Mohebban Fatemeh

Our class started with a nice indoor soccer. Once again we played something that looked like soccer but it was not exactly soccer.

After our “soccer game” we went to class for a discussion about Haj (Pilgrimage). As you know right now, we are all in the month of Dhul-Hijjah which is the month of Haj. So, we started talking about what the concept of Haj is and what is it that Allah (SWT) is teaching us throughout this journey. We spoke about what Haj is like really like and every single person came up with a different perspective about Haj. Throughout this journey, Allah (SWT) teaches each of His servants a different lesson, according to the needs of each individual. At the end, every person who returns back from Haj, returns with a new lesson and a new experience that is useful for his life. The challenge for us is to remember that lesson and try to apply what Allah (SWT) taught us throughout this journey in our lives. Haj is like real life and for us to live in this life ( to be alive), it requires us to be dynamic beings. And to be dynamic, it requires to understand the importance of our existence and our responsibilities in the world.

After our discussion, we joined our Mohebban Brothers for our Imam Hassan’s(a.s) presentation. Next week is our sisters turn to present; so, we all are looking forward for this Saturday to come. So far, our mohebban girls performed an amazing job on their presentations. Nice Job !

At the end, we finished our class with reciting Quran and its Tafseer. Look under Quran class recap for more details.

As we all know, the month of Dhul Hijjah has arrived and people all around the world have gone to Makka to perform pilgrimage. Alham… among our Mohebban family, four of our members have been blessed to visit our prophet(PBH), four of our Imam’s, and the most important they are blessed to experience the journey of Hajj.

Inshallah they will all remember us in their prayers as they are visiting the holy places of Madinah and Makka.

As for us, it is highly recommended that we all increase in doing good deeds and extra voluntary acts of worship during this holy month.

Sisters general recap and sisters Quran class has been updated.

Recently we have combined our beginners and advance girls. We decided to start reciting the holy Quran from the first chapter and do the Tafseer based on (Tafsir-e Nemooneh) along the recitation.

So the first chapter which we all recited together was Surat Al-Fatiha. Inshallah next week we will be starting chapter two, which is surat Al-Baqara.

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Congratulations on the Birthday of Imam Hassan(a.s). This week we started our class with another discussion on the topic of Usool-e-Deen( look under Islamic Debate Section) for more details. Nice job to Dori, she was able to count and say what the Usol-e-deens are. We also had a nice discussion on other various topics that day. The girls were full of energy, they asked a lot of good question and we were able to look and examine some of them. After discussion, we started Quran, the advance Quran girls read the meaning of Sura-Al-fath and as they were reading the meaning of this chapter, they recalled the story of “the peace treaty of Hudaybieh” . They were trying to match the verses in this sura with the event of Hudaybieh. Now that the girls knew the story of Hudaybieh, Alham… it seemed this time they had a better understanding about the meaning of this chapter, and the verses made more sense to them. After Quran, we joined our Mohebban brothers to continue the recitation of Duaa-Iftitah and also a nice program about Imam Hassan(a.s).

The principle of Tawheed is such an important concept is Islam, that if it’s not fully understood, gradually doubts and uncertainties can enter our hearts and eventually it will lead us towards disobeying Allah (S.W.T). So this week we decided to talk about Tawheed in more depth…

We asked this question that why some people worship idols, and where does the desire of idol worshiping comes from?

So we said that all human beings have a need to worship something and at the same time they like to touch, see and sense their surroundings in order to understand and believe in something.

So we start examining both of these needs and desires, asking the question where dose the need of worshiping something comes from. Last week we said that Allah (S.W.T) has given us an innate nature to worship Him. This nature has been given to us before we entered this world. As Allah says in the Quran “that no creation is in this world, except that its worshiping Allah”. So this desire to worship a God is part of our creation and all beings are sensing it. That’s why people in the past and even today, were always looking for something to worship;as some worship the sun, the moon, rocks and some worship the true Allah.

At the same time people want to describe what they are worshiping, because it will be easier for them to understand it. Thats where the idea of making a God out of rocks comes from; the same reason Christians need a sculpture of Jesus when they want to pray. They need to see what they are worshiping at that TIME and at that SPACE, they need to describe it in order to believe in it……

When we want to define an object, that object is limited to time and space and that’s the reason why were able to describe it. For example we can think of a cup. The reason we see this cup is because that cup is occupying a certain amount of space at a particular time; this is what it means by being limited to time and space. Whatever we see around us is because it is limited to time and space, and since its limited we are able to describe it. The moment we are describing a cup, we say for example its blue, meaning that it will not be red, yellow etc anymore, so the moment we describe something we are limiting that thing. But for Allah, He is infinite, meaning we cannot describe Him, because He is not limited to time nor space. The reason we see objects around us is because we are able to surround that object; but the case of Allah is that He is the one who is surrounds everything….

