NOTHING TO DO?

 

Has this pandemic been a bit too dull for you and your children? If you want and educational fix and switch up your lockdown routine, feel free to join us on our online adventures! iLuvQuran would like to introduce you to our Online Platform @ https://online.iluvquran.com where you would have free access to our materials once you’ve signed up with us!

iLuvQuran Online Learning Portal also enables every child to learn the Quran easily and interestingly via our fun, engaging and creative story book, activity book, animation videos, video gestures, video activities and surah games & quizzes and many more.

Here’s some examples of our free editions;

Sample of activities to do!

If you like these, feel free to upgrade to premium account for more exciting contents for your loved ones!

IT WILL BE OKAY.

 

I have to be honest… for the longest time, I’ve been trying to avoid writing any blogs because everything is such a blur with what’s going on in Malaysia lately. Borders have been closed shut for more than a year, families are separated, online distanced learning has been stressful with new things implemented almost every other week, works halted, SOPs changing bi-weekly and here we are, just trying to make sense of what’s going on and surviving this whole ordeal. I don’t know how to feel honestly; I’m so detached, late nights grow lonelier and stretch into more empty time as I find myself consistently drained.

I have been struggling a lot and feeling restless, but now that I am here, looking out my window, serenaded by this lovely sunset, I realized how beautifully Allah SWT has moved most of His creation, including me, with His Protection and I cannot help but feel grateful. Although the word "grateful" may not be the most appropriate word to use at this time, that is exactly how I am feeling in the midst of all the turmoil and upheaval that has engulfed the planet.

Today, I'm thankful for a lot of things. If anything we could derive from the current scenario, it would be the countless lessons that we can learn. It serves as a reminder that life and death are always in Allah's hands and never in ours. The reminder that no matter how well we plan, Allah is always the best planner. The reminder of how brief and fleeting life is, and the need of savoring every moment. The memory of everything we could have done before COVID but didn't. The reminder that our quality of life will be severely impacted if we don't have excellent health and safety (two things we've all taken for granted). The importance of maintaining proper personal hygiene can never be underestimated. The reminder to be socially responsible. And the list goes on. The need to be socially responsible is emphasized. The list goes on and on.

It's common knowledge that failures and experiences help us learn more, so perhaps this is a much-needed wake-up call for all of us to be better, kinder, more grateful, and more responsible citizens of this planet.

Another thing that I am grateful for is the Deen. Although we have not been able to go to the mosques, praying in congregation because they are all closed as a precautionary measure, I cannot help but remember this beautiful Ayah in Surah Al-Baqarah where Allah says, “Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship.” (2:185)

Our Lord, Subhan'Allah, is so merciful. He never means for us to suffer, merely to be at rest. This is a reminder to not make things difficult for ourselves because the Deen is simple, beautiful, and flawless. If we are unable to pray in Mosques, we can certainly pray in our houses. If you haven't prayed as a family in a while, now might be the greatest time to get back into the habit. You can still wake up for Tahajjud, spend time with the Quran, and learn about the Deen online if you no longer have access to the Mosque.

There is a plethora of ways to Him. Don't set any boundaries in our pursuit of His boundless Generosity, Mercy, and Love.

I am also grateful that I am home, with my family, really, I am. I have been living by myself because of university and it had been pretty lonely since I don’t necessarily socialize with a lot of people, and I am truly grateful that God had allowed me to be back home during this period.

Please hold your loved ones a little tighter today if you are at home with them. Perhaps this is also one of Allah SWT's reminders to us – to utilize all of the time given for quality time with the people you care about a priority whenever feasible, because our time together in this world is only a gift.

We are fortunate to have dedicated healthcare professionals. They say that not all heroes wear capes, and our healthcare staff are our unsung heroes, working around the clock to help the community at this trying time. Actually, I am grateful not just medical professionals who have risked everything and are working relentlessly to help everyone, but also our civil workers; cleaners, teachers, journalists, researchers, lab workers, ministers, leaders, bus + taxi drivers; anyone and everyone who have been tirelessly serving and reassuring the community without expecting anything in return. May Allah reward every single one of you in abundance. 

