Mohebban Fatemeh

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.

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….

This week, our CNN news guest reporter was back. She thought she had found the key to bring down Islam and defeat our Mohebban girls.So, she started off by questioning the justice of Islam and saying that the laws within Islam favors men and oppresses women. She used the law on polygamy (the condition of having more than one wife at once) as an example to support her claim. She also accused the great prophet of Islam as a lustful man who had more than one wife.

It seems this was an issue that even some of our Mohebban girls had problem with it too. However, Sajidah start defending this law by saying that this law came because a lot of men died during battles and the wives and children of those who died needed protection. Sajidah said Allah (S.W.T) restricts this law by telling men they have to maintain justice among their wives or else they are not allowed to marry more than one wife. Meaning that whatever he provides for one wife he has to do the same for the others.

Our CNN news guest reporter immediately said that a man might be able to financially maintain justice, but he will never be able to share devotion and love equally among his wives, so that is still on fair for women.

Most of our Mohebban girls were quiet this time. So we decided to talk about this law in more depth, talking about the history of this law!

The law of polygamy was NOT initiated in Islam, this law existed as a culture from the time of prophet Ibrahim, as it has been mentioned in the bible too. What Islam did was that it gave this law boundary, restricting men to marry not more than 4 wives. As the verse “ … marry another woman for your choice or two, or three, or four…..4:3) was revealed after the battle of Ohud , where the Muslims were defeated and many men died in this battle. Therefore, many orphans and widows were left who needed protection and support, so verse number 3 in chapter 4 was revealed. Since there was no one to protect the orphans and the widows, now Islam allowed men to marry more than one.

We said that Islam is a complete religion and because it has laws for every aspect of life under different scenarios. After World War II many people died and as a result many women were left behind. The German government instituted the law of polygamy to protect and support the widows and orphans of the war.

So, this shows that how complete and thoughtful the religion of Islam is, that a law that was instituted 14 centuries ago in the time of prophet Muhammed (PBH) was even used after the World War II, because the conditions were the same.

So where the intention is to support and protect orphans and widows; men are allowed to marry more than one; but still they need to treat all their wives equally, not giving them hardship of any kind. And as the CNN news reporter said “ Men cannot share devotion” that’s true and the reason is that the law of polygamy is not a law that allows men to marry more than one wife for emotional reasons…but for the mean of protection and support.

In regards of accusing the holy prophet of Islam, we said that Prophet Muhaamed (PBH) married a lady who was 15 years older than him and he stayed with one wife all those years till Hazrate Khadejah passed away. All the marriages after that were because of political and social reasons. So if he was a lustful man then he wouldn’t marry a woman 15 years older than him and also he wouldn’t stay with one in a society where marrying more than one wife was a norm.

We used some examples to clarify and complete our discussion. This debate seemed to be more challenging for our mohebban girls, but Alham…, after we talked about the history of this law it seemed the issue was cleared for some our mohebban girls.

Maybe our CNN news reporter guest was able to ask tricky questions and cause doubt in our mohebban girls…. Still, this doesn’t mean our CNN news reporter won the debate!!!! Because, we did find the answer at the end of our discussion, and our doubts were cleared… remember that doubt is the first step of reaching certainty.

Everyone was ready for the debate, mostly Sajidah and Zainab. Mashallah these two girls were fully prepared and they had their resources ready in their hands. This one seemed to be a tough debate for our CNN news reporter guest.

