In the name of Allah

In the month of Ramadan if you are sick you don’t have to do your fast until you are healthy again. After Ramadan ends you must “ketchup”them.

One responsibility of the prophet was to purify the heart and soul. First he purifies the heart then he teaches it.

 When the heart is not pure it doesn’t let you do good things. When the heart is pure it doesn’t let you do bad things.

Hypocrites will be at the core of the fire at hell.

The least punishment for the people in hell is that they will have to wear shoes made of fire … that will boil their brain!

For each group of bad people there is a separate type of fire  just for them.

To be in the fire of saghar you …

• take prayers lightly
• spend time talking in vain
• don’t pay charity to the ones who need it

What the fire of hell will do to you.

• Allah burns your skin, you regrow it, gets burned …
• never die
• never live the life of a regular person

A story about the prophet…

The prophet was sitting. Then Gabriel came down to him. The prophet had never seen him so sad and terrified. Then the prophet asked what was wrong? Then Gabriel replied – I just saw the hell fire – he explained…

There are 70 years of red fire following 70 years of yellow then 70 of black.

Note from summarizer:   Now you know why some of the moemen became unconscious when they read about the hellfire in the Quran.

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From the play practice, to a special session with Sheikh Abdul Jaleel about a brother’s responsibility as he grows up, to a game of soccer and cops and robbers, this past Saturday was definitely one that was full of activities.

The day started with the two teams (brothers and sisters) practicing for our play that will be coming up in about two weeks insha…. Here is the trailer:

Following our practice, we went outside for about an hour to play some soccer and have our snacks until Sheikh Abdul Jaleel arrived.

The lecture by Sheikh Abdul Jaleel was truly a fruitful one. He began to explain the responsibilities and rules and regulations for a Muslim boy as he heads towards the age of buloogh. He explained how reaching this age makes certain things wajeb (like Salat, fasting, Hajj…) and other things Haram. It is at this age where the two angels Raqeeb and Ateed begin to write down all of your deeds and the book of your actions is started. After his lecture, we had a question/answer session where the boys had asked a number of questions to the Sheikh on all topics. Some of them included the purpose of creation, the rules set forth between boys and girls, the rulings on certain Islamic duties, and much more.

We would like to thank the Sheikh for coming all the way out on a Saturday to be with us. May Allah (SWT) bless him and his family and grant him a life of happiness.

To end our day, we went outside for a long game of cops and robbers. From what I can recall, I think amino had the best hiding spot, hiding in a hollow tree. I hope he didn’t bother the Keebler elf too much while he was making his cookies. And when he was a cop, he managed to round up a good number of the robbers. Insha…. he’ll make a great secret agent one day ;=)…

Until next week…

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.

In the name of Allah

Note: from next week we start at 7:30 sharp. At prayer time we will take a break, do our prayers, and then start the question answer session.

Again this week we are talking about the moafigheen. These people are worse than the kofar. They are the main reason Islam is all divided up.

Monafigheen are always deceiving people.

The stages of doing good/bad deeds

1. questioning self – unsure of what they did                   
2. they think “it’s not a big deal”
3. it becomes part of person

Things Imam Ali says about monafigheen                           

• they ask a lot of questions unnecessary questions
• they cry for no reason
• they are waiting to be praised

Allah says ” When they are trying to deceive me they are deceiving themselves”.

If you are trying to deceive the prophet, you are trying to deceive Allah.

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When you do a good deed you are building a wall to protect yourself from bad deeds   -   when you do a bad deed you are building a wall to protect yourself from good deeds.  

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                                                                                                                                                          A Muslim is not allowed to deceive people under any circumstances.

Comment from summarizer: Before you start testing others of being a monafigh, first test yourself.

Summarized by Reza Baghaee-Rezaee

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What a beautiful day it was.  Our day began with Quran as usual and then we headed for our calligraphy class (see the respective recaps).  It seems like most folk are finding the advanced Quran class a bit hard.   Realize that the reason why we take this class so seriously is because it will be the most useful class for you in the future.  Insha…. when you all get older you will see the importance not only knowing how to read the Quran, but understand it as well.

After our classes, we went outside for a game of soccer and frisbee.  Some folk thought that throwing a frisbee was easy, you just have to swing it.  With a challenged placed to them of a free ice cream had they been able to throw the frisbee straight, a few people tried, but the ice cream remained safe.  Better luck next time guys, you all should just keep to sports that don’t require the use of hands (for those who don’t get the joke, look up a previous week’s post on the guys “trying” to play football).

After our hour outside, we began practice for our play.  Insha… this play will truly be an eye opener to all those who want to learn about the character of Hazrate Zahra, the incidents that took place after the Prophet’s demise, and what our Ahlul Bayt went through.   It is truly a sad and delicate story that we hope to insha… tell in a very concise and creative manner.

I know the schedule is becoming very demanding guys, but mahsa…. you all are truly holding up well.  From the Arabic class, to calligraphy, to Quran, to play practice, to hadiths (which reminds me, don’t forget to practice your two hadiths for this saturday, they are in the hadith section), to the memorizing group, you all are accomplishing so much at such an early age.  Rather than just sitting at home and playing games you make an effort to come out and be with your Muslim friends to practice and learn about your religion, keep it up!!!!  Insha…. we will have a very bright future ahead of us with you all as our leaders.

Salam,
Alhamdolellah this week we had our calligraphy class. After a week delay because of the Play Practice we continued on our letters.
How many dots does the height of the letter cover? The main question that you have to ask yourself for how to write the letter correctly.

