2021 June 20 – NT – female age 28 – Father’s Day, Pride Month, Juneteenth, and many more
Asalam Alekoum,
Last Sunday’s class was informative, we spoke about different topics such as Father’s Day, Juneteenth, Pride Month, Dating and Marriage and many more. When I entered the class, I prayed 2 cycles in the mosque and then I did 10 minutes of meditation. After I finished my meditation, I saw few of my classmates and we exchanged Salams. After I entered at the other room the teacher asked me if I was prepared for the class and I told him I was not prepared for the class, so he sent me at a different room with one of my classmates and he helped me memorized the Tashahhud because I used to forget two words: “Ay-yuhan, and Wa’ala”. Also, I memorized Sura Ibrahim verse 40 and 41. After I memorized it, I said it to the teacher and he was not to impressed about it, so he gave me one more week of an extension with additional homework. After that we took a break and we started talking about different topics.
Fist topic was about Father’s Day. It was such an emotional topic for me, my dad means a lot to me, but it is so hard for me to share my feeling with him, but the teacher helped me out how to express my emotions towards my dad and tell him how I feel. Father’s Day should be celebrated every day like Mother’s Day, because father’s love is different than mother’s love. Fathers are our heroes but also the first love of a daughter. No matter if the father is the biological father, or stepfather still is the person that was there for you, and helped you become for who you are now. In Islam Dr. Wael Sheehan, PhD in Islamic Studies from Al-Azhar University said “A Muslim should show kindness, love, and dutifulness to his parents. Father’s Day is a social and family event that aims at celebrating fatherhood and honoring fathers. There is nothing wrong with such social and cultural events in Islam as long as they don’t promote un-Islamic values.”
Another topic that we discussed was about Pride month. Should Muslim celebrate pride month? Is it haram? Is it natural? Is it a brain cleansing? This topic is very sensitive because so many people now a days are following the new trend that is out there for example many divorces happened so the people can marry to the same gender. Famous people such as Jojo Siwa is one of the most influencer for teenagers and she came out to be gay and she announced it publicly 4 months ago, but all these teenagers who love her and support her they will follow Jojo because they want to be like her. In the other hand been a homosexual it might come from a trauma that happened in early stages, or it might cause from hormones. Being a homosexual that does not mean you can’t be a Muslim, that doesn’t make you unfaithful.
The third topic that we discussed was about dating and marriage. Islam does not forbid love. Love is a feeling that everyone is experiencing. The teacher said that dating is not haram if you respect yourself and is a social event. In my experience when I met my husband, we never hanged out alone, he always came to work, then 3 week later he spoke to my dad, then he used to come to my house once a week until we did our nikah.
Juneteenth was another topic that we discussed, honestly, I do not know much about it, but what the teacher mentioned was it is not a celebration, it should be a mourning event. Also, he said that slaves were sold by Muslims as well.
My experience in last class lecture was not the most pleasant, I was full of different emotions because Father’s Day topic is very sensitive to me, and about pride month. Also, I lose focus so fast due to my ADHD I could not concentrate as much. The teacher changes topics so fast that I lose track of what we are talking about. For example, about Juneteenth the only thing I remember was what I mentioned above.