Another example is that if we are setting in a room and a continuous rhythm (like as your tapping your finger on a table) is being played…. The tapping will create the same rhythm each time… if we are in a room that this sound is being played all the time, we will not be able to notice the sound, because the sound is continuously surrounding us… and that is the case of Allah who “surrounds everything” and He is present everywhere and all the times… that’s another reason why Allah says “believers are those who believe in the unseen”.

We cannot see Allah, but we can see His signs, the signs of Allah are all the things He has created….we are His signs, so if we deny the existence of Allah, we have denied our own existence.

We see that the sun rays approach us during the day, not us approaching the sun rays. and thats how we know sun exists… same with Allah(S.W.T), Allah is the one who will approach us; He will show Himself to us through His signs ; He will give us the nature to know Him, but once we know Him, then it will be our turn…and our turn is nothing but to submit to Him.

As we have all learned, reciting one ayah in the month of Ramadhan is equivalent to finishing the Quran in any other month.

This week the sisters’ Beginners and Advance Quran class joined each other to recite the 30th Juz of Quran. Each person recited more than one Surah while others were following along ….

The brothers continued their endeavor to finish the Quran and completed Juz 8 of the Holy Quran.

This week Mohebban girls were talking about Usool-e-Deen and Froo-e-Deen. We said that Usool-deen is beliefs in Islam, while Froo-e-deen is actions. Shia Muslims believe in 5 Usool-e-deen which are Tawheed( Oneness of Allah), Nabuwat ( prophet hood), Qiyamat ( Day of Judgment), Adl( Justice) and Imamat ( leadership). Sunni Muslims only believe in the first three principles…. We continued our discussion by saying that every Muslim needs to reach certainty about the Usool-e-deen in Islam, meaning that we are allowed to question these principles. Every muslim needs to have a clear understanding of their Usool-e-deen, or else their actions can be easily questioned… because our actions or Froo-e-deen (like Prayer, fasting etc) which are considered as rituals in Islam, are all performed because we believe in Usool-e-deen… so having faith in the oneness of Allah make us to pray and obey His commends as for example we fast during the month of Ramadan…. another example is our belief in the day of Judgment , which make us to become better people, give charity, and once again obey Allah…. If our Usool-e-deen is not fully understood, is the same as if our beliefs are incomplete….

So we continued by talking about the first principle of Usool-e-deen which is the concept of Tawheed or the oneness of Allah. All Mohebban girls were asked this question that why they believe in God and why they believe that God is only one?

Some came up with good answers, reminding all of us about the first debate we had in our Mohebban class,( the Atheist vs theist debate)…Sara said God is like air, we can’t see Him but we feel Him, or love which we can’t see it but all humans can feel it… Marzieh said if there was more than one God then there would be a lot of conflict in creating this world….. Maryam also added to this discussion that this world is so well organized and that s because there is a creator who created this world so perfectly…. All three of them were correct, for example what Marzieh said is based on a verse in the Quran and also what Maryam said is similar to some verses in the Quran where Allah(S.W.T) asks people that why don’t they(the people) think about their creation… meaning that this creation and this world is so perfect that it cannot be made by itself…

so to complete this discussion we said, Belief in God is an innate tendency that Allah has given all human beings… thats one of the reasons why some people and groups start worshiping idols in the past…it all because all humans have this desire to worship something or someone….. so as Sara said we feel God although we can’t see Him… Also we said that if we look at the world from a scientific point of view we would see so much perfection…. no randomness takes place in this world and it’s all because there is a divine power controlling it….This world, our own creation is indeed an indication and sign for the existence of God… as in the Quran says,”but for those who take heed “….

So for next time we will talk more about this principle in Islam, about why some people despite the natural tendency they have to worship a God, still they become atheists or why some people worship idols? inshallah we will compare these different schools of thoughts with Islam’s concept of Tawheed….

Next week Mohebban is hosting a carnival to celebrate the Birth of our holy Imam, Imam Mahdi (S.A). Therefore this week, Mohebban girls were working on the posters for the carnival. Nice job to all of them, the posters turned out to look really nice. When the posters were done we started our Quran classes as usual. Alham…this week we saw more improvement in the girls recitations. The advanced Quran also read and finished surah Al-Insan’s translation. We talked about why Quran was sent to the holy prophet in gradual steps as it says in verse 23 of this chapter. The girls mentioned that all the verses in the Quran were revealed after an incident or an event; this way people were able to have a better understanding of the purpose of the verse and the law given to us. We also talked about night prayer which has been highly recommended in the Quran as is mentioned in verse 26 of this chapter “And during night, prostrate yourselves to Him, and glorify Him a ling night through ( 76:26)”. We said that despite what people think about night prayer, as to be hard and long… this prayer will most likely take about 15-20 min and the only hard part is just to get out of our cozy warm bed, and that’s it. But instead there is so much value in night prayer that Allah(S.W.T) says in surah Al-Israa ” may be your lord will raise you to a position of great glory (17:79)”

