Z.R-16-JCHS
Today was a pact and heavy day, we read, worked, and learned new materials and even reviewed some of our prominent vocabulary words. There were two very special speakers today as well as many new students joining our program.
Our day started typical with the 2-page memorization period. Thank god I am pretty much done but I still have keep on top as well as advance extremely because I am aware that I am behind most of the students. Something that sparked and surprised me that I memorized 3 Surahs in one day which is, my record. My derealization is making me realize that I can do anything and keep my wisdom if I really want to. I have the ability to complete work and memorize extensive sentences but I personally choose not to and I end up procrastinating. Procrastinating is one of my worst habits and it is making me slow down. In order for me to succeed in this amazing program I must not give into shaytan and work harder than ever to break out from this never-ending loop.
After our prayer+surah session, we all sat down as a packed group and we listened to two lovely speakers who sparked inspiration in me. But before that, we reviewed our core-vocabulary words once again. From what I remember, amana: the gift that god has gave everyone whether it’s amazing bullying-skills or even great reading comprehension, everyone is born and given amana, Teacher LJ’s skill is to teach us the real meaning and purpose of Islam differently than any other Sunday-school I’ve been to. There’s a gap in society, culture, and religion and that void is what Teacher LJ fills up.
Our other core word that we use in every-single-class is accountability, in my humble opinion, accountability is the most fundamental aspect of our life, just think about it: accountability is the responsibility of all of our actions, every negative and every positive we have done in our lives is all seen and considered by Allah (S.W.T). People nowadays are not as accountable like we used to be, we don’t fear our actions like we are supposed to. Love is a really important word that has deep meaning behind it. Love is feeling affection for our parents, family, teachers, friends and even our community. Love is most importantly our relationship with Allah. Many people makes misconception that Islam is a fear-based religion but that is not true at all, allah wants us to love the religion and him.
He wants us to love his teaching and to live with this positive-love- demeanor. What he tells us to do is all loved base as he is our creator who looks ahead and for us rather than it being a negative-fearing-God relationship. This is a very important concept because even I believed fearing God was the whole concept of Islam.
Then our lovely speakers had their turn and their floor to speak on, the man began to introduce himself. Mr.C is of Argentinian descent and grew up in New York. He currently lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina who we will get to in a little bit. He was born into Catholicism (a sect of Christianity) and felt a tad bit off about it.
This is basic background which I’ll get into more depth in but let me begin with his story of reconnecting with Islam. A couple of years back, he used to live in the DMV, Mr.C had given some thoughts about Islam here and there so while he was in Springfield working on his car, he decided to search for the nearest mosque. That mosque he found is our beloved Islamic center.
He went in and looked around the area and spectated the khutbah before prayer. He walked around and found and walked into the office where he coincidentally met Teacher L.J. He spoke about his thoughts of reverting back into Islam and Teacher L. J explained in a way that made him feel like Islam is the right path for him.
This made me connect and think about how lucky we are as students to learn under the presence of someone who makes our brains working, someone who pushes our edge to find our personal place with God. He said something that really sparked me personally, he told our class that if he went to another center to learn about Islam there would be a chance he would never revert and look the other way. It is because we are taught to question and not follow random phrases that we don’t know the meaning of. Questioning and being curious is a fundamental aspect of our lives “why is _ better than_” or “why do we do__” are things we should think to ourselves with a lot things we handle in our life.
Mr.C also spoke about a book but I didn’t get a chance to get the name of, but it helped him to understand and feel the Quran not to just blindly follow.
Ms. J got her chance to speak and she told us a heart-touching story that made me feel so much love and hope for our society. She unfortunately got cancer in 2018, this made her think about life more deeply and look into multiple religions. She didn’t feel connected to all of them as much as she felt a connection to Islam. Reading the Quran made her feel alive. In the year 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, she joined the Adam’s Center program where Islam went more in depth.
This class is where she also met Mr. C and also recited the Shahadah to officially make a Muslim again. Fortunately, her family accepted her decision and loved her regardless which brings me a lot of joys because Islam is seen as a violent and hateful religion to the western world. Many people outside of Islam don’t even know what Islam vows for and the make these stereotypes and assumptions about Islam. It brought me joy to learn that Ms. J also taught her parents a tad bit about Islam which is an amazing deed in Islam and as a person itself. Teacher LJ announced finding Islam is a tremendous way of getting reward, they found Islam compared to most of the students in Greenstairs who are born Muslim culturally