Motivation for Reading the Holy Quran with and without Translation

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.


Introduction
Motivation refers to choice of an action, sustainability of it and hardships that take place (Dornyei, 2021). More specifically there are two main types of motivation i.e. intrinsic and extrinsic. According to Shah, et al. (2016) intrinsic motivation gives an individual satisfaction and extrinsic motivation indicates future goals or other practical advantages. However, intrinsic motivation plays more positive role for motivating students (Shah & Naveed, 2020).
Intrinsic motivation for reading indicates what a person wishes to read whereas, extrinsic motivation stresses on why a person reads. Reading holy Quran is a part of Muslims' belief and and explanation of Quranic verses derived from the Prophet Muhammad (P.B.U.H) the messenger of Allah Almighty. It is necessary for Muslims to understand the instructions of Quran correctly and apply the teachings of Quran in their lives. The Muslims should develop the habit of reading Quran on daily basis in order to develop the ability to comprehend the verses in their true essence that will eventually help the people to enlighten their minds towards positivity. Muhammad at, el (2012) stated that the reading of Quran must be done with full concentration and care so that the reader may not commit any mistake as misinterpretation of Quranic verses will astray from the right path. It becomes the area of serious concern for not only Muslims but also the religion Islam as a whole when any Muslim university student cannot read the Quran correctly or forget how to read it because of lack of reading habit. According to Al-Shatibi, (2003) one of the goals of Islamic Shariat is to keep the religion alive by implementing the teachings of Islamic Shariat and the best source of Islamic teachings is the holy Quran. Therefore, those Muslims who cannot read the holy Quran are just like the ones who do not properly fulfill the responsibility of being good Muslims. These are some of the issues exist because of lack of reading motivation of the holy Quran. This research is an attempt to know the reading motivation of the university students.
The literature review highlighted some of the researches on the issues, interest and reading skills of the holy Quran. One of the researches was conducted by Yusof, Zainuddin and Yusoff (2011) to identify the issues in reciting holy verses of the Quran by Arabic speakers (Africans and Malay) and non-Arabic speakers (Malay). The findings revealed that remembering, fluency, comprehension and Tajweed rules were the problems they face while reading the Quran. The study also indicated that the more recitation of the Quran the lesser problems will be encountered by the readers. The study suggested that using different methods for reading Quran can provide solutions to the reading problems.
Some researchers suggested that exposure of language such as the language of Quran at an early stage assists in the effective development of the syntactic and phonological structure of Arabic. Many verses along with Prophets' Hadith imply that learning should be started before puberty stage of child. For instance, prophet (P.B.U.H) stated that at the age of seven children should learn the ritual language of religious observance especially prayers and if the child will not do till the age of ten or puberty he or she will be punished. This way, Islam emphasizes the extrinsic motivation by indulging the concept of reward and punishment for learning.

Reading Motivation, Interest, and Engagement
Motivation is a multifaceted term. Reading motivation includes attitude towards reading, belief and values for reading and reading goals. According to Logan & Medford (2011), motivation can be explained and measured with many other associated constructs. It can be extrinsic and intrinsic. Previous studies have founded the interconnection among reading motivation, reading comprehension, readers' self-efficacy, reading competency and learning outcomes (Taboada & Buehl, 2012, McGeown et al., 2012. Some of the empirical and quasi experimental studies have identified children's motivation for reading. Mata, 2011, Ryan & Deci, 2000McGeown et al., 2012, Chen, 2009Dolbow, 2007, Pitcher et al., 2007 The findings of their studies indicated that children are more intrinsically motivated whereas adults are extrinsically motivated for reading. Motivated people are more likely to involve in related tasks and activities. Focused and engaged readers have innate motivational goals that inculcate desire, interest and commitment to share, enhance, understand, and interpret the content and subject matter. Guthrie et al., (1997, stated that they also use cognitive tactics to fulfill motivational goals. Educational and developmental practices have elaborately discussed two types of motivation intrinsic and extrinsic in many previous works. Guthrie and Cox (2001) define intrinsic motivation as an inherent satisfaction for doing any particular activity rather than for external benefits. They further define extrinsic motivation as a force to perform any activity for external consequences. This type of motivation start from the early age as the child become curtailed by societal roles and demands that require people to take responsibilities for non-intrinsic tasks. For instance, during school period intrinsic motivation decrease with the increase of each grade level. The same findings also supported by another study of Guthrie et al. (1997) that shows that children's expectancy for success, beliefs and competence decreases intrinsically with the enhancement of extrinsic motivation across school years. Children begin to find motivation for different purposes with the increase in age. Botzakis, (2009) says that motivational factors assist in finding answers of why people read and how their reading choices impact their lives when it is not required.
According to motivational theories however, the attitude of an intrinsically motivated child is to get himself involve in activity like reading because it seems enjoyable and interesting for the child. Conversely, the behavior of extrinsically motivated child is to engage in an activity of reading due to some external outcomes such as better grades or rewards (Guthrie & Cox, 2001;McGeown et al., 2012). In this regard, Baker and Wigfield (1999) claimed the social goals of activity of reading as extrinsic. In the point of view of Smith (1997), the individuals' processes of decision making is complex. In social contexts it may negatively impact their decisions and the learning outcome of various practices of reading activities. Reading motivation and interest involves prior knowledge, experience and level of education in the lifelong activities of adults. (Adjah, 2012)