So the CNN news reporter started by saying Prophet Muhammad (PBH) spread Islam by sword and he was a warrior prophet. And in Islam people can kill each other under the name of Jihad. Islam in not a peaceful religion despite all the claims you Muslims have.
Our guest tried to support her claim by using the verse in the Quran that says (… Slay the pagans where ever you find them …9:5)

Now it was Zainab’s turn, she immediately caught the CNN news reporter’s trick. Zinab said to our guest “that you did not mention the entire verse; the verse will start with saying ‘When the sacred months are over, slay the pagans where ever you find them….. If they repent, perform prayers, and pay the religious tax, set them free…. 9:5). Zinab and Sajidah start giving more explanation about the history of this verse as they said that this verse was revealed when the pagans of Mekaa broke the peace treaty of Hudaybiyah. They started to explain what the history of Hudaybiyah was:

So the pagans of Mekka were giving Muslims a very hard time for three years. And then prophet Muhammad (PBH) signed a peace treaty with the pagans of Mekaa called “the treaty of Hudaybiyah”. Based on this peace treaty Muslims were now able to enter Mekka, perform pilgrimage and go to their families. After this treaty was signed, then Allah (SWT) revealed chapter 48, Surah Al- fath (The Victory). As the first verse of this chapter says: “we have granted to you a manifest victory 48:1) this means that the greatest victory of Muslims was through pen and paper, not sword.

Because now Muslims were able to meet their families and preach Islam and this was the best way Islam could’ve been spread. Not by sword, but through educating people.

However, when the pagans of Mekka broke this treaty, then Allah (SWT) revealed Surah Al-Tobah, chapter 9. Where Allah allowed the prophet to fight with the pagans, but at the same time Allah says that only fight those who broke the treaty “ This does not apply to the pagans with whom you have a valid peace treaty and who have not broken it from their side…. 9:4)

As Allah also says give them respite for four months, for them to repent, if after 4 months they didn’t repent, then fight back.

Zinab also said that, because pagans of Mekka broke the peace treaty, even after all the oppression they did to Muslims, then Allah revealed surah al-Tobah, and this is why this Surah does not start with “ In the name of God, THE BENEFICENT THE MERCIFUL” because now Allah has removed his mercy from those who broke the treaty.

Our guest was stunned with the responses she was getting; she tried to escape from the hard time our Muslim girls were giving her. But whatever our guest tried to use to attack Islam, she failed BADLY!!!

At the end every one recited a loud Salawat for Zinab and Sajidah…. Mashallah to both of you!!!

These soldiers of Islam know who to defend Islam !

So the trophy goes to our Mohebban girls. Our CNN news reporter guest was actually sneaking out while she was covering her red face. However, before she leaves the room she said she will be back next time and will question the justice of Islam, because Islam allows man to have more than one wife. So lets see if our soldiers of Islam will be able to win the debate next time or not!!!

We started our class with talking shortly about the holy Quran and its importance in our lives. We said that unfortunately many people don’t read the meaning of the Quran and they really don’t know what this holy book is saying. As these little soldiers of Islam love to debate and defend Islam, through all these debates we had so far, they all realized the fact that if they had more knowledge about the Quran they were able to defend Islam better and have a more successful debate.

We said that the enemies of Islam love to take the verses out of context to bring Islam down; and our knowledge of Quran is the only way we can fight back….

So we planned for next times debate, that there will be a guest from “CNN news “who will attack Islam by mentioning a verse in Sora Al-tawbeh where it says “ …. Slay the pagans wherever you find them…” (9:5)

She will use this verse against Muslims to accuse them as being violent and to question the “peacefulness” of the great religion of Islam.

Therefore, Mohebban girls are suppose to seek more knowledge about this verse till next debate. They will find more information by asking others, reading the verse and thinking about it.

So lets see who will win the debate next time, our little Soldiers of Islam or our CNN news reporter?!

Everyone was excited to start the debate. This week we decided to talk about free will and predestination. A topic that most humans will question one day!!! Interestingly, most girls were not familiar with these terms. So we first explained what does free will and predestination means…

So we said that free will is when we have control over our lives and we make decisions of what we want to do and how we want our lives to be and Allah does not interfere with our decisions. And predestination means that Allah (SWT) is controlling our actions and deeds, and we do not have any control over our lives; because God has already determined what will happen to us. After we clarified the meaning of these terms, we divided ourselves into three groups. Those who believed that everything is predestined upon us, those who said that we have complete free will, and like always a middle group who believed that it’s a combination of both free will and predestination.

