Islam 101 : Day 6

Today was full of information. Sr. A is back so we had a real class in the morning! We discussed the first 8 verses of Surah Nazat 79. Its oddly similar to Revelation. It discusses how the angels come and remove your soul at death. If you are a good person, it will be easy and pain free. If you are a bad person it will be very painful. We got on a tangent about how Allah would be able to bring us all back to life from mere dust into the world for judgement. They all had issues with this. They needed it to mean that we will literally be made flesh and put back on this earth to be judged. The teachers were trying to explain to them that Allah can do as he wishes, that we don't know for sure what will happen but they couldn't wrap their heads around it. It reminded me so much of the Book of Revelation, I believe there is a passage that discusses how the world will no longer be the world be know and the laws of nature will no longer apply. I really wanted to say something but I kept my mouth shut. I'm not sure if bringing up the Bible in a Qur'an class is a good idea. I'm going to try to read Revelation before next Sunday and if they start on it again, maybe I can give them an answer they better understand. These kids want everything to be so literal and the Apocalypse cannot be understood in literal terms. Its beyond our full comprehension. You have to accept that we do not know the reality of the End of Days.

Prayer was good. I'm a little rusty having been off for 5 days but it went ok. Br. Bil gave a talk about avoiding sin and how it is harder to do than good deeds (totally agree). He then started listing things and asking the kids if they were halal or haram. And in my head I'm going "Oh no, don't do what I think you are going to do." He started with McDonalds down the street. Haram. Kentucky Fried Chicken. Haram. Music. Haram WAIT WHAT! Was the response of the entire room which started yelling "Only some, only some!" I thought Sr. A was going to get up and yell at him she was so mad saying "He knows better than to do that! The all music issue is cultural! He should not be teaching the kids that." Br. Bil had to think quickly and change the subject before a riot broke out. That is the one thing that bothers me about Br. Bil; he often imposes his own personal views (Christians being unbelievers, music is haram) on the children. Mash'Allah the children have been taught well enough to argue back :).

And on to Br. Bil and Br. N's class. I will post the history notes separate later. Today we discussed Backbiting or Gheeba. There are two kinds of backbiting: talking behind someone's back but saying a true thing and talking behind someone's back saying a false thing. Both are bad for that person because they are not there to defend themselves. Br. Bil interjected and tried to get into the different rules which apply to backbiting with muslims and non muslims. Why there is a difference I'm not sure since I personally think we should be nice to everyone. The difference though is that you are required to attempt to stop another muslim from backbiting; you are not required to stop a non muslim. He did not go into detail on this so I looked it up later and the reasoning basically is because a muslim does not have the right to tell a non muslim what to do in this case. And in their case you should just avoid the backbiting they are producing. The only time backbiting is allowed if it is to save someone from danger ex "Sister, I saw so and so get pick pocketed by that man on the corner. Please be careful going home." I am talking about the man on the corner, it is a true negative, but it was done to save Sister from harm.

I also learned that a couple years ago someone taught this topic of backbiting all wrong and it caused fights to break out both at the Islamic school and at the kid's academic schools. I'm not very clear on the details but it seems that they all started to constantly correct each other or tattle because it could "cause harm". They had also been taught that it was ok to backbite Christians which caused a frenzy at their schools. Somehow, from the previous teacher, they had gotten the impression that this rule only applies to muslims. Guess what it applies to EVERYONE. Even polytheists. The prophet greatly disliked backbiting, made it an even bigger sin than adultery. If the world could avoid backbiting, it would be a much nicer place.

A quote from Imam Ali " The distance between Heaven and Hell is four fingers." The distance between your eye and your ear is four fingers. Your eyes and ears can both tell you the truth, and trick you at the same time.

I got to see Sr. N after her long trip. She has invited me to a 20 something muslim philosophy gathering on Fridays. There are suppose to be a lot of converts there, I really hope to attend. They will discuss a topic and open it up to the floor to get a lot of opinions. Fascinating.