The last few verses of this chapter says that “Verily, this (chapter) is a reminder, so whosoever wills, let him take a Path to his Lord”. So we said that at the beginning of this chapter Allah(S.W.T) reminds us of our creation and all the mercy He has given us, hearing, sight , guidance, and also how he made the Quran in gradual steps to make it easy for us to understand, all of these verse are reminding us of how merciful Allah is. And at the end, the Quran will say that this chapter is indeed a reminder for us….

After Quran, we had a surprise Goodbye party for sis. Sara who helped us so much during the Fatemiyeh play and during the time Sis Hoda was traveling out of the country. We wish her success and best achievements in life as she’s leaving Mohebban for her educational purposes. surely we will all miss her.

At the end we joined our young Mohebban brothers for a short panel discussion about Taha camp and also to continue on our ‘Monajat Shabaneyeh” that we started last week. keep in touch with God everyone …..

First and foremost congratulations on the Birth of Imam Hussein and his brother Hazrate Abbas (AS) and his son, Imam Sajjad (AS)  to all the lovers of Ahlul beyt(S.A)

There are narrations that claim Hazrate Zahra(S.A) had seen Karbala in a dream. So she cried and went to the holy Prophet(PBH). The Prophet Muhammed(PBUH) told her not to cry, “there will be a time that throughout history Hussein’s name will be remembered for many generations and generations to come”. Also, there is another famous saying of the prophet which says that: “Hussein is from me and I am from Hussein” showing how honorable Imam Hussein is, that the blood that imam Hussein, Hazrate Abbas and all other companions shed in Karbala was the reason that kept Islam alive till today.

So peace be upon Imam Hussein and all his companions the day they were born, they day they were martyred and the day they will all be resurrected.

So our classes started outside, with a water ballon fight… we used water balloons, water bottles, and any other container filed with water for this fight… What a fight!!!

After having fun outside, we started our Quran classes (look under Quran class recap for more details). The advanced people also read and talked about the meaning of Sura Al-Insan ( Al-dahr).. Allah (S.WT) begins this chapter with the creation of human being… reminding us of His mercy, giving us this beautiful existence when we were nothing….. The Quran moves on by mentioning how Allah created us and how He gifted us with hearing and vision. And after giving the tools “hearing and sight”, he showed all human beings the right path “verily, We have shown him the way, whether he is grateful or ungrateful 76:3)”. As the Quran says some of us will be grateful and some ungrateful; shows that we have the ability to make our own decisions. Then the Quran talks about the circumstances of those who follow this right path and those who reject it. Allah also mentions the signs of the believers who do good deeds only to please Him “we only feed you(the orphans and poor) for the sake of Allah… (76:9)” and also how Allah rewards people for their patience…as we mentioned Hazrate Zynab as one the best examples of a person who had the most patience in life, as she proved it after the tragedy of Karbala.

After Quran, sister Hoda continued her discussion on respecting parents. Last week we talked about some problems we all have with our parents, this week we were looking for a solution to how to overcome those problems. Sis Hoda, mentioned that the problems we have with our parents it’s a trial and a test from Allah, to see how patient we are with them. She said this is why there is so much emphasize in the Quran about respecting parents, because Allah knows it’s hard …and that’s exactly why Allah wants us to be patient and respectful with our parents as our parents are with us. We discussed that there were many occasions that our parents tolerated our misbehaviors, but the difference is that our parents our more patient with us than us being with them. Sis Hoda also brought the story of a man complaining to the prophet that how his son mistreats him. And the holy prophet asked that man how did you treat your father when you were young? The man replied that I also mistreated him, but not to the extent that my son is mistreating me. The reply was if you mistreat your parents when you’re young, your children will do the worse to you.

So we got to the point that there are many times parents ask us to do stuff and eventually we will do it for them but at the same time we show attitude. So the suggestion was that next time let’s try not to show that attitude while we’re doing something for them. The final question asked for this discussion was that now why it is good to treat our parents with respect. Parinaz replied “for them to pray for us”, and that was the best answer… parents prayer has so much value in it in the sights of Allah, so as conclusion patience is the key for all the problems including respecting parents.

For the beginners: Surah Alagh ( from the beginning of the chapter till the end)

For the advance people: Surah Al-Insan (verse 1-19)

Everyone needs to practice their lessons and be prepared for next week. Next week we are expecting to see improvements in everyone Inshallah…:)