Keep That in Mind & Never Forget

Since   د   ر  و  were easy to learn ill just go over  م
3 main parts: the heading – the curve – the straight line

notice: the height of  م  includes 6 dots – 5 for under the  baseline and 1 for above

Dont forget to practice your roles for the PLAY…

YA ALI

In the name of Allah

So far we have discussed two out of the three groups mentioned in sura baghara. They are…

1. the pious people (that should be our goal)
2. the kofar

Now we will discuss the third. The third are monafigheen. These people are the hypocrites. They are worse than the kofar.

3 qualities of monafigheen. They will..

1. break promises
2. when they speak they speak lies
3. betray you (examples: lf you tell them a secret they will spread it – if you ask them to hold money for you they will spend/take it – ex.)

2 of many advice given by the prophet on how not become a monafigh

• do not allow yourself to speak lies
• keep your promises

Did you know…

That the monafigheen have done the most harm to Islam!

The monafigheen get twice the punishment, both in this world and in the next.

A story to think about…

A man asked the prophet can a moemenn kill an innocent man? yes. cheat? yes. steal? yes. you mention it! yes. yes. yes. but when the man said lie, the prophet said no! lying is the key to all those other things!

Everything has a center. The center of :

• quran = sura ya sin
• human = heart
• ahlolbayt = hazrat zahra

When the prophet’s body was weak he would go to Zahra’s house

Zahra is the daughter of the prophet and the mother of the imams!

In the Quran Allah refers to humans in three names

1. al insan
2. al bashar
3. banee adam

Any time he wants to criticize/say something negative he uses 1 and 2

Any time he wants to complement/say something positive he uses 3

Inshallah we will see you next week!

Summarized by Reza Baghaee-Rezaee

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.

This is Ronaldiniho guatos actual shoes when he went to AC Millan:

These shoes were made specifically by Ronaldiniho by an Asain shoe desighner that works for Nike. Even though the shoes where made for him when he was on Barcelonah he still uses them now that he is on AC Millan.

This is a link of Ronaldiniho getting the shoes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFCgV59jvLw

This his Ronaldinihos Ball:

This ball was also made by Nike specifically for Ronaldiniho even though Ronaldiniho was on Barcelonah he got these shoes he still uses them even though he is on AC Millan because they are not specified for AC Millan.

This is Ronaldinihos Jersey on AC Millan:

Also for those of you who are interested this is a link to a vedeo of Ronaldiniho playing soccer as a kid :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eqKiGrbxlI

This is a video of Ronaldiniho playing soccer when he is older:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t027ri7EOTs

And this is a little about Ronaldinihos life:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf14eRnWw4I

Now you guys know a little about all of the hard work Ronaldiniho Gaucho did to become the great soccer player widely know as Ronaldiniho so if you are ever thinking of becoming a soccer player you know all of the hard work Ronaldiniho went through to become a great soccer player but also remember that Allah is the one that does all of this.

Please post your comments about this and I hope you liked it.

بسم الله الرّحمن الرحيم

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful

In the Region of Mena

By: Mohammadamin

The people that had went to hajj were gathered in a place called Mena. Imam Sadeg and his companions had, just for a moment, sat down at a place and enjoyed the grapes that were in front of them. A poor person came and asked for help. Imam picked up some of the grapes and went to give it to the poor person. But, the poor person did not accept and he instead said, “Give me money.”

Imam replied, “I don’t have any money” The poor person got disappointed and left.

After the poor person walked some steps, he changed his mind and said, “So, just give me the grapes.”

Imam stated, “I can’t.” And he didn’t even give him the grapes this time.

It didn’t take that long for another beggar and vagabond to show up. Imam got some grapes and gave it to that person too.

The poor person took the grapes and said, “I praise the merciful lord of the worlds for my food.” After hearing his sentence, the Imam stated for the person to stop and then filled his two palms full of grapes and gave it to the man.

For the second time the poor beggar praised God.

Imam still said, “Wait and don’t go.” Then he turned to one of his companions there and asked, “How much money do you have with you?” He checked and found that he had 20 Durham (The unit of money in that region), therefore with the command of the Imam he gave the money to the poor person. For the third time, the beggar praised and thanked Allah and stated, “Praise is most exclusive to and belongs to Allah. Oh Allah! You are the most beneficent and you have no partner. (Meaning there is only on God since Islam is a monotheistic religion)”

The Imam, after hearing this sentence, took off his cloak and gave it to the poor man. After this the poor beggar changed his sentence and said a praiseful sentence toward the Imam himself. Imam did not give anything to him anymore and the poor man left.

The companions and partners (Of Imam Sadeg) said, “We have presumed that if the vagabond continued praising god, the Imam would have still continued to help him. But, because he changed his tone and praised and thanked the Imam, the help got discontinued.

Source: Dastane Rastan

Be Grateful of Your Blessings!

There was a similar situation with me and brother Islami in one of our Saturday session not so long ago. He was giving out snacks which was chips and he gave me a random type but I didn’t accept it (Because I didn’t like the type) and I took too long to pick another kind so he said that I can’t get one anymore. This is just like situation with the first beggar and how he changed his mind . But brother Islami gave me one at the end. But life is not always like that. You should never beg someone for anything. You should Try your hardest to provide your needs and necessities for yourself. And if you are lucky to be given a blessing you should not refuse it. You should accept it and thank and praise God first and then the person that gave it to you. But of course you all ready new that. Right?!

Please Recite:

Plese recite the Sore of Praise

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds, (2) The Beneficent, the Merciful. (3) Owner of the Day of Judgment, (4) Thee (alone) we worship; Thee (alone) we ask for help. (5) Show us the straight path, (6) The path of those whom Thou hast favoured. Not (the path) of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray. (7)