Creating Our Stories: Act 01 - To Read

Not all stories or memories belong to us. Some are preserved in letters, journals, books, and archives. Others belong to people we will never meet, places we may never visit, and moments long before our own. Yet, when we read, they return. 

Reading allows us to travel beyond what we know. It brings distant places closer, gives shape to lives beyond our own, and lets voices from another time speak to the present.

In the Qur’an, the first word revealed is iqra’, often translated as “read.” It offers a compelling way to think about the act of reading. The Arabic verb qara’a, however, carries meanings beyond reading. It can mean to read aloud, to recite, and to engage with what is being conveyed.

To read, in this sense, is to receive, understand, and respond to what words carry. Reading becomes an encounter with what we did not know, a way of receiving what came before us and what we did not witness, and allowing it to take shape within us and the world we inherited.

In doing so, we may recognise what might otherwise disappear. 

We read not only to learn, but to remember. And remembering is not only about looking back. It is also about carrying something forward, giving it new words, and leaving a trace for someone else to find.

Through words, experiences can outlive the people who lived them. What might have been lost to time finds a way to remain.

The more we read, the more we gather. Stories become references, words become memories, and the experiences of others slowly become part of how we understand our own. 

In time, we learn to write our own. But first, iqra’.

Happy International Literacy Day!

Much Love,
Selvi - Tulisan