Surat al-Qalam (68): memorizing it the Justin Sung way

This folder holds work from Amp thread T-01a1047f-56d5-7081-b0f5-d22abb4cdb49.

The plan has two tracks. You understand a passage first, then memorize it. Memorizing never runs ahead of understanding. The surah is split into five blocks, and each block is split into chunks by meaning:

Videos (in this folder)

The Day 2–6 videos are drafts. Their timers, glosses, and memory tips may change after the user reviews Day 1.

Format of each day's session

1. Warm-up (from Day 2 on): recite each earlier block from memory. The only cue is the block's name.
2. Map: where the block sits in the surah, its chunks, and its place on the walk.
3. Understand: each verse word by word, with a translation and one memory tip.
4. Recall 1: the meaning and the first Arabic word are shown, and you recite the verse.
5. Recall 2: no cue, verses shuffled.
6. Chain: the chunk name is the only cue.
7. Whole block: recite the whole block from memory.

A gold bar counts down while you recite. A chime plays when the answer appears.

The Day 6 test covers the five-block map, a full recitation, 12 random starts, 5 look-alike quizzes, the order of the "Or…?" questions, and a brain dump of the first word of every verse.

Checked facts

• Verse text comes from the quran.com API: Uthmani script plus word-by-word English.
• Translation is Sahih International, from the alquran.cloud API.
• Look-alike verses, checked against the source text:
• 46–47 match aṭ-Ṭūr 52:40–41 word for word.
• Verse 7 ends the same way as an-Naḥl 16:125. An-Najm 53:30 ends بِمَنِ ٱهْتَدَىٰ instead.
• Verse 43 opens like al-Maʿārij 70:44, then differs.
• Verse 29 ends ظَـٰلِمِينَ and verse 31 ends طَـٰغِينَ.
• The memory tips (HOOK in src/mem.html) are my own notes. They have not been checked by a scholar.

Source (src/)

• method-explainer.html + render.mjs: make qalam-sung-method.mp4.
• mem.html + data.js + render2.mjs: make the day sessions. Use ?day=1 through ?day=6.
• chime.py: builds the chime audio from data/chimes-N.json.
• fetch-fonts.sh: downloads Amiri, Amiri Quran, and Inter (all under the SIL Open Font License) into src/fonts/.

To regenerate, run src/fetch-fonts.sh, then copy src/ to /tmp/qvid. The scripts use that absolute path:

npm install                                  # playwright-core
node render2.mjs video 3 raw-3.mp4           # also writes chimes-3.json
python3 chime.py 3 <duration-seconds>        # writes chime-3.wav
ffmpeg -i raw-3.mp4 -i chime-3.wav -c:v copy -c:a aac -shortest qalam-day3-block-C.mp4

render2.mjs info <day> prints a day's duration. The Chrome path is hard-coded for the orb's agent-browser install.

Data (data/)

• quran-com-68-word-by-word.json: the raw API response.
• alquran-cloud-68-simple-clean-and-sahih.json: the raw API response.
• words.json, sahih.json: trimmed versions used to build src/data.js.
• chimes-1.json … chimes-6.json: the chime times, in seconds, for each day's video.

Left out on purpose

These were throwaway or can be rebuilt:

• The silent raw renders. The final videos contain the same video track.
• The chime WAV files, up to about 90 MB each. chime.py rebuilds them from data/chimes-*.json.
• node_modules and the font files. src/fetch-fonts.sh downloads the fonts again.
• One-off contact sheets and frame grabs. Representative ones are kept in previews/.