2019 Oct class notes for 10/5/19 by 18 yr old male
DJ 18 years old 10/5/19
When I entered class today at around 10 o’clock, I greeted my teacher and started my Fajir prayer. The reason why we pray Fajir prayer at this time is because we can pray later if we ever miss a prayer by the standard prayer times. After that, all of us as a class turned towards the US flag with our hands on our hearts and recited the pledge of allegiance.
After that, we turned around and recited the Islamic pledge of faith. When we were done with that our teacher started his lecture on various topics about Islam, what’s happening in the news, and just anything in general. Our main topic of discussion was about the Islamic holiday of Ashura. Our teacher explained what the holiday was about and why it has such a big significance in Islam, especially among Shia’s.
Some things that I learned about the holiday was that it is celebrated by Shia’s and Sunni’s differently. To Shia’s it is very big holiday and it is considered a day of sorrow and sadness. Self-Flagellation is also carried out by Shia’s and it is basically a ceremonial sacrifice. To Sunni’s Ashura does not have as big as a significance as it does to Shia’s. Sunni’s mostly just fast on that day and it is recommended to do so. The reason why Muslims commemorate Ashura is because it was the day when Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of the prophet Muhammad, was killed by Yazid at the battle of Karbala. After we talked about Ashura, we discussed the news and what’s happening in our world. We talked about the death of Sherriff Deputy Sandeep Dhaliwal in Houston Texas.
The reason why his death was such a significance was because he was the first Sikh to ever become a police officer and he also wore a turban. He was a role model for his community and he helped a lot of people. We also talked about whether or not impeaching Donald Trump is a good thing or a bad thing. One person argued it was a bad thing because it is very hard to impeach a president and only two have been impeached so far. After the lecture, we started our testing session on the prayer memorized in both Arabic and English.
For me, I have so far memorized half the prayer in English but I still have a long way to go. The testing session lasted around 15 minutes and after that, we had lunch which was pizza. After our lunch, our teacher gave another lecture.
During that lecture, I learned various things such as when the Prophet passed away, people initially refused to believe that he died because they thought that without him, Islam would crumble, but they did not know that even if the prophet has passed away, his message was still alive by the believing people and it was up to them to carry on his message and keep the religion of Islam intact and let it develop and grow.
I also learned that how only sins against god can be forgiven but not sins against humanity. I also learned that defective culture is running the original message of Islam and how the message is the same from the time of the prophet, but certain cultural practices and traditions are making it to hard or extreme. Lastly, some general life advice that I learned was that figuring out who do you want to be and learning what do you want to be can help you find out who you are in life. I also learned that you should always take advantage of the opportunity given in front of you, no matter if its school, work, or life in general.