2019 Oct Class of 10/13/19 note by 18 yr old male

DJ 18 years old  Male Class of 10/20/19

(actual note(s) from student(s)) submitted within one week of class –

(These notes are mostly unedited and represent a GISLA students understanding of the previous class the attended.) Student attend class on Sunday and submit their essay of what they learnt before the next class. Interestingly, as can be seen below the same class yields different lessons for each student even though the content of the class they hear was the same.)
Students graduate level 1 IF and WHEN they pass the Level one exam (some do it in 6 weeks and some take 3 years and counting…) and students from anywhere in the world can test out to pass and earn the GISLA Level one trophy)

Today when I entered into class today, I first prayed my fajir prayer and during the prayer my teacher gave me advice on how to sit on my legs correctly because it is important to pray the prayer positions properly. He also told me to when praying, take your time with the prayer and focus on god and leave any worldly distractions out. If you do that you will become closer to god and your faith.

After praying, I went into sujud for about 5 minutes and prayed to god and I also worked on getting my posture correctly because I kept pushing my forehead into the ground to hard and applying to much pressure on my arms and neck which hurt my body. I have to learn how to properly balance my neck, arms, and forehead on the ground next time so I could stay in Sujud for a long period of time without moving.

After the prayer, we mediated for about 10 minutes to some Dikhr and it was very helpful because it relaxed my mind and I felt like I was in the presence of god.

My teacher mentioned that when meditating and doing Dikhr, you should not say it like a mantra over and over again without really contemplating the meaning of god. Each time you utter a phrase, you should always have an intention and conviction to do it and not do it mindlessly. After the mediation, we started our testing session which lasted about 1 hour.

My homework from last week’s class was to memorize the Tashahhud in English and when I tested this week in class, I passed my homework assignment. After that, my teacher told me to memorize new material so I could move on.

During class I worked on memorizing Darudi Ibrahim, Al-Falaq, Al-Naas, and Al-Maaooon in both Arabic and English. After the testing session, we worked on practicing our Imran Khan speeches. We each took turns reading a certain section of his speech and we did it in front of everyone in order to practice on how to give a speech and have confidence.

One important part from Imran khan’s speech that I learned was that he mentions that the thing that drives people away from religion was the selective Islam that was practiced by the preachers and Mullahs. This meaning that there was a big difference in what they practiced and what they preached.

One of the biggest problems with Islam these days are that the preachers and scholars keep emphasizing too much on rituals and blind faith, rather than explaining the philosophy behind the religion and its history and a deep analysis of the Quran. I believe these problems that I mentioned must be fixed because if they are not, then Islam was always be stuck in the past and the orientalists and anti-Islam activists will become much stronger.

After the Imran Khan speech our teacher gave us a lecture. We all took out our phones out as instructed by the teacher and went to our GreenStairs Academy website in order to study the 75 concepts that will be on the level 1 exam. Some concepts that I found interesting were the 6 pillars of faith are belief in god, belief in angles, belief in the holy books, belief in the prophets, belief in the Day of Judgment, and you will be accountable for your sins on the day of judgement.

 Another concept that I learned was the reason why we spell God with four letters is because it means good. This means everything associated with God is good.

Another important concept that I learned was that faith is like a battery, the more you need to charge it in order to keep it fresh. This means that the less religious you are, the less likely your faith will be fresh and strong. It is very important to always charge your battery.

Some interesting things that I learned from my teacher was that the reason why we say Bismillah before eating is so we can feed our soul and not only our physical body.

Another thing that I learned was that perfection is an allusive concept because it is very difficult to achieve for most people.

Lastly, my homework for next week is to learn Al-Maaooon in Arabic, review the entire prayer, and study the exam concepts.