But ultimately, I am honestly grateful for the ability to be grateful during this time since it's the only thing that's given me hope throughout this period of uncertainty. I pray that we all stick to "Syukur" and moisten our lips with "Alhamdulillah" (and sincerely mean it), because it can help us change our despairing thoughts into hopeful ones.

Hope that Allah is guiding and helping us every step of the way.

Hope that we will do the right thing, fight through this pandemic together.

Hope that one day, everything will go back to normal and that we will all be more than OK.  

I began this blog fearful, apprehensive, and unsure of how I should feel. But as soon as I gave my heart a chance to breathe and relax, it immediately returned to the safe comforts of appreciation. It is true what they say about gratitude being the best cure to all anxiety, just like how the remembrance of Allah is the cure to tired hearts.

At ILQ, we are grateful that we have the opportunity to provide education and an enriching environment to our students, especially amidst a pandemic. We are grateful to have a sense of security that enables us to project our message of hope and love to all. It is our mission to uphold our education even now during some of the hardest times for all of us to provide our students with the proper tools for finding hope and light amidst a challenging era whilst ensuring it is an enjoyable and loving experience

I pray that you find it in you to try give yourself a chance to find peace through the means of gratitude, if you are ever feeling overwhelmed and slightly unsettled.

A DIFFICULT CHAPTER.

 

Assalamualaikum everybody, it feels so long since I had last posted. Forgive me for writing blogs with the weirdest schedules one could ever have.

It was probably a month ago that I took my AstraZeneca vaccine. Although a lot of people had warned me about the side effects, I thought that I could handle it since it was just things that seemed minuscule to me. The night after my vaccine shot, I was convinced that I would not be sick because I felt like myself, normal and cheerful. However, a lot of side effects were observed the day after – one of it being high fever, which was honestly unbearable.

It is not the only time I have ever felt so powerless, not the only time I felt as if could not do anything because I was in so much agony. I cannot help but think about this concept of pain and how a lot of people could just bear with it. If you were to ask me who I think about when it comes to pain, I believe the greatest person to think about is this one person who has gone through terrible hardships and sufferings, who has lost loved ones, who has been ostracised and scorned by society at large, Rasulullah SAW.  He was the beloved of the Beloved, the leader of all Prophets, and the greatest among his people, yet his life was not without hardships.

Sometimes I keep on wondering why Allah would put him through so much but then it finally hit me. It was because Rasulullah SAW was dearest to Him that he was tested so much. It reminds me of this beautiful hadith, "When Allah (SWT) desires good for someone, He tries him with hardships.” (Bukhari)

Eventhough I have came across this hadith, it did not stop me from thinking about why God puts people that He loves through so much? The more I think about it the more I understand why, everytime I get sick, or hit a slump, it never stopped me from calling out to Him. Allah tests those of whom He loves because He wants to fortify our Imaan, He wants to train us, to care for us, to teach us and increase our wisdom, to remove the rust from all of our hearts, to bring us closer to Him, to serve as a reminder of our purpose, to advance in rank and to bestow the highest level of Jannah onto us.

If you want a simple answer as to why Allah tests us with so much. It is because He wants to save us.

The reality is that we cannot escape from feeling all the pain in this Dunya. Especially now, amidst this pandemic where we are left with a lot of pain. Be it an emotional heartache, a physical affliction, or even in the form of material and financial loss, we are bound to feel pain. However, I would like to remind you that whatever the cause may be, it is what we do with these emotions that matters. A strong quote that has been going around is that pain changes people; for better or for worse. However, as believers, it is crucial that we allow this suffering to wash over us, to purify us, rather than drowning and destroying us.

