The Turn is Yours!

This is  week 6/7 as I have told you before. For week 6 write a free post and comment. For week 7 answer the survey below:

Click here to take the survey

You have to answer all of the three pages.

Salaam, girls. I have enjoyed your beautiful remarks on my previous post. I believe that transforming our prayer will lead to a great transformation in our daily lives. Yes, we all pray these five obligatory prayers, but, unfortunately,  most of us do it out of custom. We just move our bodies from standing to rukuu to sujood unconsciously. If you find yourself always having problems remembering in what rakaa’ you are, your prayer is really suffering! Even the prophet (PBU) had forgotten during the prayer in what rakaa’ he was several times and that is why we have ” Sujood As-sahu”, but if this becomes your habit , then it ia an indication of your prayer lack of concentration and humility as well in the same way pain is an indication of physical disease! Now, a very important step in improving our humility in prayer is increasing our knowledge of the surahs and supplications we recite in the prayer! We have talked about sincerely asking God’s refuge from Satan who tries to sway our minds away from prayer and about takbeer, ” Allah is the Greatest” which should remind us at the beginning of each rakaa’ of Allah being greater and more important than worldly matters. Now we will talk about a great surah which we have to say at least 17 times a day?

Have you ever asked yourself why? It is because it summarizes the whole Islamic faith in only 7 ayas! Has it ever occured to you that when you are reading this surah, you are having a conversation with Allah, and that you are supplicating him after praising him! Pay attention to this qudsi hadith taken from Sahih Muslim:

Abu Hurairah said: I have heard the Prophet (PBU) say: “Allah (the Mighty and Sublime) has said: I have divided prayer between Myself and My servant into two halves, and My servant shall have what he has asked for. When the servant says:  All praise belongs to Allaah the Rabb of all the Worlds.

Allah (mighty and sublime be He) says: My servant has praised Me. And when he says: The Most Gracious the Most Merciful Allah (mighty and sublime be He) says: My servant has extolled Me, and when he says: Master of the Day of Judgement Allah says: My servant has glorified Me -and on one occasion He said: My servant has submitted to My power. And when he says: You alone do we worship and from You alone do we seek help He says: This is between Me and My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for. And when he says: Guide us to the Straight Path, the Path of those whom you have favoured, not of those upon whom is your anger, nor of those who are astray

He says: This is for My servant, and My servant shall have what he has asked for

قال الله تعالى” قسمت الصلاة بيني وبين عبدي نصفين، و لعبدي ما سأل فإذا قال العبد ،”الحمدلله رب العالمين”، قال الله تعالى، ” حمدني عبدي”1

For more reflection upon this hadith, you can read this article by Ibn-Alqayyem

When you find that your mind floats away with worldly matters during the prayer, remember that you don’t want to be a slave of this life, of the dirham and dinar but you want to be sincere slave of God!

Chapter 2 for section 60.

Chapter one for 61.

Eid Sa’eed to all of you in advance.  As in the title, this is the fifth week and you have a chance to do your job until the last day of the vacation. This week, you have to write a post, and comment on my post as well as five of your classmates.

Please be smart enough to make use of the “save” option, which means that even if you are busy, you can make use of any free ten minutes you have and write a little,  and save writing to come back to it whenever you have time and finish it. You may  leave it for a day or two, and then come back to it and revise it. Finally, you publish it.

Actually, you may write several posts when you have free time  and save them to be revised  when submitting time is due. As for students who write several posts in one week, I consider their posts as work done in advance if they don’t submit posts in the following week or weeks.

Now, let me tell you what your work for weeks 6 and 7 is going to be, so that if you have time you might prepare it in the vacation. For week 6, you will write a free post again, and for week 7, you will have an assignment that won’t take more than ten minutes from you. That assignments is going to be simply answering an online survey about the blog. That is why I have decided to make these two weeks into one week for 2,5 grades. 1,5 for the post and the usual comments, and one grade for the survey.

That is going to be the last compulsory blogging work. After that, you may continue writing only of you wish.

When I came home from work a few days ago, my son peeked at me through the left ajar door, and once I came close, he ran away, trotting like a lovely little horse! My little boy had just had his hair cut and he was happy about it, but I was in with a shock for him!

