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Muslim Foundations
Welcome to The Golden Thread of Truth! The intention of the material is to teach our children that all the world’s religions support a consistent message about the truth of who we are. Stories from Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Christianity and contemporary authors support the same underlying messages and values.
Ourtheme is Muslim Foundations: Prayer, Truthfulness, Piousness and Generosity. Islam has many different factions but we are focusing on the foundations that are beloved throughout the Muslim world. We will use stories from the Sahih al-Bukari which have been shared with children for generations.
Week #1: Prayer: Story: Giant Ship Engine that Failed
Week #2: Truthfulness: Story: Emperor and the Seed
Week #3: Piousness: Story: The Words Reflect Ones' Inner Self & Did You Thank Allah for your Eyesight?
Week #4: Generosity: Story: A Lesson from Disabled People & Its Better to Give
Main Message: This month’s stories come from the Sahih al-Bukari. This collection is one of the six major ‘hadiths’, the stories denoting the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad in Sunni Islam. The hadith is generally accepted by Muslims as a secondary source of Islamic law after the Qur’an. These prophetic traditions were collected by a Muslim scholar after being transmitted orally for generations. The book covers almost all aspects of life in providing proper guidance of Islam such as the method of performing prayers and other actions of worship. These virtues are derived from the Five Pillars of Islam, 1. Declaration of Faith (Shahadah), 2. Prayer (Salat), 3. Charity (Zakat 4. Fasting (Sawm/Ramadan), 5. Hajj (Pilgrimage to Mecca) (wiki)
- Muslims have 5 required prayers each day. The purpose is to show gratitude for God, parents, our blessings and to help us feel better. It takes effort but is worth it.
- Effort is important, but knowing where to make an effort in your life makes all the difference.
- Prayer is an important part of remembering our connection to Spirit/God/Allah
Week #2: Truthfulness
Main Message: November’s theme is Muslim Foundations: Prayer, Truthfulness, Piousness and Generosity. Islam is the name given to the message revealed by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be unto him) in AD610 in Mecca. The word “Islam” literally means ‘Peace’ and is commonly defined as “one who finds peace through submission to God.” Islam is the second largest religion in the world after Christianity, with more than 1.3 billion followers and is forecast to become the world’s largest religion in 2050. Muslims are people who follow the Islam faith and they come from many different ethnic backgrounds, cultures, customs and languages. Muslims believe Muhammad received messages from God (Allah) and the messages were recorded in the Qur’an. He taught that truthfulness leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to Paradise.
- Muhammad has absolute trust in God and in his own mission/purpose
- The Prophet Muhammad stated truthfulness leads to righteousness, and righteousness leads to Paradise.
- Living a truthful life means to live without dishonesty. When you are true to yourself, you are living in alignment with Spirit.
Week #3: Piousness
Main Message: November’s theme is Muslim Foundations: Prayer, Truthfulness, Piousness and Generosity. Piousness means showing love for God, displaying great loyalty to God. For us, it means to live from a place of knowing our truth, that God is Good and we are one with God. When always living from this place, our thoughts, deeds and actions come from this place. Everything starts from our thoughts. When you change your thinking, you change your life.
- Showing and having love for God/Spirit/Self shows in your outer actions and appearance
- If you use bad language, you are just making obvious to everybody how far away you really are from Allah/God/Spirit, since your words are in reality a reflection of your own inner self.
- Your words and actions reflect your inner thoughts
Week #4: Generosity
Main Message: November’s theme is Muslim Foundations: Prayer, Truthfulness, Piousness and Generosity. Today we focus on the saying; it is more blessed to give than to receive. To internalize this message, we look to some stories of what it means to help our fellow man. Mohammad is not the only Master Teacher to encourage doing good deeds and helping those less fortunate than ourselves. According to Muslim beliefs, God is interested in pious, righteous people who do good deeds on this Earth. And, as He says, they will be rewarded in Paradise. And, as we know, Paradise can be heaven on earth.
- Our strength is in unity, not in division
- Encouraging good, prohibiting evil, lifting the burden of the weak person and removing an offensive thing from a path are all acceptable prayers
- It is more blessed to give than to receive