COVID- 19 Update and Personal Invitation

Assalamu Alaykum,

How are you and your loved ones? How are you all feeling? I pray you are well. Are you feeling a little overwhelmed? Thrown for a loop? There have been days recently where it seems as though everything is spinning and still at the same time. Or like sand is shifting beneath our feet. Things are changing rapidly.  
 
We are in unpredictable times. Many people are feeling helpless, isolated, and anxious. At the same time, so many are reaching out on social media and asking, “How can I help?” 
 
So, I ask you, how can Sanad Trust Foundation help?  
 
Because we care about the safety and well-being of those we serve as well as our volunteers, staff, and community, we are following protocol and cooperating with local authorities every step of the way.

We didn’t expect to be considered “nonessential,” but here we are practicing social distancing, working from home, and creating a real online community to provide a soul-centered education to every child, family, and community. Its the reason why we do what we do.

As much of our attention is focused, rightly so, on those needing critical services like health care, food, and shelter, we want to continue to inspire, encourage, and empower our community during this precarious time.  
 
I want to take a moment to share how Sanad Trust Foundation is responding to COVID-19 and how we are trying to help:  

  • We have seamlessly moved our full-time educational service, Sanad Prep Learning Center, online…maintaining a high-quality, accredited, and spiritually nourishing education for our students and families
  • We are live-streaming our Sanad Prep Morning Assembly class for free daily to help any family teaching kids from home, giving them an uplifting way to start and organize their days. Its a great way for anyone working from home to start their day too!
  • We transformed our cancelled benefit gala, “A Sanad of Love”, into a free online series for children and families every Saturday. The series includes recognition of our elders, advice for parents and adults, and a live reading of Falcon & Finch, an original, book-length narrative poem inspired by my children. As part of the reading there is an ongoing drawing contest with submissions from children all around the world!  

Cancelling our benefit gala was a tough, but necessary decision. However, we took the anxiety and concern of that decision, and chose to make it into something positive and beautiful for our organization. Coming up with creative and new ways to give even more to children, families, and community has been a wonderful blessing in the midst of all this.

We look forward to the moment our doors open and our programs resume. Until then, we will work to make up for lost time where we can and set a course for the future. We hope that you will join us in making sure that our mission remains sustainable as we navigate this unknown territory. 

We believe in keeping love, joy, and patience flowing – even while engaging in social distancing.

When all of this is over, our children will need the stimulating and spiritual environment of Sanad Prep, families will need a place to come together for good suhba more than ever, and community members of all ages will require emotional and social support to ensure their well-being. 

That’s why I’m asking you, to consider giving today and supporting our efforts during this incredibly difficult period.

I am also personally inviting you to join us this Saturday for a very special Sanad of Love online conversation with Sh. Yahya Rhodus (Executive Director of Al-Maqasid Institute), Br. Hassan Shibly (Executive Director of CAIR-FL), and myself. We’ll be discussing the future of the American Muslim Identity. 

We will get through this — together while apart. We will adapt. We will learn lessons. On behalf of Sanad Trust Foundation and all those we serve, I want to thank you for your support.

We couldn’t do this without you.

Be safe,
Rehan Mirza
Founding Executive Director
Sanad Trust Foundation 

I am here to tell you about why I love Sanad, and why you should love it, too.  First of all, Sanad helps me and the other students around me feel comfortable. It gives us a home-like space to learn. Our classroom sizes are small, so our learning coaches can spend a lot of time with us. They care about our behavior and character, in addition to how well we do academically. We have a morning assembly every day where learning coaches talk about important life lessons. We learn about Allah, nature, science, and even famous people like Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali. It helps us get a feel for what other people before us did to help us get where we are standing today. We even have a monthly family/neighborhood halaqa that takes place every three months at Sanad. Being a student at Sanad Prep helps me feel like I’m part of a big family. I hope that other students can feel the same way  I do.

Second of all, Sanad makes learning easy. We have the help of interactive lessons, learning coaches, teachers, and even tutors. If we need extra help learning a topic, our learning coaches work with us one-on-one to help us understand. If we are learning quickly and understanding the work, we can even get ahead in the curriculum. Advanced students can even do work that’s one or two grade levels ahead. We do hands-on activities like science projects and presentations.

