2023 Oct Week 9/2 F17

2023 October (week 2) AL–female 16

Although this week was supposed to be our 9th week, Teacher I said that this was the second week of the program since they welcomed two new students. It had been two weeks since we came into the classroom. As we walked into the classroom we found teacher I waiting for us. When entering the class today, the teacher asked us to say, “ Thank you my Lord, forgive us my Lord, and Bless us my Lord”, he said that it was very important to say it because we thank Allah for everything , we ask him to forgive us for not thanking him enough, and to bless us even if we are not perfect. As always we started with our weekly routine with meditation which purpose is to improve our connection with our lord. When doing the meditation, first we start with the song “ Lailah Ila Allah Mohamad Rasulullah S.W.S” and then he asked us to say the dua mentioned above.
When we finished the meditation, teacher R started the class as planned. The first thing we did was the 3 pledges which are: the pledge of allegiance, the pledge of faith and the pledge of knowledge. We respectively say these pledges in the masjid on a Sunday school because we want to show our gratefulness to the country that offer freedom of religion, the Pledge of Allegiance which means a promise of loyalty to the United States. After came a topic that interested me very much which was the pledge of faith which is defined by the shahada. The pledge of faith is something very important for Muslims because it is the first pillar of Islam. It testifies that there is no God, but One God, and Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” Which translates into Arabic “Ash-hadu an la ilaha illa Allah, Wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan Rasulu-Allah,” and the pledge of knowledge, which is the teacher or the white board, because that the way we get the knowledge.
As always when we come in class there a time in which we test out with the teacher and if we are not ready we are told to practice more. When we were looking at the board today, we saw many writing and new metaphors . We started of with Teacher I clarifying the purpose of islam and the purpose of the program. The purpose of Islam is to remember our Lord and make the world a better place while the purpose of the Greenstairs program is to understand the value of Islam but also improve our common sense, writing skills, and leadership skills. Teacher I told us that during the 6 week we are taught not to say anything in a language we don’t know and the world a better place.
After we talked about the purpose of Islam and the Greenstairs, we started off with the metaphors that we didn’t go through yet. The first new metaphors we did were the 10 commandments, but we did get to know a lot because it was for level 2 students. The 10 commandments are associated with Prophet Moses, it was given to hm by God but for us Muslims we have a different set.
PACA respectively stands for Prophet Allah Common sense and Accountability. We could say PACAPACA depending on the gravity of the situation. Phone connect and the 8 seconds rule goes together. It is very difficult to stay connected to God during our prayers, we get so distracted. Being in the presence of God is like professional bull riding. Many people, even our teachers, still have problems doing so. We also talked about the story of Ali when he needed to get some kind of operation on his leg and he told the one who was doing it to wait until he started his prayer to do it, as he finished his prayer he turned to the other person and got mad at him. It turns out that the operation was done during his prayer, but he didn’t feel anything because he was deep in his prayer. That’s how we uncovered a new word which was Khushul; it means total absorption to God. The teacher used the concept of phone connection because when we start prayer we actually started a phone call with our Lord. If you have the tool ( Namaz) but you are not connect to the presence of God; your call won’t get through. He gave an example of how when you pray and enforce your connection with God you get spiritual bucks. Every time we pray we deposit spiritual bucks in our account. As we were talking about our connection with God, the teacher emphasized the concept of B.R which means Belief in ritual. Many people are taught the ritual of prayer but not many are taught the actual belief of ritual. It is very important to believe in our prayer and what we say in it to the contrary of ritual which is just something we do because our parents are telling us to do it. He told us that some people believe in the belief only while others the ritual only, but neither is superior to the other, the best thing is to combine both. We also learned about dhikr which is about connecting with God while making dua to develop our sincerity to him.
After we talked about some of the metaphors that was on the board, teacher I asked us if we needed to do the game in which we have to stand on the chair and we get ask questions, but the counter part is that if we get the answer wrong we get to go up and down on the chairs until the punishment is done and I highlight punishment.
As the game started, teacher I asked us what one meant in Islam, we said God, there is only ONE GOD. For number two we answered two rakhas. Number three was three sunnas and the maghrib prayer which is three rakhas. Number 4, we got books, Khalifa’s, rakhas, imams and angels. We develop these 4 concepts that was just said, he even told us stories about the imams and the angels. Number five was the five prayers ( fajr, Dhukr, Asr, Maghrib, and Isha),and the five pillars. Number six for the six belief which are God, angels, books, prophets, day of judgment and accountability. Number seven for the seven levels of hell and Heaven; maghrib and Sajida. Number eight for Asr and number eleven for the minimum amount of dhikr.
As we were talking about how to achieve the highest stage of heaven, the teacher got to the concept of Miswak, which is a stick that the prophet used to clean his teeth, which he found after many researchers since they didn’t have toothbrush; he found what was available to do the job. Using a miswak is beneficial because it is a Sunna. Teacher I also talked about Didah who was famous for his argumentation about the Bible and the Quran. He also told us about his dad, who wasn’t able to do wudu because of his conditions, the lesson we learn from that is we shouldn’t let our environments keep us from making the call to God. He used the concept of soap and water to tell us about purifying ourselves better. That how we got to LGA and ILYA which respectively stands for Love God Always and I love you Always. He emphasized that by giving us an example of a girl who wanted to go to the moon and made many dua for it, but they never got answered until she got older. He told us because it wasn’t meant for her to goo to the moon since God already decided of what will happen I our life. When making dua, we should say something like this “ God please make me a gym instructor if it is good for me, if it is not good for me , making me something that is good for me” because when making a dua we must be very specific and connect our request to God.
As we recapitulated what we did, the benefits of prayer came back; and the teacher used the concept of take it or lose it. There are freebies to grab when we pray if we don’t we lose it but when we do we take it just like spiritual bucks. And the concept of sock purpose came into the lesson, which was to emphasize the fact that people don’t have something right, good, or expensive, shouldn’t care about that but should be grateful to have something that gets the job done. When the teacher I and R were having a discussion about helping people, the two rules came in. The hubs rule is when you take 20% and give the rest to the others , he even gave an example of the prophet. The second rule was when you take 2.5% and give the rest.
As the end of the class was coming, Teacher S came and was asked to tell us something. He told us about elevated speech, when you talk to someone in 3 minutes to know them and make them know you and remember you, he even told us that it was how he got his actual job even though he wasn’t doing anything right. The last thing we did in class was to learn about introspection , which is a deep self-analysis of what you have done in the world and what it is that we can do better.
Today’s class was really interesting because we got to learn many new concepts to use in the future and we also got to do a game even though we didn’t want that game.