Ramadan should begin July 20th here in the USA. My practicing of Islam is still spotty. Alhamdulliah I improve each year. This year I am doing some daily studies during this 30 days preceding Ramadan. Last year I did more study and salat than the year before during Ramadan, so this year I'm starting before and plan to continue during. I have found special lecture series and webinars offered specially for that month, so this year I can keep my eyes open for them.
I have a bad sleep habit which is 5-6 hours off. It's supposed to take 21 days to create a habit, so working on it now will help me during Ramadan. Fasting is easy when you sleep through the hungry part of the day and eat as you like at night. That wasn't the intention for my staying up to late at night, however that's sort of how it works out. Insha'Allah I have 36 days or so to make a habit which will serve me better during Ramadan and the rest of my life.
Here is a website called New Muslim Academy. It was just launched a couple days ago. http://newmuslimacademy.org/ It offers some free online classes to people conversant in English who want to learn/review the basics. There will be some live sessions added soon. The teachers are Bilal Phillips, Yusef Estes, Jamaal Zarabozo, Yassir Fazaga, and Waleed Basyouni. I'm somewhat familiar with the first two. So far I don't see anything that seems excessively strict or relaxed.
http://understandquran.com/ has a good system to learn some simple surah and du'a, and other arabic used in salat. They have been around since at least 2007. I am working on the short course. At the end of it, I am supposed to be able to understand about 50% of the Qur'an. They are working on a part 2 of the short course, which would get me to understanding 70% of the Qur'an. If they don't finish before I am ready for it, I can start working on the Basic course. The basic course is supposed to be replaced by having a 2-part short course. There are aids for learning the rest of the Qur'an and things related to it, like tajweed (how to recite). There are 2 versions of the short course, one from 2007 and another from 2011. The 2007 is presented slightly different from the 2011 and has more interactive quizzes and games. This course is a good help in memorizing the short surah and other arabic used in salat, although I thinks it's more intended to help people understand what they already have memorized. It's supposed to take a total of 9 hours spread over 27 days, but I can't memorize all this with just watching a 20 minute video everyday, much less memorize the meanings. I'm not confident in memorizing 5 words in a day, 3-5 lines/day is just not feasible for me.
http://www.houseofquran.com has really nice memorization tools. I could achieve the same effect using a repetition system by myself, but this is much more efficient. It's hard to imagine anything closer to having a real tutor besides hiring or finding one. There are setting you can manipulate to your needs and you can select from a list of reciters.
That's plenty to start with.
No comments:
Post a Comment