Eid reflections and writing therapy

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks. But I did think about it every single day. Inshaa Allah I hope to try giving the blog some more time in the future and instead of just hurriedly jotting down posts about my Sunday class, I want to make it a little personal by letting you into my mind a bit. Lots of things bubbling up there and this is the perfect sounding board to pour those thoughts and ideas on to. Writing always helps the thought process by making things clearer. Putting them out there in black and white. You can pour out your heart and then look at those nuggets of your heart from all angles and decide which ones you want to pick and take forward with you in life, which ones you want to throw away, and which ones you want to keep dormant for a while and pick up later. It's therapeutic, this art of writing. I hope inshaa Allah to instill the habit of writing in all the kids in my Sunday class. That just gave me an idea of an activity for the older kids! See what I mean?! :)

I hope you all had a wonderful Eid with your loved ones. We had a fun filled but a super hectic Eid, this time. We had neighbours, friends, and family over and most importantly lots and lots of kids! By the time the last guest has left the house looks like a tornado hit it. SubhanAllah! No matter how much I sulk while cleaning up the gigantic mess, I know I wouldn't have it any other way. Eid just wouldn't be Eid if the kids didn't have a blast. I try my best to make Eid the party of the year for them! Inshaa Allah, may Allah give me the strength to continue this self-inflicted tradition year after year! :P

As I mentioned, we had neighbours and friends (Muslims and non-Muslims) as well, so I made both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes. This is what my Eid menu looked like:

1. Jeera rice
2. Chicken Angarey
3. Mutton Koftas
4. Malai chicken kabab
5. Paneer chili fry
6. Bhindi fry
7. Tamatar Baingan
8. Dahi wada
9. Raita
10. Sheerkurma

Yes, yummy! And yes, my legs were killing me when I was done. :)

The Sunday after Eid we had a potluck party after the class. The kids were so excited about getting something yummy from home. It was lovely to see them all gather around and share a meal together. I hadn't taken down my Eid party decorations so that they get the feel of Eid and we played a few beautiful nasheeds, just loud enough so that the neighbours don't complain. :)

Preparing for Eid ul Adha!

Lots of excitement in the air during these wonderful 10 days of Dhul Hajj. In my Sunday class too we spoke about Eid ul Adha, the different names it is known by in our country (Bakri Eid, Qurbani Eid, Badi Eid), about doing ghusl on the morning of Eid, wearing new lovely clothes, going to the masjid or eidgah for Eid salaat, about the yummy food prepared on that day. I told them a fun and silly way of greeting everyone this Eid. Since the sheep has a lot of significance for us on Eid ul Adha, I told them to greet like a sheep! Eid Mubaaaarak! :)

I told them the story of Eid. Ibrahim alaihi salaam's great sacrifice and why the sheep is significant. The younger ones then did a sheep craft which they enjoyed a lot, as they bleated Eid Mubaaaarak to each other!

We began learning the meaning of the Surah Al Fatihah - ayah by ayah. We covered the first four ayat today and in shaa Allah hope to finish the rest next week.

Next week in shaa Allah the class will be shortened to an hour, since we will have a pot luck Eid party after that!

Until then, here's wishing all the Muslim's around the world EID MUBAAAAAARAK!!!

Prophet Muhammad Sallalahu alaihi wa sallam

I couldn't post last week since we had a busy Sunday. We had a family picnic with R's family and boy! did we have fun! I thought I would put up the post any day during the week but have been swamped with work, alhamdulillah. One blessed and wonderful addition to my days is a Tajweed class I have begun at my home for women, every Tuesday evening. Unlike the kid's Sunday class, Tajweed is not something that I imagined I would teach. The first reason being that I am no expert. But I have learnt Tajweed from my mother. And when I spoke to a mom of one of the kids in my class, I learnt that there were a few people interested in learning. My first thought was to find a proper learned instructor who would teach us. But this looked unlikely. So I settled for Plan B. I began relearning and revising the rules of Tajweed in order to teach 'basic' Tajweed to these women. And alhamdulillah, in the process, teach myself and my kids proper Qur'an recitation. All of you reading this, please please make dua' for me and pray that I will be able to do a decent job of this new responsibility. InshaaAllah!

Now coming to our Sunday class, last week we had a surprise quiz. I quizzed them on the things we had already learnt. The questions were very basic but things that need to be engraved in the heart of every little Muslim.

1. Who is Allah?
2. Who is your Lord?
3. Who made everything that exists?
4. What is the name of the last Prophet of Allah?
5. What is the name of our Holy Book?
6. Which language is the Qur'an in?
7. How many pillars of Islam are there?
8. What are the pillars of Islam?
9. What is the Shahadah?
10. What does it mean?
11. What is meant by Salaat?
12. How many Salaat in a day?

It was very rewarding to hear the little ones stand up, as their name was called out, and then answer the question.

