2025 Sep Ot M 12 Week 3 Sept 21,2025
Last night, I was drawing my own book, but I didn’t realize the time so I ended up going to bed late at around midnight. Surprisingly I wasn’t too tired in the morning but I started to feel the effects towards the end of class today. Because of that, I might have been around five minutes late to class today. When I got to class today I was quite confuzzled because I saw RB and two other young kids laying down on the floor in the cross legged position.
When I entered the classroom LG told me to sit down just like them and I did so without hesitation and in the background, La Ilaha Illallah was playing. LG said just listen to La Ilaha Illallah and forget about the pain of your legs being in this tight uncomfortable position. All LG said was it is good for meditation, helps you focus, and become strong mentally. We were starting to feel the pain and it was becoming really uncomfortable but LG just said to hold it because eventually our brain would just cancel out the pain.
While we were in this uncomfortable position we went over the pledges starting with the Pledge of Allegiance, I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Still in that excruciating position, we did the pledge of knowledge which goes as I bear witness to the fact that there is no God but God and I bear witness that Muhammad is God’s slave and messenger just as Jesus Moses Ibrahim Ismail and Adam were before him.
Still in that position we had the Fatihah in English which goes as, all praise belongs to God Lord of the Worlds most Gracious most Merciful master of the Day of Judgment you’ll only worship and you’ll only turn to for help shows the straight path the path of those who earned your favorite not the path of those who deserve your anger nor the path of those who went astray Ameen. It was all very painful to do but when we got to the last pledge neither me or RB or the other two kids knew it so LG just told us. It was very easy to forget even though it was short.
So it went as this program is a voluntary program and failure to comply will be an invitation to leave. before we moved on however the other two kids actually left the class and went to a different one that was next door. So maybe they just did not know which class they were supposed to be in. After readdressing LG asked us if we knew the meanings of a few prayers in English. Starting with subuha rabbyal azim, me and R did not know. We didnt know Sami Allahu liman hamida, rabbana lakal Hamd, or subuha rabbyal a’ala.
Because of that LG told us to go outside and practice a little bit. We started off by just repeating the answers in English over and over again for around 5 minutes and we came back in and I was ready and knew it in English but RB didn’t know everything. We kept trying to memorize two more times at least for at least 30 minutes. We were close but RB was just having a hard time memorizing since he was very tired. So at the end LG just gave up and let us have pizza and some juice and told us to stay focused and come with your mind ready before you enter the class.
Another important topic we discussed was you do not have to pray. People think to go to heaven you have to be Muslim only, and all muslims do is just pray and pray all day. but that’s far from the truth. In reality what we do is we help ourselves become better, help others become better and help the world become a better place for everything and everyone inside of it.
we pray because of our relationship with God and also to show gratitude for all that God has gifted us. Today in class LG taught us something new. He asked us what’s a 4 letter word that describes our relationship with God. Neither me or RB knew. He said it started with the letter L and that’s what hit me. The word was love. He said that our relationship with God is like our relationship with our parents if you love them. Our parents protect us and give things for us so we love them and they love us. God protects us and gives things for us so we love him.
One of our duties as God’s creations is to make the world a better place 24/7. But very hard because of jobs, distractions and Shaytan getting in our heads. That’s why God has made it easy for us to do that, by asking us to speak with him five times a day which allows us to remember him and stop Shaytan from getting too far in our heads. We can also make the world a better place by donating to charity but what does that have to do with us?
While at birth you don’t really have a choice on who you become. So if you become someone powerful And or somebody rich, Then you can show gratitude to God by giving to people who are not powerful and or rich. Fasting does also kind of help make the world a better place because it helps people understand the troubles of other people who don’t have lots of food who are starving every single day of the year. It helps us feel empathy for them, it helps us understand what they’re feeling, making the world a better place, because we can understand eachother better.
Today has been a very informative class as always so hopefully I was able to cover enough topics and reach the word limit and hopefully anybody reading this likes my essay! Assalam!