life.