The children have often heard the name of our beloved Prophet Muhammad (saw) and I have taught them to say Sallalahu alaihi wa sallam. But learning about the Prophet's (saw) life and listening to stories about him is an important way of instilling love for him and true iman into our hearts.

So I told them the story of Prophet Muhammad's (saw) birth. We talked about the desert's of Arabia in the old times, about the people, the clothes they wore, their livelihood, the animals, the scarcity of water, the heat, the customs and traditions of the time and the ignorance of the people. Then we spoke of his birth and how the desert sky lit up that night, as nature celebrated the arrival of this special little baby boy, who was named Muhammad - The Praised One.

As an activity related to the story, we had a camel colouring sheet. We spoke about the camel - the ship of the desert and how it could go many days without food and water because of its humps.

Second Pillar - Salah

Today I gave an introduction to the second pillar of Islam - Salah.

Namaz is the word they are more familiar with but I tried to repeat the word Salah or Salat enough times throughout the class for them. Here's a summary of what we learnt:

1. There are five prayers (Salah) in a day.
2. They are prayed at certain prescribed timings which fall during the morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night.
3. These prayers are compulsory for a Muslim because Allah had commanded us to perform them.
4. The names of the five prayers are Fajr, Zohr, Asr, Magrib and Isha.
5. We can pray at any clean place. (I showed them a prayer mat that we use to pray at home.)
6. To pray, we face towards the Kaabah (showed them a picture and explained)which is in Makkah, a city in Saudi Arabia.

7. We find the Qibla, or direction of prayer, with the help of a compass or Qibla finder (I passed around a compass for them to see the needle move).
8. Salah involves certain postures including the Rukoo and Sujood. (All the kids had a go at demonstrating the Rukoo and Sujood on the prayer mat).

We also spoke about how Salah benefits us:

1. To bring people closer to Allah
2. To keep human beings from doing indecent, shameful and forbidden things
3. To purify the heart, develop the mind and comfort the soul
4. To remind people constantly of Allah and His greatness
5. To develop discipline and will power
6. To guide people to the most upright way of life
7. To show equality, unity and brotherhood
8. To promote patience, courage, hope and confidence
9. To train people in cleanliness, purity and punctuality
10. To develop gratitude and humility
11. To show obedience and thankfulness to our Creator

We then sang the following song to learn the names of the five prayers (to the tune of Bits of Paper):

Fajr, Zohr
Asr, Magrib
And Isha
And Isha
I pray five times
I pray five times
In a day
In a day.


Then it was time for an activity related to these names. I found the activity sheets here.

The five daily salaat book ,illlustrates the position of the sun for each prayer.

As usual, we ended this wonderfully productive class with yummy, healthy dates!

Overwhelmed with love!

Is it possible to be so overwhelmed with Allah's (Subhanahu wa Ta'ala) mercy and compassion that I can't stop pinching my arm to see if I'm dreaming or awake?

Today's class was very very special to us all Alhamdulillah. Today, apart from the nine children already attending, we had two new kids gracing our class with their presence. And from these two, one is my daughter's very close friend, who happens to be a Hindu. Why would a non-Muslim child, a 5-year-old at that, join a Islamic Sunday school, you ask? Let me explain.

This child, R, spends a lot of time at our home. She is always welcomed with open arms and we love having her over for play dates with my kids. She spent a few hours with us yesterday when her parents were at work and her mom came to pick her up in the evening. While chatting about our day, I mentioned to R's mom that I was preparing for my Sunday class. She was immediately interested. She asked me what was taught in the class and when she heard words like 'Arabic alphabet' and 'Islamic prayers with meanings' she asked me if it was open to only Muslims. I think it took me a moment to answer. I repeated that the class focused on things that Muslim children need to learn, only the approach was different. She then said something which blew me away. She said she would love for R to be part of this class because she wants her to be more aware of different faiths and cultures. She said it would be an important part of her development as she would grow up to be more accepting of other people.

I cannot even begin to explain how wonderful it felt to hear words like that. We live in a world where intolerance is rampant, where people brutalise, kill and commit crimes in the name of religion. In the name of religions that themselves talk about peace, love, brotherhood and coexistence. In many parts of the world children are brain washed into hateful attitudes towards people of a particular faith. It is a shameful irony. But, apparently, like I found out today, there is hope for our kids.

So after I finished gaping at her with my mouth open, I recovered and told her that we would love to have R in our class and that she was always welcome in our home.

So R joined our wonderful class today, and I cannot stop thanking Allah for his mercy on us. All this while, here I am trying to get more Muslim kids to join our class and fretting over why the numbers don't grow fast enough. And then, POW!! Allah blesses us with an honour and responsibility beyond my wildest dreams. Alhamdulillah! I only pray that I am able to shoulder this responsibility and that Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala is pleased with my efforts. I pray that I am worthy of the love and trust I see in the eyes of the parents who are sending their precious little angels to our home every Sunday. Aameen!