I ran after him shouting,” Gosh, where is your “Keeshat”? ” Kesha” means messy hair in Arabic. “Keshaat” is the plural! Can anybody have more than one Kesha? My son did, and this is how. I teased him about his kesha by counting every flying mess of hair as one Kesha! I would say to him, ” Look how many Keeshas you have, one, two, three….” Sometimes, I even named him Keeshat! and he loved it! My son very well knows that when I give him strange names, it means I want to have fun with him!

I was not really happy when my Lateef’s Kesha was cut off because I thought he looked more handsome when his hair was long. It is true it got messy when he woke up, but after a bath his hair would look awesome, and ( this is more important) I loved the ” Keeshaat” teasing game! Now, what can I tease him about? hmmmmm

My poor little boy has not had a rest from teasing after having his hair cut for now I tease  him about not having the beautiful ” Keeshaat”! I ask him, ” Where is that cute boy named Keeshaat? I miss him!”, and he tries to mess his hair and says,” Here he is!”, but of no avail. His hair is too short to be messy. What a pity!

Silly mom? Yeah, that is right. You talked about motherhood in your essays but you forgot that a part of being a mom is being silly. Yes, this poor mom does not only have to be serious and responsible, but she has to be as silly as her kids are! She has to switch roles wisely and as necessary. Going down to the level of your kids make them feel happy, safe, understood, and ” well loved”. It strengthens the relationship between parents and their kids. Remember how you were, as a child, beside yourself with joy and ecstasy when an adult played with you? It is great for parents as well for it is a good excuse for them to release the child deeply within.

Reading stories is a very important quality time between parents and their kids. For those who love story writing, I’ll tell a funny story I love to read with my two little boys. It is Written by Dr.Suess, a well known childeren story author. In short, as a strange creature is doing some errands, he sees green empty pants with nobody insides them hanging in the air. He is horrified and runs away, ” I’m not horrified, but I have nothing to do with empty pants,” he claims. Wherever he goes, he sees those pants walking, rowing a boat, and riding a bike! “  Since when where bicycles made for goofy pale green pants to ride!” he exclaims. Finally, he finds himself face to face with the green empty pants, but before he manages to shout, the green pants, to his surprise, start trembling, whimpering, and crying. ” They are as horrified as me!” The creature realizes. He then puts his arm around their waist to calm them down.

And, now, we meet quite often, Those empty pants and I, And we never shake or tremble. We both smile And we say “Hi!” dr.Suess

The moral behind this comic story is that we have to place ourselves in other people’s shoes. If I happen to be in a good mood , I have my kids bring their pajama pants after reading this story and play with them as empty moving pants. They love it! God bless them.

I loved these essays and I would like you to read them.  They are more detailed and  I had the impression that Rajaa and Asma have invested considerable time writing their essays.  Rajaa’s essay is more descriptive.

That doesn’t mean, however, that they are error free. They need to be revised.You can help each other. There is nothing wrong that when you comment on your classmate’s work, you point out a mistake or two. You are all one team.

First of all, I was impressed when I saw the pages you have added to your blog which means you are active and love to practice writing for its own sake, not for the sake of grades.

I suggest that you turn your ” classmates” page into a post to give your classmates the chance to respond to you. You have talked about Hawra, Afnan, Asma, Arwa, and Shams. Those students would surely want to respond to you so please give them the chance.

  As for your hobbies, I encourage you and every student who is talented in Arabic creative writing to attempt to translate the best of their work into English. Bear in mind , however, that when you translate, you should not be literal, i.e. you should not try to do a word for word translation, but write again, conveying the same meaning and do whatever changes that suit your target language ( the language to which you are translating).

 In regards to your assignment, you seem to have done it in a hurry. It is too short. Please write it again in an essay form, no less than three paragraphs.

Thanks to Asma, Eman, Hanan, Hawara, afrah, khlood Mutairi, Noura, Wejdan, Raja, Amal Najrani, Amani Marry,Amnah Ateah, Amnah Haddad.

Under the request of some you to extend the period ,you have a chance till tomorrow morning. Tell me here immediately when you have done your work.