School Books

School is in full swing... I have classes from 8am to 1pm 5 days a week, with Thursdays and Fridays off.

My school bag is heavy! These are my books:


From Top left:
The brown book is 'Duroos fi Uloomul Qur'an' or Lessons in Quranic Sciences. 355 pages. We've been told that memorising the summaries at the end of each chapter is enough to pass the exam.

The blue book next to it is Jafer Subhani's 'Seeratul Muhamadiya' or the Life story of the Holy Prophet. 287 pages, but written really easily in story format

The blue and white book is 'Aadaabal Islam vol 1' or Islamic Manners/behaviour. 325 pages. The teacher summarises the chapters into bullet points which she makes us number in the book. She also expects us to regurgitate the lesson on the spot! scary stuff. Especially when you are one of the few non-Arabs in the class!

The little book on the bottom left is the last chapter of the Holy Quran (Juz Amma). It contains the last 37 chapters of the Holy Quran and we are expected to memorise it by the end of the term.

The light blue book next to it is 'Aqeedatul Islamiya' or Islamic Principles of Faith. 458 pages, badly photocopied and bound together. Actually its not the whole book, its just the half we are studying this term!

The green book with the pic of Imam Khumayni is our Tajweed book - or how to recite the Quran with the correct pronunciation. We haven't started this class yet as the teacher hasn't returned back from the summer holiday (she's not the only one - 6 members of the class are still in their home countries!)

The blue and brown book is our Sarf book or morphology. Its the Arabic grammar book we're studying this year. Our teacher is Egyptian, but you would never guess from the way she speaks Arabic. She's convinced I don't know grammar very well, so she's always asking me questions.

The books arrived late - we were well into our first week before the deliveries starting trickling in. The theory is that the books are printed in Iran and then shipped over.

We're still waiting for our Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) and Hifdhul Mawdhooi (Memorisation of the Quran by subject) books, but nevertheless, the teachers are ploughing on with the lessons.

The books have cost a grand total of 260 liras, which is just under 4 pounds - a hell of a lot cheaper than university textbooks back home!

With so much studying this term, I guess I can kiss my social life goodbye!