Laundry Letters

I hope all of you had a wonderful and blessed weekend. We surely did, alhamdulillah!

Thanks to the grace and mercy of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala, Sunday mornings are the highlight of our week. Gone are the lazy Sunday mornings. For the past 6 weeks, our Sundays are active and productive. Though we still try and squeeze in a relaxed and big, heavy family breakfast, post that, it's all about hurriedly cleaning up the house, showering and dressing, and getting the material ready for our class. Alhamdulillah, our class has given so much, not just to the kids who attend, but to me, to my husband, to my kids and to our family. I can think of no better way to spend quality time with my family. This 'team' effort is so precious to me that I cannot express gratitude enough to Allah for giving me this opportunity.

The kids had a fun, fun session this Sunday. It was more or less a recap session, where we just revised whatever we had learnt over the past weeks. Since, we had covered the five pillars of Islam last week, I went over them again with the kids. We sang the pillars of Islam song, but this time we stood and did it with actions. Let's face it, it's a Sunday morning and just listening to a woman talk and talk can tend to get boring. The mind is prone to wander. Especially if you are a child. So I needed to shake them up a bit and also get some action into the class. And it worked!

We resumed our recap session with energy levels magically multiplied.

We then had an interesting game called Laundry Letters. I found the game on this site where it's used for the English alphabet. There are lot of amazing resources out there which can be easily adjusted to your particular needs.

I started out by cutting out little dress shapes from different coloured chart paper.

Then I wrote an Arabic letter on each one of them.

We tied up a length of rope in the living room. Then I told the kids to hang the laundry out to dry alphabetically! :)

Talking to kids about Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala

After my last post, I shared the link to this blog with my family and friends. Jazak Allah khair to all you wonderful people for your duas, love, and encouragement. May Allah Subhana wa Ta'ala guide us and our children in our missions, passions and quests.

Please do share the blog with others who might benefit, especially Muslim mommys with young kids. And do share your own experiences of teaching your kids. I would love to hear them. We can all benefit from learning through different experiences.

Though the next class is still three days away, I wanted to write a short post about how to introduce Allah to the kids. By introducing, I don't mean the first time you talk to them about Allah. I mean giving them a fair understanding of who Allah is. Knowing and familiarizing ourselves with Allah, I believe, is a life long process. With every act of worship, we grow closer to our Lord and love Him even more. Just dwelling on the meaning of a single attribute/name of Allah can take us closer to Him.

Your kids will, in shaa Allah, experience this beautiful process in their own time. But the foundation for this relationship needs to be built up carefully. I have heard people teaching their kids to 'fear' Allah. Fear of Allah has been given such an important platform in teaching Islam that, unfortunately, love for Allah becomes secondary. Our kids need to know that Allah loves them more than their father and mother can ever love them. They need to know that, no matter what Allah, is always going to be there for them. They need to learn to love and trust Allah completely. Talk about fearing Allah can come much much later when the child is already close to Allah and will inherently not wish to do anything that would displease his/her Lord.

In my class we spoke about a mother's love. I told them that even though you might be naughty sometimes, your mother never stops loving you. She might get angry with you occasionally but only because she wants what best for you. So it is important to make your mother happy by showing her how much you love her back. Be kind to her, talk sweetly to her, be good, help her, etc.

I let this soak in for a while and then went on to speak about Allah's love for us. In shaa Allah, every class I hope to reinforce this fact and talk about at least one attribute of Allah. The last class we went over Tasmiya again (Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem) and we spoke about the words Ar-Rahman (The Most Giving) and Ar-Raheem (The Most Forgiving). I know most translations will prefer the words Beneficent and Merciful, however those are pretty heavy words for little kids; Giving and Forgiving are easy to explain and pretty much mean the same thing.

Being as young as they are, they need practical examples to help them understand concepts and new words so I give them plenty of that. Like talking about Mom forgiving you after you've done something bad. Also I asked each of them if they wanted to say sorry to Allah for something naughty they had done. They all giggled, not wanting to own up to anything naughty. But I coaxed further, saying we all sometimes do things we aren't supposed to, like getting angry with someone, or being rude, or not helping someone. But if we realise what we did was wrong, we should say sorry to Allah and promise not to do that wrong thing again. That was called asking for forgiveness. And even if you had done something really naughty, Allah would in shaa Allah forgive you. Because Allah is Ar-Raheem, The Most Forgiving. Even more forgiving that your Mom.

The kids seemed to understand now what Ar-Raheem meant. One boy said he doesn't pray. One girl said she had been rude to her mother. One said she fights with her little sister. So I repeated what I said about asking for forgiveness and how pleased Allah would be with us for being sorry for what we did. Because saying sorry makes us better people.

Do comment and let me know your experiences on talking to kids about Allah.