Bismillah, alhamdulillah.

I happened to be reading a hadith which involved a Jewish tribe called Bani Nadeer. The Prophet Muhammad (S) when living in Madeenah had signed a treaty with them and had gone to visit them to request help to pay blood money for two men. While seated with his companions during the negotiations with tribe he was informed by revelation from God that the Jewish tribe were going to assassinate him by throwing a boulder.

The Prophet (S) did not tell anyone and rose to say that he had to go for a call of nature and left his companions behind. The Jewish tribe unaware that he had been informed by God of their plans sat waiting with his companions sure that he would return to meet his end at their hands.

The Prophet (S) did not return and the Companions grew anxious and went out to search for him. They eventually found him in a place of safety and he informed them of what had happened. The Jewish tribe realised that they had broken the treaty and negotiated a surrender to the Muslims. Part of the surrender treaty was that they were banished to a place called  Al-Jalaa.

I wondered where al-Jalaa was when I wished I could just tap into a website that would label all the historical sites in Islamic history with links to Google Earth. It would be a wonderful idea as a means of teaching children Islamic history perhaps even inviting others to Islam. The Google Earth element would allow Muslims to envision the Islamic world as a united body and just begin to imagine what the world would look like if divided by the borders of Islam rather than the artificially imposed political borders that are designed to currently impede, divide and hamper.

Children could undertake the journeys that famous travellers made, relive the Islamic conquests in front of their eyes, see where famous scholars were born and their journeys around the world. Google Earth not only allows points to be added, but also allows you to add information and you can even have tracks that will take you from one place to another. The possibilities are huge.

I pray that God inspires someone to implement the idea.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah : In the name of God, with gratitude and praise for Him

There are opportunities to listen to study Islam in Jeddah, but these are not as abundant as in other cities in the country and few well advertised opportunities exist in English. I have tried to list what I am aware of sources and places to learn in English and Arabic primarily. I have briefly touched upon Urdu. Where possible I have tried to clarify the location of places.

English

The Jeddah Dawah Centre runs various basic courses on Islam geared towards beginners or people who have recently entered Islam. Courses are offered in a variety of languages. Contact the centre for further details, but don’t be surprised if you need to make a personal visit to speak to someone. Public events are also organised by the JDC and they invite speakers from around the world. An example of one such lecture was by Yusuf Estes in Jeddah.

There is one regularly held English language Islamic lesson in a mosque that sits within the Saudi Airlines compound. The imam of the mosque is known an Imam Maliki. Access to the mosque requires a good knowledge of where it lies and will require you to submit your id at the entrance to the compound which is very large. The lesson involves the translation of the Friday khutbah (sermon) and then lunch is provided. A number of English speaking Muslims from all over Jeddah tend to gather for this weekly event. There are facilities for ladies at the mosque.

There is a radio programme that comes on in the afternoon and offers an easy paced commentary on various Islamic issues. It happens at around early afternoon on the FM dial.

Study circles behind closed doors are held in English, but it is likely that they do not have strictly official permission hence are not publicly advertised and you will need the word of mouth or a contact to find out what is being held where. It would be reasonable to conclude  it to say the authorities are very well aware of most of these activities and tolerate them as long as they do not cross any political lines and do not attract Saudi nationals.

Islamic books in English are stocked in Jareer and Tihama bookstores. Different stores have a different collection of books some better than others. In general the overall number of books available in Jeddah compared to the West is much lower, a fairly strict censorship limits the number of books available here. Though there is plenty of reading material to keep someone busy for quite a long time. Usually most books published by Dar us-Salaam publishers are available. One other place where you can get books is Aziziyyah, they also have videos and CDs of various lectures. Books in Urdu may be found here as well.

Other languages such as Urdu are catered for in mosques which lie in the South of Jeddah, they offer translations of khutbahs from Arabic into Urdu after Friday prayers. I have managed to locate on such mosque in the Bani Malik area, I think it’s name was Masjid Bilal.

Arabic

If you know Arabic then there is a much greater access to Islamic study opportunities. Lectures are usually held in major mosques on a regular weekly basis. This is more likely to be the case in lower socio-economic southern parts of Jeddah than the more plush northern suburbs but opportunities do occur everywhere.

All large mosque will have a tahfeez (Quran memorisation) programme for students, it usually runs from Asr to Maghrib and children and adults are welcome. Usually they require enrollment at the beginning of the semester or year. Some mosques have got a very good reputation, one such is Masjid Shuaybee.

