POST #1 for CCUB 4621

An honest sharing; What I've gained and Learned from this Course. 

Assalamualaikum and greetings to each and everyone of you. I hope everyone is surrounded with happiness and positivities, and even if you're in the middle of tough moments, I hope you find strength knowing that Allah is always with His patient and grateful believers <3 

Today, I am going to write about the things and values that I've gained and learned from this course. Before I go in depth towards this posting, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to my beloved instructor, Sister Fida for her undying effort and passion to share her knowledge and making this course as interesting and beneficial it could be. 

As we all know, we are now currently on our ERTL classes due to Covid-19 pandemic. Despite various troubles and circumstances, we all made it to the end (almost, :p) Throughout this semester, there were a few synchronous classes conducted through Google Meet and there were also asynchronous classes due to the some circumstances that couldn't be avoided. Nevertheless, I enjoyed every single of them with all of my heart. 

On our first class, there weren't much to tell as basically, it was a taaruf class with the intention to know each other better and build rapport within the instructor and participants. Next, in our second class, Sister Fida' asked us to briefly introduce ourselves again before proceeding to share our favourite letter and justify our reasons for the choice we made. As for me, my favourite letter is G because of the word Gratitude. You'll find more explanation on why gratitude is my favourite word on different postings. After all, I am determined to practise the act of gratitude even much better that I did before as I believe it is essential to make my life more meaningful. Before ending our second session, Sister Fida' instructed us to watch a video on Yasmin Mogahed's lecture and write a reflection from it. You can find the reflection that I wrote on this link: Maryam's reflection on Yasmin Mogahed's lecture.

On our third class, unfortunately Sister' Fida wasn't able to conduct a synchronous class due to unforeseen circumstances but she assigned us to write a reflection on another Yasmin Mogahed's lecture, titled as Spiritual First Aid. From that video, I noticed that Yasmin Mogahed emphasised on the importance of maintaining the relations of the religiosity/spirituality (heart) and actions. Quoting from her, "There is no way we could separate spirituality in whatever we do in our lives." She then further added that by strengthening spirituality, it doesn't mean that we need to perform salah and fast all day long because once we put our hearts and minds towards achieving Allah's blessings, then its also considered as strenghtening our spirituality. From this video that took up to one and a half of hour, I learnt that we should remember Allah in everything we do and make His blessings as the sole purpose of life. 

Unfortunately, I missed the fourth class because I was down in fever and was hospitalised for 4 days due to stomach ache :( 

Moving on, on our fifth class, we discussed about the Community Engagement Project that we were supposed to carry out. I found myself so excited about this project because of the objective of this project which is spreading positivity and good vibes to others. Anything that makes everyone happy will always intrigue my interest :D Next, on our sixth class, we discussed about SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) in relation with Islamic Perspective and apparently, this is my favourite session out of all because the title managed to capture my interest. I enjoyed every bits of this discussion and was more than delighted to listen to my classmates' opinion on this topic. At the end of this discussion, Sister Fida' mentioned that all of the goals that had been laid out in SDG are all great and will benefit us all but sadly, there is one thing that had been overlooked, which is the religion. This made me realised that religion is still and will forever be important in our everyday lives and it should be the prime purpose of living. Religion will keep us being humane and appreciating other things even more. Lastly, on our final class, Sister Fida' wasn't able to conduct a synchronous class so she assigned us to write another reflection on Yasmin Mogahed's lecture, titled as The Heart of Women; Unifying your Roles in Life. The video is an hour long and I managed to reap out a few important things that I should always keep in mind. From this video, it teaches us the way to achieve balance when juggling between your roles and responsibilities as a daughter, sister, student and friend with your life. I learnt that by rectifying my relationship with my creator Allah, He will rectify my relationship with His other creations. I also learnt about on how to balance between deen and dunya, which is to use dunya to get to the deen. With this, I tried to become more mindful and purposeful in what I am doing in my everyday life, and I put Allah's blessing in whatever I do. I vow to myself to become a better servant while not forgetting to enjoy the joys that this life could offer me.  

To sum up, there are various things and values that I learnt from this course, whether I realised it or not. I found myself to become more grateful for the privileges that I was born with as I am able to go through this ERTL period without any difficulties like limited internet connection or time-constraint. I made reflections on many aspects of life and checked up on the privileges Allah has gifted me with which I realised that all these privileges and abilities will be questioned by Allah in the end. Therefore, I am determined to make use of all of them in the best manner and help as many people as I can. I learnt to be more emphatic and thoughtful towards people. Not only that, this course has become a safe zone for me to express my opinion and ask questions regarding our respected religion. I felt welcomed, appreciated and happy with this class and I couldn't thank my instructor and classmates enough for that. This course had been nothing but a great help for me to learn to balance between dunya and deen, to enjoy and brave every joys and bumps the world could offer me while strengthening my relationship with my creator, Allah and striving to become better servant of Him every day. 

That's all for now :)

Love always,

Maryam