Last but not least, Sanad is fun! Every Tuesday and Thursday, we have PE (Physical Education). We play basketball, hockey, soccer and many other fun sports. We get daily breaks where we get to get up and move around and take walks outside.  Even though we don’t even realize it, we get to know each other a little better every single day. It strengthens our friendships to a whole new level, getting to know each other’s personalities. We also get to go on field trips a couple times a year. Our field trips help us remember Allah and his creation by spending time outdoors and in nature. We do other fun things like celebrate PI day when all students get to eat pie!  Once a month we attend youth club meetings where we do STEAM projects and there are other clubs too for Middle and High School.

All in all, Sanad gives younger and older children a comfortable space to work together. We interact with teachers and have fun every day. It is a new learning experience. It is a fun place and brings people together, from kindergartners to great-grandma’s and seniors.

Teenage Lessons from the Cave of Hira

Every morning at Sanad Prep we have a Student of Knowledge and staff assembly, that we affectionately call Sanad Morning Lights. These are reflective moments we have together and cherish. We want to do a better job of sharing these assemblies with other students and families. Please let us know if you find benefit, we pray that you do.

In this talk, we reflect on the extraordinary experience of the Prophet Muhammad – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him – in the Cave of Hira. For the teenage Muslim, there are so many profound, relate-able moments. We share a few. You can listen to the recording and find an outline of the talk below.

Keep us in your duas. Allah bless.

– Rehan

Outline

  • Prophet Muhammad –  peace and blessings of Allah be upon him – is the greatest example. His purpose in life was expansive. He was able to impact well beyond his death and beyond the scope of people he lived around. All of the things you need in life in terms of how to cope with things, we can find in his life.
  • All ages can benefit at any point in life from studying the Seerah of Prophet Muhammad – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him. In different ways, we all can relate to his seerah in any year of life. Make it a habit to review/read at least once a year!
  • It’s really important to understand the human experience of being a Prophet. When the Angel Jibreel embraced the Prophet Muhammad – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him – in the cave of Hira, it was anxiety provoking to say the least.
  • It was so firm that he was out of breath. Afterwards, when Prophet Muhammad –  peace and blessings of Allah be upon him – hurried home he asked to be covered with a blanket, not for comfort, but he was actually panicked by such an unexpected experience.
  • As young Muslims, you will experience things in your life which will be very difficult things, new experiences, new emotions, new thoughts, new growth in spirituality, happy/sad moments and traumatic point’s in life, from childhood to adulthood.
  • There will always be things you are dealing with.

How to React to Difficult Experiences or Moments in Life –

Lessons from the example of Prophet Muhammad –  peace and blessings of Allah be upon him:

  1. He always shared with someone he loved/trusted. One thing we learn from his example is that when you have something overwhelming, challenging going on and don’t know how to respond to it, you should express it to someone or few who you trust. You don’t need to express yourself to everybody, certainly not everyone on social media platforms. Rather, it may be better to consult with one or a few people you truly trust. This is really important. This is the example of the Prophet – peace and blessings be upon him. 
  2. How did the people he shared with respond? Khadijah – may Allah be pleased with her – his wife and best friend, calmed him first. Then she mentioned all his good qualities (e.g. taking care of orphans/widows, giving charity, etc). He was an amazing person doing wonderful things. So first and foremost we should try to relax and calm and reassure the person we are trying to help; make them feel good and comfortable about themselves and then talk about the issue.
  3. Get counsel from those with the wisdom and experience and knowledge. They later went to another relative, Waraqa. They talked to him and shared things with him. He also reassures the Prophet – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him – and his wife. Shares his specific knowledge about the issue.
  4. Be honest always!! Don’t lie to make anyone feel better. Waraqa tells them what he knows and he doesn’t lie in order to help. He tells the truth even though it may not be all be pleasant. He is gentle and wise, and also reassures that he will remain with the Prophet to support throughout as long as he is able. 

Look at every point in the Prophet Muhammad – peace and blessings of Allah be upon him’s life to learn how he dealt with difficult times, how he coped with his problems. He didn’t have complete meltdowns. He dealt with things which affected him without too much delay, he found solutions to his problems. From extraordinary divine events to day to day things: his sandals would break, clothes would tear, armies would be sent harm his community, death of loved ones, single father at one point, and many other things.

To the young the Muslims…look at the greatest examples to learn the greatest lessons. Keep your head up and keep moving forward. 

This morning we talked to our Sanad Prep students about the importance of making a personal and emotional connection to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, from their earliest years. We may wonder at times, how can this honestly be accomplished? We live so far from the times of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Our circumstances are different, aren’t they?