Facilities  for ladies are better, and morning schools to learn various Islamic sciences are available. These are run by charitable colleges which run fee paying courses and have a regime of tests to work out whether or not you are promoted to the next level. They tend to have a beginners level but do not offer to teach any Arabic. If you have not learned Arabic you may attend the lessons to try and soak up the atmosphere and the language using an immersion technique. This is known as مستمع mustami’ or listener status.

One such ladies institute is المعهد العلمي العالي لإعداد معلمات القرآن والسنة The Higher Knowledge Preparatory College lady teachers of the Quran and Sunnah. It holds a charitable endowment status for the late mother of Ameer Namir ibn Abdul Aziz. It lies on Aisha Umm Al Muminin Street, this is off Hamad Al Jaser Street which in turn is off Sari Street. The co-co-ordinates are Latitude:  N 21.576652° and Longitude: E 39.156498°. If you enter via Hamad Al Jaser Street, it is a right turn when coming from Sari Street. On the corner is a mosque called Ikhlaas. The college is on the right and not very well marked. Opening times are from early morning and classes start at 8 am till 12.30 pm. Lessons cost 3000 SAR per year. You can register for distance lessons as well at their website. Another link is here. Lessons taught here cover all the basic Islamic sciences: tafseer, hadith, usool al-fiqh and others. The entry requirement is payment of the fee, permission from the ladies guardian (father or husband), valid legal status in the country (i.e. iqamah) and  secondary certificate of education.

Similar institutes exist for men but usually have times that are not convenient to working men. I have not come across any night classes that are conveniently located within main town Jeddah. I have heard of a men’s institute on the way to Makkah.

The radio offers a very useful station called إذاعة القرآن Radio Quran, here is a link on the top right for this station. Here is another link. The station has an almost daily Q&A Fatwa programme via telephone. People phone from all around the country and questions are not censored but are probably pre-filtered and are live. There are also discussion programmes on current affairs and commentaries on classical books and programmes charting the current modern day history of Muslims is various parts of the world. It can be caught easily on FM and AM.

Books in Arabic are widely available in Jareer and Tihama, the more specialist books will have to be hunted for at more specialist outlets. There is a lecture circuit by the more famous scholars in the kingdom and they attend various mosques, but tend not to frequent Jeddah as much as they do other cities. These are advertised on notice boards in most mosques. Some of them have websites and transmit the lectures live and store them for later retrieval on their websites. Following are some commonly found websites on posters:

• www.thnyanmsq.com: website of the Thanyaan Masjid in Jeddah, Google map location of mosque.
• www.jkb-1.com (for the Khadijah Baghlaf Mosque in Jeddah near here)
• www.almoslim.net carries live lectures from around the country
• www.liveislam.net carries live lectures from many cities.

Bismillah, alhamdulillah : In the name of God, with gratitude and praise for Him

With the increasing use of the internet in education, what concerns me a lot are teachers who ask students to ‘research’ a particular topic on the internet. Initially it sounds quite impressive. But a few moments of thought and a few days of experience reveal two fundamental problems: time & security – this post dwells on the former.

Time

I suspect, and this is a non-teacher’s perspective, that many teachers set homework that is not well thought out and occupies a huge amount of time with minimal benefit for the child. A typical example is find out about ‘anaemia’ or xyz subject on the internet. Typically children will go to Wikipedia or Google and try and understand what is written, failing that they will just copy and paste in greater or lesser detail.

I was listening to an educator from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) talking about what makes a good curriculum and she mentioned some very interesting points: She talked about the difference between ‘information versus knowledge’ and ‘access versus understanding’. With the internet people have had a unprecedented access to information and an even greater access to dis- and mis- information. A good curriculum selects and sorts and allows students to rank and determine sources.

Teachers need to address this ability to sort and sift the information. Asking children to go and research on the internet without any further guidance to what is understood to be a quality resource is a very good way of wasting children’s time. If you have helped your children with their homework you will soon find that trying to find quality resources with correct information is actually very difficult. Soon the minutes build up into hours trying to find information which in older days would have been quickly resolved by dipping into a good sized textbook.

Students need more guidance and limited access to the internet not more. Perhaps a publicly updatable website run by teachers could be started that lists the most valuable links to various resources for children. It should be human and not computer authored, and the editing of the site should be strict and avoid unnecessary repetition and links of minimal use. In essence we need a return of the school library. Ideally an Islamic version of this world library should also be formed that is compatible with the values of Islam. I have not come across any such ideas or projects on the web and would welcome any feedback on the matter.