Some of the things that have helped me in the past are:

1.     Taking long sujoods; and express every single pain that I feel to my Lord;

2.     Calling out to Him for His help;

3.     Reading the Quran; gives me tranquillity;

4.     Repeating Duas of the Prophets;

5.     Taking a break and focusing on my gratitudes.

Personal hardships and challenges in life are undoubtedly inevitable, even in children. A parent's first instinct would generally be to prevent any challenges children would face or the consequences after. At iLuvQuran, we would enable children to have the necessary tools to face these hardships head own with religion in mind. We believe that Islam can teach us and bring us through the toughest of times in life and give us the hope and optimism necessary to swim through the deepest of waters. So, it is our duty to empower children with the ability to perceive Islam in a positive way to support them throughout their life during their ups and downs.

If you have any inquiries about the school or to register, feel free to contact us at +60-189870020 or find us on our social medias @iluvquran.

I would like to end this blog post with a hadith in mind, where Rasulullah SAW said, “No fatigue, nor disease, nor sorrow, nor sadness, nor hurt, nor distress befalls a Muslim, even if it were the prick he receives from a thorn, but that Allah expiates some of his sins for that.” So, the next time you go through a hardship, know that good tidings to the people who are patient.

May all of us be given the courage to accept, the strength to heal, the humility to submit, and the benefit of being able to return closer to Him through the grief He has bestowed upon us.

HOPE.

 

Assalamualaikum! I hope things are doing great with all of you even with all of the things that is going on right now. Today, we are going to be discussing about duas or easily known as prayers in English.

You see, for the longest time, I feel like I haven’t really been the best version of myself when we’re talking about faith. My relationship with duas was almost non-existent. They were really just a habit that had been almost ingrained in my go-to every time I prayed. It felt mechanical; it felt like something I would do because I had to. And I know that I shouldn’t find faults as to why this has happened but looking back, it was probably because I was never taught otherwise, you know. All my life as a child, I was never taught that duas should be the very core of everybody’s life. It would always be “you need to read this dua before you eat, this dua after you’ve prayed, this dua before you enter the toilet” and so on. And I have never got the chance to embrace the whole idea of these duas especially due to the fact that it’s in Arabic. As a child, I was always taught to memorise them and recite them whenever I do the things mentioned. From there, I realised that I had been apparently taking goodness from myself – by not comprehending the depths of it all.

As I grew older and relearning Islam at my own pace, I have never failed to make this one specific Dua. It was very personal and every chance I have to make this Dua, every time I was in a rut or whenever Allah SWT moved my heart to make that Dua, I would grab it and pray for it. Although admittedly some days would be more sincere than the others, and some days it would be longer and more personal, but I am always confident that He would always hear my prayers and would eventually answer my pleads. The Duas would always start with “Ya Allah, please….”, and then I found myself tearing up as I surrender to my Lord for help. It has been almost 6 years now, and while there have been a few times where I’ve seen a glimpse of hope, the thing that I’ve been hoping for has yet to happen. Of course, as a powerless human being, there were many times where I had doubts, where I would think “What’s the point of all this?” because let’s be real, we’re talking about Him, you know, God of all Creation, He wouldn’t just leave me out here point-blank, right? And it’s funny cause we would always give up the second we don’t see a purpose to it. As a human, we would always make this grave mistake of bringing Allah down to a “human” level so that we could comprehend everything better. We forget that He is the Most Supreme, the Most Divine, and there is nothing that we could actually do to comprehend all of this other than just surrendering ourselves to Him.

A few years later, as I continue to utter this very same dua, it finally dawned on me. The 15 years old me would probably never look at this the same way I would now but I finally understood why God has moved me to make the same dua time and time again and why He has not “answered” the prayers yet. It has always been there, but it took me years to see it. SubhanAllah, imagine, all these whiles of desperately asking Him to just show me a sign, it has always been there. Allah SWT wanted me to experience how it would feel like to be so close to him. Every desperate calling for an answer, every time I cry to Him, Allah just wanted me to feel the peaceful and soothing consolation of being able to totally surrender to Him. He wanted me to develop and flourish during the entire process as I learn to rely only on Him.