We said that most people start questioning their free will when they fail to achieve something…So to begin our discussion, one acted as a guest student who was not able to pass a class; despite all the hard studies and prayers she claimed she had done. Her claim was that “I studied, I prayed, if God wanted I would have passed. So Allah (S.W.T) chose for me to fail the class… it was predestined upon me to fail”.

Our “free will” believers responded to her“That YOU didn’t study hard “, the “predestined” believers said that “It was the wisdom ( hekmat) of Allah (S.W.T) for you not to pass” . So the reaction of our guest to this response was that “So the wisdom of Allah (S.W.T) was for to me to fail, how is that consistent with the mercy of Allah, when there is no benefit in failing a class?!”

Melika from our middle group came up with an amazing perspective about this. She reminded us of the “Virginia tech shooting” she said that maybe Allah wanted you to fail and not to go to another class next year, because then someone would have come in the class and shot you or something bad could have happened.” The point she was trying to make was that we never know what is behind the curtains. As Allah (S.W.T) says in the Quran that “I knows something that you do not know”, we can never figure out what will happen tomorrow. The story of Prophet Moses and Hazrate Khezr was wonderful way to elaborate on this topic. In this story whatever Hazrate Khezr did, was question by Prophet Moses, and by the end of the day, Prophet Moses realized that not everything is bad as it seems!!!

To further clarify our discussion, we used a scientific analogy to explain free will and predestination. Everything in the world has a system, and the system looks like a box. It provides an environment where molecules can move freely around in any direction they want; and every once in a while the molecules interact with each other and then they can change their directions. That system is like this world that has boundaries that was determined by Allah (S.W.T) , and we are like the molecules that are moving in any direction we want within this boundary. As molecules hit each other and change each other’s directions, we humans constantly encounter each other and we affect one another through our actions and deeds. We can either deviate someone from the right path or help someone to enter the right path. By the end of the day, it is the “ME” that determines his path and destiny.

Allah says in the Quran “There is no compulsion in religion. Certainly right has become clearly distinct from wrong, whoever rejects the devil and believes in Allah has firmly taken hold of a strong handle that never breaks….2:256) With this verse, Allah (S.W.T) is telling us that He has given us free will to make decisions for our lives. However, whichever path we choose, there will be some circumstances associated with that path. These circumstances are already determined by Allah(S.W.T) .

As If we have a pen in our hands, it’s our decision to either hold on to it or to drop it, that is our free will. However, if we decide to drop it, it will fall, because there is gravity that God has created and that is the “predestination” part of this world, the circumstance of dropping a pen is that the pen will fall. Same goes with everything else; if you study, you will succeed, if you don’t, you won’t. It’s your choice, your effort!!! Our lives are a combination of free will and predestination, so we have to try our best to make the most out of what Allah has given us.

A nice breeze was blowing, so we decided to do things differently and have our discussion outside. This week’s debate was about music!!! The most popular and common thing most teens and teenagers enjoy. In today’s society music has become an addiction. Everyone is always walking around with head phones in their ears. Its like with out it everyone would be walking around like dead zombies.

To begin our discussion, we divided ourselves into three groups, those who listen to Islamic music, those who listen to non-Islamic music and those who listen to both. We began asking ourselves, why do people listen to non Islamic music? The common answer for this question was that it has a “nice beat and rhythm”. Then we turned question over to the opponent side those who do listen to Islamic nasheeds. We asked them why they enjoy listening to Islamic Nasheeds?

The response for this question was that “Islamic Nasheeds/songs help remind you of Allah(SWT) and the prophet.” very true!!!Islamic lyrics motivate you to become closer to Allah(SWT) and the Ahlul-Bayt. In a way it actually promotes you to do good deeds(Amr be Maroof) depending on what the Nasheed/songs is about. I must thank our non-Islamic listeners group for honestly admitting the fact that most non-Islamic songs do not have good lyrics, meaning there is nothing in their lyrics that reminds you of Allah (SWT). Half the time it’s all very pointless.