Quranic Exegeses Reading and Readers
The literature review indicated that several studies have been conducted on the issues related to Islamic studies and Islamic education but very few deals with the concerns related to those who read Islamic materials. For example the holy Quran emphasizes the importance of reading by the first word revealed is to "Read'' in the name of Allah. The Quran allow asking and investigating from a knowledgeable and reliable person as learning and knowing is the purpose of reading. Early Islamic literature emphasizes the rewards for readers and acts of reading but did not focus on the motivation, choice and interest of readers. For Muslims, it is obligatory to seek knowledge from cradle to grave stated by the prophet of Islam Muhammad (P.B.U.H). He (P.B.U.H) further stated about the various rewards for knowledge seekers. Prophet (P.B.U.H) motivated the Muslims to read the holy Quran and declared that the Quran is best source of getting knowledge. The seekers of knowledge will get many rewards from Allah. This extrinsic motivation of getting rewards from Allah motivated the early Islamic era Muslims to inquire read and spread holy verses of the Quran and their explanations.
Later on, the systematic compilation of the holy Quran evolved such as Tafseer al-Tabari. At that time the horizontal motivation i.e., reading for external reward or worldly success were largely ignored and the prime importance was given to the vertical motivation i.e., reading for spiritual satisfaction and divine rewards. Islam says that every act of Muslims deserves reward if it is for the good cause and punishment if it causes negativity. For instance if a person read the holy Quran just to satisfy Allah then he\she will surely merit reward. The significance of getting reward and being rewarded is comprehensive and broad. Even a person read the Quran with the intension to please Allah or for some worldly success, it will be considered as valid worship. This has encourages the researcher to investigate the level of motivation of reading the Quran of university students and to know whether they are extrinsically or intrinsically motivated for reading the Quran.

Research Method
A quantitative research is carried out for the study in which an adapted questionnaire was formulated to get survey. Dornyei (2007) (who is the main protagonist in motivation) states that the quantitative research is the method of collecting the numerical data which can be future statistically analyzed by SPSS. Quantitative research is the best method for generalizing its findings in wide perspective. The questionnaire is consisted of 30 research items that is further divided into different variables. To make sure the reliability of questionnaire and its items, reliability test is performed and the result is here in table #1. According to Pallant (2005) if Cronbach Alpha is greater than .70, it means the questionnaire is highly reliable to conduct the research.
Meanwhile, validity of the quantitative research is based on its participants' honest responses. The study receives randomly 218 responses from7 public universities students of Sindh, Pakistan and the survey is taken via google form. Further detail of participants is given below table # 2 in demographic table. The collected data is entered into SPSS version 22 and descriptive statistics, one sample statistics and independent t-test are run to get mean score of different variables.

