2021 October 10 — BA — male age 16 — Week 5

This week in Green stairs academy I arrived in class at 9:55. Before the class started I had a talk with the teacher on if I want to stay in the program. When class started I had to come up in front of the class and do a presentation on the 3 types of pledges we do (for the new students). The teacher stopped me when I was presenting and told me to emphasize and explain what we physically do in the pledges. He said to explain it as if everybody was new in the class. Then once everyone got settled we started with the 5 pillars of Islam; Shahada, Salah, Zakat, Fasting, Hajj. The teacher called on a student to name each one of them but the student answered it incorrectly. So as a punishment the whole class had to go up and down on our chairs five times. After that, we went in-depth on each of the 5 pillars. Then right after we talked about the 6 pillars of Imam we compared the pillars of Imam to the pillars of Islam. We came up with a conclusion saying the Pillars are imam is about what’s in your heart rather than the pillars of Islam is what you’re physically doing or saying. But you must expect both and believe in both to be called a Muslim.

We then proceeded next in our lesson. We talked about the Quran and Hadith and the differences between them. The Quran is a direct book of God’s words and the Hadith is explaining the Quran and how prophet Muhammed PBUH did it. Then we explained it in a current situation; that scholars focus more on the Hadith rather than focusing on the Quran. After that, we went over the 6 pillars of Imam. We started off with belief in Allah, belief in his Angles,  Believe in his books, and belief in his Prophets. The teacher had a very unique way of helping us remember he said it’s like an APS which stands for Angles postal service. He said the angels take God’s message which is recorded in a book called the Quran but it’s way too heavy to carry so they must take 1 page at a time down to the prophets. Then we talked about the last 2 pillars which were belief in life after death (Day of judgment) and belief in Divine destiny. We didn’t talk much of the day of judgment but we said, people, will people wearing the same clothes. And Divine destiny which is everything was pre-written.

In the next portion of the lesson, we talked about a variety of topics. We first started with a story the teacher had for us called Goats and Sheep. It was about an animal slaughtering barn and it was about a goat leading a bunch of sheep in a narrow space where the sheep just follow the goat not realizing where they are and at the end, there’s a back door where the goat leaves and the sheep get slaughtered. He compared this story to a University standpoint in which George Mason was a sheep and Harvard were goats. Then we talked about 2 people named Alfred Nobel and David Robienstien who were both successful leaders. Then we used oil as a metaphor for not waiting for tomorrow for your good deeds. The teacher had a friend who was perfectly normal on Wednesday and died on Thursday. So waiting for the next day for praying or doing a good deed won’t cut it and it’s a never-ending cycle. Then we used vacuums and phones as a metaphor for having a good relationship with God and your significant others.Then we went onto our last topic which was a story where children were given candy after they exposed the wudu steps from their parents. We then indeed left the class with some pizza and played a game where you must learn what’s around you. We got split up into 2 teams and there was a curtain between us and we must guess who the person across the curtain was.Then right after TeacherO gave us homework which was a study about the prophet Muhammed PBUH we had to choose between different topics to research about. I chose the Prophet’s wives.