Though our non Islamic music group did not approve of the lyrics, they still felt that non-Islamic music just has a better tune to it.We then had our middle group jump in saying that ” Though we do listen to both, we prefer the Islamic over non Islamic songs because of the meaning. ” True that most Muslim teens and teenagers may not listen to the lyrics of the non-Islamic music, but one thing we need to realize is that though we think these songs do not affect us, it affect our soul more that we can imagine. Allah has given to us a pure and clean soul. It is our duty to keep it that way. One of the best ways we can keep our souls pure is through constantly remembering Allah (SWT) listienng to lyrics that remind us of him. Allah says in the Quran, ” Constantly remember me (othkoroonee)”. Non-Islamic music is the best thing that can deprive us from remembering Allah.

When we look back to the 70’s and 80’s, Rap and Hip Hop music were used to promote people to rise and oppose the the politics of their time. The contents of these types of music were mostly about revolutions, racism, and politics. These musics were used as a mean to energize revolutionary people; the government starts changing the content of these musics. But they kept the shell intact, so these musics will still sound good, but the meaning will be different now. So what we are hearing today are not revolutionary songs!!! The contents of these musics have been changed and are used to deprive people’s mind from thinking and knowing of what is really going on in the world….. This way politicians can do what they want without any opposition from their people.

We know that the soul in us belongs to Allah (SWT) and we have to ask ourselves with listening to non-Islamic music are we taking good care of this soul or not? Also, what are we gaining and what are we losing when we listen to music? As we grow up, there will be more distractions in our lives and the only thing that can save us from those distractions is the remembrance of Allah.

Today mohebban girls defended Islam against Christianity. To begin this debate, Sr, Naemeh acted as a Christian guest and brought up arguments that usually Christians use to attack Islam. Mashallah these little soldiers of Islam were full of energy and passion. They were able to come up with wonderful answers.

Our Christian guest asked, why do Muslims believe Jesus is not dead, when even in their Holy book  Jesus (PBH) says “Peace be upon me the day I was born, they day I will die and the day I will be resurrected”!!!

Sajidah immediately came up with a brilliant answer that the “death” mentioned by Prophet Jesus doesn’t mean that he was dead; it simply means that before the Day of Judgment, everyone will experience death and so will he.

Answering this question Muslims got a point. However, they were not able to convince our Christian guest when she asked the second question.. How can Prophet Muhammad (PBH) claim to be a Prophet, yet he didn’t have any miracles to prove his prophet hood?

Some girls came up with the answer that Quran is the miracle of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Though this is true, this answer can only convince a Muslim. Since, Christians do not believe in the Holy Quran, our Christian guest was not convinced. That meant one point for our Christian guest.

Another question asked from our Chrisitian guest was how can you prove that Quran is the word of God and not Prophet Muhammad’s (PBH)?

Dordaneh did a descent job answering this one; She said since there is only one scripture of the Quran, nothing can contradicts it.

It was a long  debate filled with so much excitement. Even our Muslim girls were able to challenge our Christian guest by asking good questions, such as how can you claim Jesus as God if you believe Jesus has died, if so then there would be no God anymore. Brilliant!!!!

At the end, Muslims got a total of three points and our Christian guest got only one. After the debate, we began further discussing some of the questions.

The answer to how can you prove that Quran is the word of God is that if the Quran was written by prophet Muhammad(PBH) then the center of the Quran would be Prophet Muhammad. Yet in the Quran, Allah mentions he is the center of the Quran “have Muhammad invented some words against us we would have caught hold of him by his right hand (69:44-45).

And the answer to what was the miracle of prophet Muhammad (PBH), was that you don’t need a miracle to believe in morality. . And this is what makes Islam  beautiful!!! Because Islam is so complete and logical, every truth seeking person will accept it. Therefore no miracle proof is necessary to accept the religion.

However, at the time of Prophet Moses and Jesus  people’s understanding was not as  fully developed as it was at the time of Prophet Muhammad (PBH), that’s why they needed to have a miracles to be convinced to Islam.

Until next debate… who can guess who will be our new guest?