Results
The findings of the research address several types of motivation for reading holy Quran in which overall mean score mentions in descending order. It also informs students' choice of reading with and without translation. The quantitative research presents the data descriptively in tables and charts. The finding of the study answers the main research question hereby. RQ 1 . Which are the most important motivating factors for reading the holy Quran among university students?  Table # 3 shows the most important motivating factors for reading the holy Quran among 218 university students. They believe that the Quran is the best book for mankind (∑4.6422). Second most important factor is that it is a guideline to live better and happier life (∑4.6009). Third one is that the Quran is compulsory for every Muslim to read. The table is presented in descending order and can be easily understood the most important factors by looking each items' mean score. The discussion session may elaborate them in detail.
To what extent are university students intrinsically and extrinsically motivated for reading the holy Quran? The mean score of table # 4 indicates that the university students are more intrinsically (∑41.1651) than extrinsically (∑34.0642) motivated for reading the holy Quran. The below pie chart helps us to define in percentage and it states that 54.7% are intrinsically and 45.2% extrinsically motivated.

Fig:#1
RQ 3 To what extent are university students motivated for reading the holy Quran with and without translation? The table # 5 shows that the majority of university students read the Quran without translation (∑9.8073) while only a few (∑4.9862) students are motivated for reading the holy Quran with translation. The below pie chart explains that 66.2% read without translation and only 33.7% read the holy Quran with translation. The pie chart is presented because sometimes non-statisticians may not understand findings of the study in mean score and percentage sounds very familiar to them.

Fig:#2
RQ 4 . Is there (if any) significance difference between male and female university students intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for reading the holy Quran?  Table # 7 is an independent sample also known as t-test that also states that there is no significant difference between male and female in motivation for reading the holy Quran.

Discussion
After the statistical analysis of the responses of the participants the researcher find out that the motivating factors among 218 university students are intrinsic in nature because the respondents believes that reading holy Quran is compulsory for every Muslim and give mean score (∑4.5642). The participants also give highest mean score to the questionnaire item that indicates that university students read holy Quran because it is a guideline to live better and happy life i.e., (∑4.6009). Moreover, students' responses also indicates that majority of the university students read holy Quran because holy Quran is the best book for mankind and give the highest mean score (∑4.6422). Furthermore, the responses to second research question that investigated the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of university students' for reading holy Quran revealed that majority of the respondents i.e.,54.7% are intrinsically motivated for reading holy Quran while 45.2% participants are extrinsically motivated.
The answers to the third question of investigation is about university students' motivation for reading holy Quran with and without translation shows that mostly university students do not read holy Quran with translation. This is because reading Quran with translation takes more time and they have burden of university assignments. The pie chart indicated that 66.2% university students read holy Quran without translation and only 33.7% read the holy Quran with translation. The last research question that investigated the significant difference (if any) between male and female university student's intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for reading the holy Quran concluded that there is no significant difference between male and female university students' motivation for reading the holy Quran. The overall discussion of the findings in a nut shell, most of the university students both males and females are intrinsically motivated for reading holy Quran. But they lack this type of motivation for reading holy Quran with translation as mostly students read holy Quran without translation.

Conclusion
The study briefly outlines its core aim i.e. university students' intrinsic and extrinsic motivation for reading the holy Quran with and without translation. It constructs its four main objectives (1) the most important motivating factors, (2) intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, (3) motivation for reading with or without translation and last but not least (4) significance difference (if any) between male and female university students for reading the holy Quran. The study employees the quantitative research method by adapting a research questionnaire to collect data from various university students (N 218) including male (N 108) and females (N 210). The most popular software i.e. SPSS version 22 is used to analyze the collected data. Fruitful findings and discussions of the study indicates that university students are highly intrinsically motivated to read the holy Quran but most of them are not motivated to read with translation. Lastly, there is no significance difference found between male and female university students' motivation for reading the Quran.

Recommendation
The study recommends that university students should be intrinsically motivated for reading holy with translation because majority of the respondents read holy Quran without translation. Reading with translation will give better understanding of the orders of Allah Almighty. The universities should provide extra class for teaching and learning holy Quran with translation along with their course subjects because the findings shows that a good number of students don't know how to read holy Quran. This initiative will give students the effective and better exposure to their religious life and help them improve their living standards according to the teachings of holy Quran.