Wassup with blind Muslim clerics?

Slate tries to answer why there are so many blind clerics in the Muslim world(though many in their list can hardly be called clerics, but that's another topic). The high rate of blindness in Arab countries was quite revealing. Ditto the fact that Turks and Egyptians call their blind people as Hafiz/Maulanas out of respect, whether or not they are one. In India similar treatment is given to people who sport beards when they are referred as "Haji saab", irrespective of the fact if they have undertaken Hajj or not or referred as "haapiji"(hafiz-ji). But it's not always out of respect and many a times just in jest or casual banter amongst friends. It's amazing how words are co-opted in different cultures.

Anyways, the article goes on to state that teaching of Qur'an might favour blind people since becoming a Hafiz is just rote memorization. I just have a teeny nit to pick here. I don't buy in full that Hafiza training favours the blind. Creating a subconscious visual matrix is as important in co-rrelating with memories of sound repetitions. That's why most Hafizes use a specially printed Quran, one in which each page ends with an aayaah(sentence). It's called by a certain name which I now fail to recollect. And like others they are also available in different sizes, fonts etc. But once a Hifz student picks up a format, s/he tends to stick to their own copy for years because they've trained their eyes to look at those verses on a particular page at a particular location. Now I understand blind people are strong in other faculties, but I don't think it's to the point where becoming a Hafiz is just a cakewalk for them.

This also easily corroborates with my personal experience when we were forced to parrot through our Q&As in primary schooling years. I used to memorize my answers based on a visual map. And I clearly remember that when I sat down in the examination hall I would recollect not just the answer but the exact page and location but even spelling mistakes, cancellations, underlined words, eraser marks etc where they occured in my notebook. Recalling the position was an automatic and subconscious first step in recollecting the answer. This style of memorization went on atleast till 5th-6th standard, after which "Give ten reasons for World War II" just became a tad too lengthy and we had to come up with complicated abbreviations of first letters. And I know few of my classmates who did the same. This is not to say we didn't understand the concepts, or grasp the topic in question. It's just that our examination systems were a weirdo thing where students were supposed to ingest tomes of stuff and vomit the exact thing back, in an already squeezed hour of speed writing competition, like a laser printer on steroids. Or risk losing those precious three marks out of 100. Anyone who did schooling back in the good ole days knows exactly what I am talking about. I must say that I got so accustomed to it, that for any addition/subtractions under 1000 I still use a visual map of my Std-I number book where in we wrote 1-100, 101-200, 201-300 on grid-lined pages for the umpteenth time(remember?). I find that this pictorial representation works faster for me and even today I can proudly beat any local baniya worth his salt (hello Haroon Bhai, Bombay and Gujju cashier lady at Taj Grocery store, Austin), in calculating how much change they owe me back after they've successfully handed me some lemons.

Coming back to the point of blind clerics -- now that I think about it, I realise that I've never come across someone who was blind to begin with and went on to be a hafiz. Nor have I seen Quran in Braille or heard any of Indian madrassas/mosques having such a copy.

Just an academic curiosity: Have you come across a Braille Quran (all you phoren univ. students, reading this from berkeley.edu and utexas.edu I am looking at you) , or for that matter a Braille Bible, Gita, any religious book? Or a blind-from-birth Hafiz? Any pointers? Thanks.