2023 Oct Week 1 F 15

TH female 10th grade

As a new student joining the green stair program, I thought this class would offer most of the same teachings I grew up learning, but I was a bit surprised. I’ve learned multiple topics today including CCA, QHA, 3 trunks, greenstair, third eye, pledges, and god is good.

The 4 pledges we said were the pledge of allegiance, because we are living in the United States, we need to abide by the law of the land and that is pledging just like everyone that lives here, the second one being the pledge to the Kaaba saying the shahada. The third pledge being for our teachers, because they are the ones giving us this knowledge and we pray that they teach us right and not wrong and the last one being the pledge for the class, which teaches us that we take this class voluntarily and if we do not abide by the rules we will be being kicked out from the class.

CCA, (common sense, context, and accountability) during our conversation. The teachers elaborated on this topic with a lot of hadiths and knowledge to make me understand . I was grasped into this topic as much as I was for green stairs, this was definitely one of the topics I could understand fully of what CCA really means. Common sense is a skill that we use with our brain to think out something like a particular situation based on our judgment . Context is when you need to dig deeper into the topic and base on your pat experiences, and knowledge, more like background info. And accountability is all about taking responsibility for our actions and others, acting upon our actions. One of the teachers gave an example showing CCA – looking both ways before crossing a road. In this case, common sense tells us there’s a risk of getting hit by a car when crossing the road, common sense tells us that I could get hit by a car anytime and the context behind it is that it has happened before so if I don’t look both ways I have a chance of getting hit and the accountibily I take is that, I have to act upon my understanding so my action is that I look both ways to avoid getting hit.

One of the main topics we learned was about the third eye (soul). The soul, which is the most important part of the body and a significant creation of Allah, is represented by the third eye. The soul is what remains when our body is buried, according to one of the teachers. One of the teacher explained that if someone spent their whole lives learning the answers to the three questions that will be asked in the grave, they would find it difficult to say, if their soul was filled up with more negative deeds than positive ones, their would wound not be able to memorize it.the oil jug was great example explaining this. It was told that each newborn is born with a bottle of oil attached to it. A drop of oil is removed from the container when they do a good deed, and it is added to the container when they do a negative deed. Every person wants to live a life filled with more good deeds than evil ones in order to avoid having any oil in their jug on the Day of Judgment, which would result in them being punished by fire. They are given protection from the fire if the bottle is empty and if it has even a drop of oil left it will burn because the oil is flammable .The Black Stone was also one of the teachers brought up point. One explanation for why the stone has become darker over the years is that as more people contact it, the stone feeds on their sins.

Which brings us to the next topic I learned which was the green stair topic. Green stair was a topic that stuck to me. When I was growing up, all Muslim kids were taught about the five pillars of Islam: shahadah, salah,fasting, zakat, hajj, and It was believed that fulfilling these pillars was essential to earning a place in Jannah, and missing any of this will result in being a bad muslim and not securing a place in Jannat. What I was forgetting was there is no use to any of this if you’re not a good person, meaning if I never miss a prayer but I go out and hate on someone and curse at them 24/7, then what difference does that make. After the lesson I was taught that we ask forgiveness from Allah but also make sure to ask forgiveness from others. One of the teachers asked “if a Christian can go to jannat” and automatically my thought was no, they could never, why? Because you need to say your shahada, you need to pray 5 times a day, but what if that person was a better person than the Muslim, he would definitely be given a chance to get into Jannat, because being a good muslim is being a good human. We were also exposing how in the Quran , it shows how every word in the Quran or from God is considered good. You can even spell God as “good.” The Quran helps guide us to fill our souls with good deeds. Sometimes, it can be confusing to understand the interpretations of Quranic verses and hadiths, which makes it hard to know what good deeds to prioritize. That’s where QHA (Quran, Hadith, and Accountability) comes in. The Quran is always more important and better over the hadith, and self-accountability is a blessing from Allah. It helps us make better choices, learn from our mistakes, and use common sense to know what’s right and wrong. And also that spelling God as “good” isn’t just for Muslims. Being good is important in every religion, like branches from the tree trunk representing God. That trunk grows branches which grow into other religions, and those religions grow more branches so being good is essential in all religious branches. We should also remind ourselves that we should not dig too deep whenever God is trying to make us do a good deed, like asking ourselves “what if this happens” or “I don’t think this will work” because whatever god wants us to do means it’s for the good of us.