Surah Al-Fatihah; snippet of a page from the book published by iLuvQuran

And indeed, Allah continuously reminds us that He is the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful every day, we recite it day-in and day-out. In the first verse of Surah Al-Fatihah, He mentions that He is the Most Gracious and the Most Merciful, and again in the third verse, He reassured us that again.

Verse 1 and Verse 3 of Surah Al-Fatihah; snippet of a page from the book published by iLuvQuran

You see, even when I was on the brink of giving up and was so negative about the fate of my life, He forgives me and still provides me a lot of good in my life; I’m still alive, I’m still surrounded with the people who loves me, I’m still able to pray among other things, Alhamdulillah.

Rasulullah SAW said in a beautiful Hadith, "There is no Muslim who calls upon Allah, without sin or cutting family ties, but that Allah will give him one of three answers: He will quickly fulfil his supplication, He will store for him in the Hereafter, or He will divert an evil from him similar to it." (Ahmad)

At iLuvQuran, we teach and empower children to embrace religion and understand the true depths of values and ideas they are learning in their classes. We make it our effort to ensure that your children are in a loving, sincere and motivating environment to learn about and welcome Islam into their lives. With the sincere work and love poured towards your children’s education by our teachers, your children will be powerful caliphs in the future, InshaAllah. 

We have recently launched our Online Islamic School and if you want to be a part of our adventure, feel free to join our free trial class this Saturday at 4PM with Teacher Amira!

Class: Free Trial - Quranic Discovery

Date: 10th July 2021 (Saturday)

Time: 4pm

The Online Islamic School starts on Sunday, 11th July all the way to 22nd August 2021, a total period of 6 weeks! For more inquiries, feel free to contact or WhatsApp the number +60176411786 or register at iLuvQuran!

I guess the thing that I want to address in this blog post that you should never give up on that Dua that you’ve been making since Day 1. God’s timing is as perfect as it is and it’s always reassuring. That's all the time I have for now, and until then, I hope you'll find the strength to believe in Allah and His timing, InshaAllah, things will be better. 

 

 

 

THERE’S A NEW WRITER IN TOWN

Hi there! The name’s Mira and I just turned 21 today, Alhamdulillah. Can you imagine? I am twenty-one years old now. Honestly, it felt like it was just a week ago that I attended my first religious school class, and now I am in my final year pursuing an International Business degree. I used to be THAT kid who would cry at the school’s gate because I wanted to be with my parents, and honestly, I think if we were to go back in time, I would do that time and time again, 100%.

Growing up, I would always think how life would be now, if they have made schools interesting – not interesting the way, you know, teachers will not give you homework kind of interesting, but like an experience that makes you want to learn the things that you are learning, an experience that keeps you motivated to learn more and lets you discover what it means to you. I don’t know about you guys, but my memories of my religious school were not particularly good because the first thing that pops to mind is the time where I got scolded by my teacher for the things that I couldn’t even control then and now. It was constantly demotivating to be in a place where my teachers could not accept me. I wish no such thing to happen to anybody else as it was honestly just sad to think about, even now.

With understanding parents like Umi Irah, the founder of iLuvQuran, we now have schools that optimizes on the learning-based experience; catering more to piquing an interest, nurturing motivation, and personal values to your child’s education. iLuvQuran creates a passionate environment for students to embrace by targeting four key values:

1.     Each message is taught in a loving manner where patience and acceptance are at its core.

2.    Creativity is key in catering to different personalities since everyone finds personal connections with religion in their own respects.

3.     A fun atmosphere where enjoyment can be correlated to learning.

4.     Engaging activities to retain attention and interest.

These four values are persistent within iLuvQuran's methods with the goal of nurturing critical learning where students can choose their own connection and love with the Qur'an and Islam.

If you are interested but you’re not sure if we are the right pick for you, feel free to register your kid for a free trial class with us at any day and time preferred by you! More information is on our website at iluvquran.com!

With that, I hope for a future where children can find religious learning to be a safe and secure place for them, to be personally connected with the religion and not judged upon. That’s all for my first post, and I hope to catch you again soon!