One of the easiest ways we recommend to our students, and in particular our male students, is to identify with the male figure in their life who is of the same age of the Prophet, peace be upon him during the period which they are studying. For example, our most recent lesson was with regards to revelation in the cave of Hira — an extraordinarily, momentous event, but one that was also quite traumatic, worrisome, and profound for the Prophet, peace be upon him, on a deeply spiritual, emotional, and psychological level. For many of our students their fathers happen to be close, if not the same age as the Prophet, peace be upon him, was during that eventful day. Many of students too are close in age to the children of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, during those days.

So how would it feel? How would it feel to see their fathers, and uncle, or a teacher that they care about and identify with in their life come home in crisis? How would it feel to see their mother comforting their father on the sofa after he’s expressed his fears? What faces would their siblings have? What would they say? What would we do in that feeling of helplessness?

It’s critically important on so many levels that we teach Prophetic history with empathy. For obvious reasons, teaching the life, example, and character of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, in our institutions of education is fundamental. However, we do a great disservice to the cognitive and spiritual development of our students when we don’t enable or facilitate for them the opportunity to connect — heart to heart — to a Prophet who was sent for all of humanity, not just them. Our educational institutes no longer seem to have the time, the caring touch, or frankly basic human concern in some cases to realize that this is one of the most important lessons a Muslim student of knowledge can take away from their academic experience during their school age years — period

Being able to identify cognitively, emotionally, and spiritually with the Prophet Muhammad, an embodiment of their humanity, can positively affect their academic success, their professional careers, and their personal life. Knowing the expectations of their humanity and how to properly navigate crises and challenges can only come when we’re able to learn the best human response from the one who is described as having the Best of Character. One whose family adored him from beginning to end. And one whose enemies found it hard to find a disparaging thing to say about him.

Many of the challenges faced by our communities today, in particular, the low expectations and performance of Muslim men in our communities can be attributed, in my opinion, to the lack of effort made during the formative years to establish the empathetic connection to not only the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, but by extension to their purpose and function in relation to all of humanity. When we only teach them to identify with themselves and their own pursuits, then we fail to help them understand the most basic character quality in the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.

We must have the capacity to think beyond ourselves, as did the Prophet peace be upon him. We must have the capacity to be in the service and betterment of humanity. Ultimately, we must be able to manage our lives, as did the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him, well enough to make a material difference of good during our brief time. This is helped with the support of having a connection to an example greater than ourselves. One that can inspire and teach us that — we have the potential to change the world for the better.

May the peace and blessings of God be upon the Prophet Muhammad and all previous Prophets, peace be upon them all, on all of their heirs, and may our children and students be amongst them. Ameen.

The purpose of the Sanad Body/Soul initiative of Sanad Trust Foundation is to inspire men and women to care for their bodies and souls together. Sisters meet quarterly for Yoga lessons and reflection in the comfort and privacy of Sanad Trust Foundation office/center. Men, many of whom are fathers of Sanad Prep students, meet quarterly at the Shark Valley Entrance of the Everglades National Park. They bike the scenic 15 mile bike route in good company, surrounded by the beauty of God’s creation. All men are invited to join us for the next Bike Club meetup, Saturday, Apr. 8. Women will be meeting Saturday, Mar. 11 for the Yoga Club. For more details, email info@old.sanadtrust.org. Below are pictures from our recent Sanad Body/Soul Bike Club outing.

 

On Sunday, January 13, Mufti Hussain Kamani joined us at Sanad Learning Center in order to describe a day in the life of The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.). The class began in the name of Allah (s.w.t.) with a correction of our intention. This is where Mufti Hussain reminded us that our actions and the seminar were for the sake of Allah, nothing less, as all our actions are. In the seminar we went over how The Prophet (s.a.w.) spent his day, beginning with the nafl prayer of tahajjud and ending well into the night of The Prophet (s.a.w.). The class was primarily based off of a book written by Darul Hikmah Research and Development Team, with reference and citations acknowledging where the material was gathered from, along with anecdotes and instances that further explained the written content of the book provided.

