Bookmarks & Log- Updated

When we went to the RIS conference in Toronto this past winter, we came home with gifts for friends. Two of our gifts were that of books. I love books, do you remember our bookshelf from our schoolroom post.

I like the smell of books, the feel of books, the pictures in books, and the language used in books. I like having them in my home, in my purse, in my bookbag and not having to drive to a library or a store to read it. I have not moved into the era of Kindle and ibooks, I still enjoy visiting small businesses that sell books especially old used books. We have a wonderful used dictionary from 1936, one of our most cherished books.

It's almost like the song, "Make new friends, but keep the old, one is Silver and the other GOLD"

Books, real books, made out of paper are Gold. . .

So we gave the gifts of books, two books to one family, our gold with some extra special gems added to it.
Humble Dad gave the dad of this family a special book written by a wonderful Scholar of our time, Imam Zaid Shakir: "Treatise for the Seekers of Guidance" The gem: Imam Zaid signed the book.

Their children are named after the four greatest women in Islam, so we gave them  Noble Women of Faith: Asiya, Mary, Khadija, Fatima



The gem: we included our popular bookmarks with the book.

These bookmarks and booklogs are free as everything on our site, be sure to download and read. Even if you own a ipad or kindle, don't forget what is gold and read a real book once in a while.

Free Downloads
Noor Janan Bookmarks & Booklogs

Love Letters

I recently started a pen pal in another State, sending real letters with a real stamp. It not only provides a genuine pleasure to receive a letter in the mail, but also there is so much pleasure and personal reward in sitting down to write someone. This motivated me to start my Beloveds on letter writing. We had many thank you's we wanted to send, so I went searching the web for Thank you templates. 

Arabic Vocabulary

After learning the Arabic letters, we can learn how to write words. If you have not visited our post on Arabic letters, please do so now as it has the information about the Movable Arabic letter cards.

Arabic Letters

I am publicly releasing our Arabic Letters and Arabic Vocabulary pages. This has been an extremely hard project for me because I am not an Arabic speaker, I have never taken a class, and learning new languages has never come easy for me like it did for my mother who is fluent in Italian, and has working knowledge of the other Romance languages.

Playdough and Puffy Paint

We made Playdough and Puffy Paint to use for our Arabic Letters and Free play.

Mawlid

I am not here to argue the Mawlid, or love of the Prophet.
There are many who are more qualified who have written, talked, and argued about it.
Love of the Prophet for me is not something that happens just on one day, it should happen everyday.

Mawlid by Moonlight by my friend Hina Khan- Mukhtar is a good short read that begins:

The flickering flame of a candle casts a light on a child’s face, causing it to glow…and something magical happens.  The six-year-old opens his mouth to sing salawaat on the Prophet…and hearts soften.  An older sister takes her brother by the hand as they march off to the beat of a daff, singing nasheeds under a full moon, falling in line behind fifty other young ones…and tears spring to my eyes.

Why Mawlid? by Ibn Percy is also a good short read, one of my favorite quotes below: (link no longer available)

The mawlid is not fard, but what we do in a mawlid is fard. Allah commands us to send peace and blessings upon Muhammad (33:56). So whether you call it mawlid, dhikr, salawat, etc. Do it. Just do it. Your heart will be at ease and I guarantee you will feel better.

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf also does a video called  What is the Mawlid?

Update: After someone called their anti-Mawlid propaganda "Dawah" for the Muslims. I think more Scholarly information about Mawlid should be posted. Especially if you been harassed or called deviant as I have been called lately. I am not a big on debating, I believe "to you be your way and to me be mine", however this information is more for people who want to feel confident or reassurance in their traditional practices.

Thikr/Quiet Time

"Remember Me and I will remember you." Quran 2:152

To begin the morning in quiet thikr in Remembrance of Our Creator just makes the day start a little brighter. So many Religions have their different ways to remember their Lord, Muslims pronounce the name of God over and over again until the name of God radiate within you. We create songs about remembering God, rejoicing His Magnificence and we can do it silently and peacefully. Both have it appropriateness at different times, but the morning is for silence, so is the afternoon and the night. Taking a break from everyday rush rush, to have a time for quiet is an important lesson that we should make habit and what better time to make something habit than with a young child.

"And remember thy Lord in thy self with humility and fear, and without loudness of speech, in the mornings and evenings; and be not of the neglectful." Quran 7:205

Maria Montessori who escaped the war in Italy spending time in the Muslim world-India and Pakistan had a special exercise she would do with the young children she taught, who were partially deaf called the Silence Game. Montessori believed that the Silence Game would "bring little by little a discipline composed of calmness and inner beatitude" SubhanAllah, which is one of the key points of thikr to beautify ourselves from the inside. Imam Ghazali explains that our heart has two doors, one that is open to this world and another opened to world of angels. In thikr, quiet remembrance of God, we beautify our heart and the door to the angels open wider.

(NOTE: The link to the Silence Game has been corrected)

In our home Montessori's Silence Game, other quiet practice, including quite honestly naps and time outs, and Thikr are all used. I encourage you to read the link above to learn more about the Silence Game. In Thikr, we are simply repeating names of God over and over again. Sometimes we use our fingers to count.

Sometimes we use beads, i.e. Thikr beads. I use to practice the Catholic Religion before I was Muslim and I had Rosary beads to count my "Hail Marys". Same concept.

Our friend makes and sales some really dope thikr beads, as in MashaAllah beautiful ones like these.

Saying the names of God in public can be a little bit tricky, however there is one Thikr that you can do without moving your lips, so no one thinks you are talking to yourself. Say "La Ilaha ill Allah" which translates to "There are no gods, but the ONE GOD"

We have many different thikr that we can do with different benefits, so I created a chart for my children to record the thikr that they learn called Thikr, Quiet, Peace. We keep it in their Islamic Notebooks, the cover comes along with the free download.

Loud thikr and Remembrance makes it a community event and fun way to do it. I found some old footage of my children singing, I mixed it with some other Remembrance songs. Enjoy.


Find More Remembrance Songs on my youtube here.

Free Downloads
Thikr-Quiet-Peace

More Islamic Studies

Islamic Education

Learning Character through Stories

Thikr/Quiet Game

Arabic Letters

Arabic Vocabulary

Asmaa ul Husna

The Meaning of the Quran

Seerah

Our Family Circle