Sunday Morning Warm Fuzzies–Teaching Others and Giving Back to the Community

Two Sundays ago Saqib and I went to the Islamic Center of Naperville to attend its second installment of the lecture series Ramadan Reminders entitled Paths to Remembrance.  This lecture/class was given by AbdelRahman Murphy.  Two things impressed me.

First:  AbdelRahman did a couple things from a speaker’s end vital for a good event.

1)  The speaker was on time (read, early) greeting people as they came in–this is VERY important as a teacher.
2) The speaker was prepared and organized with a power point presentation–also VERY important when teaching.  It shows your audience/students that you cared to prepare something a head of time, that it required thought, and effort.

3) The speaker asked for the sisters to be seated in the main masjid–this gave us a better opportunity to focus and pay attention
4) The speaker was interactive with the audience, asking questions and seeking different ideas and opinions–this made the class a group effort, and not just your average “boring” lecture
5) The speaker provided a break in the middle of class–people could check phones, and say salaam to people that walked in after them
6) The speaker encouraged people to seek knowledge, not just on the topic he was given, but in general–this gives the audience/students the idea that the subject does not only exist in the masjid between 11:30AM-1:30PM on Sunday, but it’s something that is always on-going and has many facets.

Second:  I personally enjoyed the class because of the warm fuzzy feeling in the room.  I hadn’t had this feeling in a long time–being in a room and knowing that angels were surrounding us.  Surrounding us because we gathered to remember Allah.  Knowing that almost 100 people got out of bed, came out of their houses and drove to ICN to learn something about their religion.  We all came with the intent to improve ourselves.  We all came knowing that there was more about Islam than we knew at the time.  We all came knowing that someone could teach us what we wanted/needed to know, and all we had to do was make the effort to attend.

On top of that, considering the age of the teacher, it was a joy, a true joy, to see a student of knowledge give back to his community.  How often have we seen students enthusiastic about learning about Islam, but not able to share his/her enthusiasm with others?  Whether it is because their local community will not accomodate them to teach others, or because the student themself just likes to sit on his/her new knowledge.  It is so refreshing to see someone take knowledge from a scholar, and pass it on to his community back home.  I wish more people would do this.  I truly wish they would.  Otherwise, what’s the point of all of us learning anything in the first place?