After a half-day workshop we were asked to write down our reflections on the seminar along with lessons we may have learned throughout the day. In terms of the seminar, itself, the atmosphere was wholesome, dialogue was unrestricted, and our speaker was beyond competent. Mufti Hussain was animated and lively, his words were purposeful and concise, he brought smiles and laughter from his students throughout the day, and he was neither exhaustive nor limited in insight on The Messenger of Allah (s.a.w.). Mufti Hussain gave us basic knowledge on how to emulate The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) for he is the Beloved of Allah. The book Mufti Hussain wrote was well-written, keeping a simple style so as to be suitably didactic while conveying an important message; by relaying how the day of The Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) was spent we were instructed on how to manifest our love for him, how to grow in our love for him, and in turn how to gain the favor of Allah (s.w.t.).

It is hard to say if Mufti Hussain planned the anecdotes regarding The Prophet’s (s.a.w.) life or improvised, nevertheless, through them he provided a categorical breakdown of salat and supplication, decorum regarding visitation, the goings-on of family time and meal time, of business dealings and generally the actions that pertain to all people–the mundane rituals, the daily grind–in a manner that fortifies the walls erected between the faithful and the faithless. Piety and faith were encouraged through acts of worship, assuredly, but a distinct emphasis was placed on gentleness of manner and ease of heart.

On a more personal level of reflection, Mufti Hussain spoke with and of a tenderness in relation to The Messenger of Allah (p.b.u.h), the Beloved of Allah. I witnessed the portrait of a man who is warm-hearted as a husband and father, who wins over the heart of his enemies, he prays to be counted among the poor and supplicates throughout the day for himself and others. Allah loves him and takes pleasure in his actions, which is reason enough to love someone or something, but it is with understanding and reflection on his character and his humanity that my love grows for him, may peace be upon him.

By: Maryam Shakir
Sanad Learning Coach

 

Day One

10:00 to 10:15a Intention
Recitation of Arabic, English with understanding

10:15 to 10:45a Quran/Hadith

Recitation of Arabic, English with understanding. Faitha, Short Surah, Hadith from “Content of Character” (Printed out Surah’s)

10:45 to 11:00a Question/Answer of the Day

Ask students to discuss their interests and what type of questions they have in relation to their interests and/or being Muslim. Students write down questions privately and enter in “answer box”. Camp Coordinator provides answers to at least 1 or 2 questions a day after review and research of questions received on day 1 of camp.

11:00 to 12:30p Main Activity: Maze of Trust

Girl group and Boy group will design and draw their maze for the other group to complete. The maze will have to fit in a 15’ by 20’ area. Maze will be taped down by team. Each group will choose one member to be blind-folded and receive instruction from team to complete other groups’ maze. After blind-folding, team member is spun around and placed at beginning of maze. He/she will then receive direction (i.e. 1 step forward, turn right, 2 steps forward, etc.) by each of his/her team member one-by-one. Completion is goal, not time. Camp leader however should keep track of time to ensure both teams complete activity in full.

Supplies: Green Painters tape, construction paper, pencils, crayons, blind-fold, paper for journal entries, print out of surah’s , duo-tang

Learn about: trust, team work, creativity, problem-solving, critical thinking, design.

12:30 to 12:45p Snack
Light snack and drink. No junk food please. Proper clean up. Encourage conversation.

12:45 to 1:30p Living Seerah

A discussion about the life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). His life example shared in a way they can relate to, connect with, and live. Beginning with birth. Fiqh lesson when and where appropriate (eg. azaan, iqamah, wudu, taharah-properly cleaning oneself… etc)

1:30 to 1:45p Memorization (Printed out Surah’s)

Repetition of Short Surah read at beginning of day, with intention of memorization with proper pronunciation and understanding.

1:45 to 2:00p Journal (Paper for Journal entries)

Divide notebook paper in four squares, one for each day. Write or draw (for younger kids) what they learned today. They should be able to explain to someone with ease what they write or draw.

Sanad Learning Center plans to have single gender classrooms. Here is a great article in the Herald about the positive effects of this model.

Single-sex schools prosper — if you can get kids to go

Five years ago, the school gave parents a choice: Enroll your kid in a single-gender or co-ed classroom. A team from Stetson University studied how the fourth-grade students fared on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test in writing.

In the co-ed classrooms, 59 percent of girls passed the FCAT. In the single-gender classrooms, the number was 75 percent.

The split was even wider for boys. In co-ed classrooms, 37 percent of boys earned passing scores. In single-gender classrooms: 86 percent.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/11/v-fullstory/1969567/single-sex-schools-prosper-if.html#ixzz17wObUqLl

A couple new films out about education and the need to reassess how we are developing young minds (and souls).

Race to Nowhere

Waiting for Superman

RSA Animate: Changing Education Paradigm

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