2023 SepWeek3 F 17

Week #3 by AL- female 16; Sunday, September 10,2023

  Today we arrived 10 minutes early so, we decided to go to class earlier than usual. When we came in, we found S and C having a discussion, so we gave salaam to the both of them. Last week we had L as a teacher but today we had S and C as teacher, so it was very surprising not to see L again and I hope he is okay. We also had two new students in level one which was very instructive because we got to test our retentiveness. Before starting class, S gave me the homework that I asked him to print out for me which was about my presentation and the definition of the metaphors of the class that was on the board. we are going to talk about everything that happened that day. First, we started with our weekly routine, after that we talked about why we are networking. Second, we had our weekly news and our homework about the concepts. Last, we did the testing and presentation.

          You know when you do things over and over again you get bored of it at first but to my surprise, I did not get bored by our weekly routine. This session was about meditation and the three pledges. Every time I came into the class, I surely learned new things and get used to them. Today was actually my third week of meditation, to my surprise I was getting more and more comfortable. My family and I did like the 20 minutes we spent on meditation since we came earlier but I would say that I spend 7-8 minutes focusing on one thing without getting distracted by another which would have been a very hard thing for me to do before I join the program. After the meditation session came the 3 pledges in which we reminded ourselves of what we have been doing for the past weeks since we join the program. I would say that we made a lot of progress on the way we say the pledge with everybody at the same time, but it still needs some work. Coming back to the subject which is about the 3 pledges of allegiance, faith, and knowledge. they represent a formal promise of loyalty to the country of the United States, when we bear witness that there is one God by saying the Shahada, meaning that "There is no God, but One God and Muhammad is his Messenger and the pledge that represent the person or object that teaches us Quran and Hadiths in which we recite Surah Al-Fatiha in English. After those remembrance, C asked us why we are here and why we didn’t quit. when we came into the program, we sometime got uncomfortable , C got several answers in which I said that we are here to learn about our religion and general knowledge, we are also here to improve on our writing, leadership, and retentive skills. we talked a lot about what we did, someone said that we are here 5 hours every Sunday to praise God and remember him.

America is referred to as “Great Satan” in some Muslim countries because it allows too much freedom. We also discussed about our goals, one student said that his goal was to get a car with his own money that’s how we went from the reason why we are here to networking. Networking the process of making connections and building relationships. These connections can provide you with advice and contacts, which can help you make informed career decisions. Networking can even help you find unadvertised jobs/internships. These are some of the benefits of this program because there are different types of people who do different types of work and if we don’t network with them, we won’t get certain opportunities. If the student who wanted a car could have talked to S about that, maybe he would have advised him to go to a dealership or something like that. We also discussed about how to communicate with an audience. C said that we have to use our outdoor voice ( slow, loud and clear) and not to forget to articulate. We also talked about who is our mentor, for all of us Muslims, it is the Prophet Muhammad SWS.

        Did you guys know what happened in the world this week? That was one of the routine questions in which each student has to give 3 news about what happened in the world, it can be bad and good, but we cannot have the same news. We had some important news like the earthquake that happened in Morocco, The French government that banned abayas, Coco Gauff winning the U.S Open for her 1st Grand Slam Title, hurricane Lee, protest in Nigeria, deadly rainfall, and all other news. It is very important to know what is happened around the world, and also know our surroundings. After the news, like always we start correcting the homework given the week before. Last week’s homework was about the metaphors/ concept used in this program. S asked us each to talked about  two of our favorite concepts. The first concept F presented were about intention in which every action is based on the sincerity of our action.” Actions are judged according to their intensions.” And Time management : managing ours and one’s time in a respectful and honorable way. This means that Muslims should prioritize their time and avoid wasting it on non-sense. I talked about these concepts; Greenstairs: Greenstairs is a 6-week program that is generated for students who do their homework, have parents in class and show improvement in their leadership skills, our retentiveness, and our writings. It also teaches us a lot about our religion and Tree trunk: at first, I thought it’s somehow meant that everything starts at the bottom ich the bottom of a three. After some research I found out that it represents The Tree Trunk with Branches – ONE GOD – many Faiths/Approaches with the same message so we can understand our role on Earth. M talked about these following concepts: Eidetic: is being able to instantly recall something you visualized briefly. It’s like a photographic memory and Astronaut: a person who travels in space. In one of the essays, it says about astronauts that “ something is writing for you, you cannot change it”. H’s concepts were : Eyes: in this class in represent our third eye. The third eye is our intuition, insight or just our mental sense and Einstein :LG explain how we don’t know what is in our brain, He used Einstein as an example, when he died people measured his brain and it was so big because of the knowledge that was inside. And also, the fact that the brain is a muscle.

            Like always we had to test out Our salat in Arabic and English before going to break, and since we practiced our salat this week it has been a  little easier. So, we tested out with R first which was very good because she explained us everything then with H which was a little challenging because she asked us to test out in Arabic-English which was vey difficult because it was my first time trying it , I usually recite the whole Arabic then comes the English. After the testing we had our break where we ate a lot of pizzas and fruits and had time to relax. After the break we started our presentation. Two students were doing presentation, today and it was H and me . I started first and my topic was about the different tashahhud/attahiya, Attahiya is actually a part of the conversation between Our Creator Allah SWT, and our beloved Prophet Muhammad SAW during his journey of Al Isra Wal Miraj. TRANSLITERATION:

At-tahiyyatu Lillahi wa-salawatu wa’t-tayyibat, as-salamu ‘alayka ayyuha’n-Nabiyyu wa rahmat-Allahi wa barakatuhu. As-salamu ‘alayna wa ‘alaa ‘ibad-Illah is-saliheen. ashhadu alla ilaha illallah wa ashhadu anna muhammadan ‘abduhu wa rasuluhu.The translation for the wording of the attahiyat above is given:“All the best compliments and the prayers and the good things are for Allah. Peace and Allah’s Mercy and Blessings be on you, O Prophet! Peace be on us and on the pious slaves of Allah, I testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah, and I also testify that Muhammad is Allah’s slave and His Apostle.” This second version attributed to Umar is used by the Maliki school. this is just one version of the Attahiyat, in a separate narration in Sunan Abu Dawud, Sahih (Al-Albani) hadith 971 it is recited as follows:Transliteration: At-tahiyyaatu Lillaahi, az-zaakiyaatu Lillaahi, al-tayyibaatu Lillaahi, al-salawaatu Lillaahi. As-salaamu ‘alayka ayyuha’n-Nabiyyu wa rahmat-Allaahi wa barakaatuhu. As-salaamu ‘alayna wa ‘alaa ‘ibaad-Illaah is-saaliheen. Ash-hadu an laa ilaaha ill-Allah wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhu wa rasooluhu, the Translation is the following: All compliments are due to God, all pure things are due to God, all pure words are due to God, all prayers are due to God. Peace be upon you, O Prophet, and the mercy of God and His blessings. Peace be upon us, and on the righteous slaves of God. I bear witness that none has the right to be worshipped except God, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.In learning both, you will have completed all the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (saws) when it comes to tashadud. H’s presentation was about a very interesting game called Valorant, it did look good because I didn’t know anything about it until today. He talked about the four main point of Valorant which were: agents( duelist, initiator, defense sentinel and controller ), communication, practice, and economy. The most interest thing about H’s presentation is that He gave the connection between the game and Islam which was so surprising.

           In conclusion, today’s class has been very instructive with all the new knowledge acquired we all hope to surprise LG for when he comes back. Our goal for week #5 is to be able to pass the exam and win a trophy.