11- Essential value

There are a lot of moral values in each holy book, but there is an essential value (the most important, not the only one) in each one.

For example, I think the essential value in the New Testament is the forgiveness that is based on love. That is why Jesus said: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:38-48)

On the other hand, I think the essential value in the Quran is justice. Even God –in the Quran- consider justice is the goal of sending his messengers and their holy books: “We have already sent Our messengers with clear evidences and sent down with them the Scripture and the balance that the people may maintain [their affairs] in justice.” (57:25)

Beside, God commanded his last prophet “Muhammad” to do justice among people:  “Do not follow their inclinations but say, "I have believed in what Allah has revealed of the Qur'an, and I have been commanded to do justice among you." (42:15)

In addition, God commanded the believers to deal with people justly: “Indeed, God commands you to render trusts to whom they are due and when you judge between people to judge with justice. Excellent is that which God instructs you. Indeed, Allah is ever Hearing and Seeing.” (4:58)

But they need to avoid favoritism with relatives: “O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for God, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, God is more worthy of both. So follow not [personal] inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed God is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.” (4:135)

Also, they need to avoid prejudice with enemies: “O you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for God, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear God; indeed, God is Acquainted with what you do.” (5:8)

10- Reading the Bible

Literary criticism theories and schools have developed into three levels:

         1-   Schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the author and intention of the author, such as the historical criticism, sociological criticism, and psychoanalytic criticism.

         2-   Schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the content and form of the work. Such as Structural theories and Formalism schools (Russian formalism as an example).
       3-  Schools and theories that focus attention primarily on the reader (or "audience") and his or her experience of a literary work. Such as Deconstruction and Reader-response criticism.

Modern theories shows us how different readers receive, perceive, and extract the meaning from a text in different ways, based on their culture, purpose of reading, and the context in which they read the text. Therefore the reader might have different interpretation for the same text if he re-reading it again. Also, reading the Bible will be a big different if you believe that it is holy book or not.

For me, I read the Bible in early 90’s. I was in my early 20’s studying the literature in Alexandria University. I was so attracted to poetry and philosophy. I read a lot of books, but never read a religious book except Islamic. I asked myself many times: “How can I be sure my religion is right and others religions are not?”

I had a Christian classmate in high school, and then when we went to the same university, we became closer friends. Someday, I asked him to give me a copy of the Bible.

I found the Old Testament very close to the Quran. Both offer a practical law... what is allowed for the believers and what is forbidden. They are full of orders and prophets’ history. Sometimes, I found the same verses in both books in the same meaning, same words, and even same pronunciations) because Arabic and Hebrew are from same family language). For example, the Verse “Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth” is in Exodus 21:24 in Old Testament, and in the Quran 5:45.

New Testament is different. It surprised me because it does not have any rules or law. I saw it closer to poetry and philosophy books more than religious holy books. It offers an idealistic (not realistic) religion that cares about the spirit of the law more than the law itself.

I discussed my opinions with my Christian friend, but he really disappointed me. For example, I told him:

-          I loved when Jesus said: “What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them."  Matthew 15:11

-          Yes, that why we can eat and drink anything.

-          WHAT????!

-          Yes, this verse teaches us that there is no forbidden food or drink for Christians.

-          No, this verse does talk about what we can eat and what we cannot. It teaches us that what you eat or drink would affect you only, but what you say will affect others and could start a war!

He was religious Orthodox who reads and understands the bible literally to extract his rules or law, and of course, he depends on his pastors to guide his interpretation. That was different for me, I was completely free, I depend on my reading skills and experiences, not on a pastor, and my goal was just exploring the book, not find any rules for me.

9- The Bible in Islam

Muslims respect the Bible as a holy book from God; even there are a lot of Muslims scholars, such as Ibn Kathir, consider the Bible as one of their resources to explain what is summarized the Quran.

Quran itself talks very highly about the Bible’s book. For example God said in the Quran about the Torah: “Indeed, We sent down the Torah, in which was guidance and light. The prophets who submitted [to God] judged by it for the Jews, as did the rabbis and scholars by that with which they were entrusted of the Scripture of God, and they were witnesses thereto. So do not fear the people but fear Me, and do not exchange My verses for a small price. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed - then it is those who are the disbelievers.”  (5:44)

Beside, He told his last prophet (Muhammad): “Indeed, We have revealed to you, as We revealed to Noah and the prophets after him. And we revealed to Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob, the Descendants, Jesus, Job, Jonah, Aaron, and Solomon, and to David We gave the book [of Psalms].” (4:163)

Also, God described the Gospel very highly when He said in the Quran: "And in their footsteps We sent Jesus the son of Mary, confirming the Law that had come before him: We sent him the Gospel: therein was guidance and light, and confirmation of the Law that had come before him: a guidance and an admonition to those who fear God," (5:46)

Although Muslims respect the Bible they do not depend on it to get their knowledge or to worship God, because even though they believe that parts of the Bible are a revelation from God they do not believe it, nor disbelieve it; because they believe it was changed, distorted, or corrupted by additions and subtractions.

When the Qur'an speaks of the Gospel, it refers to an original divinely revealed Book that came to the Prophet Jesus Christ. It does not refer to any Gospel written by any of Jesus's disciples, such as the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

8- Learning other languages

I believe that grammar must be taught, in striking a balance, in which grammar is not the primary focus, but an adjunct leading to communicative development. My experiences of developing foreign languages confirmed this belief.

After my puberty period, I studied two languages: French and Hebrew. I studied each one for three years. I studied French in high school. The curriculum was focusing on how we can explore the French documents and how we can use the language in different places and situations, such as in the airports, restaurants, and clinics, etc. When I came from Egypt to the USA, I stopped in Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris for three hours to change airplanes. I told the officer in the security check, “Je ne parle pas français”, which means “I do not speak French.” The officer smiled and told me, “But you said it in French.” This story showed me that, you can use the language even if you barely learned the grammar.

In the University of Alexandria, my major was Arabic language and Arabic literature. I had to choose a Semitic language to study for three years. The goal was just to compare the Arabic language with another language from the same family. I chose Hebrew language. There was no material other than the books. The curriculum was higher-order language functions, such as semantic relations. The instruction was focusing on reading and writing skills and ignoring listening and speaking skills. One day, I met a person who speaks Arabic (my native language) and Hebrew. I told him, “I study Hebrew.” So he asked me in Hebrew “What is your name?” I did not understand, and I could not answer. So he told me, “So you study Hebrew but you did not learn it.” This story showed me that, you cannot use the language if you just learned its grammar.

7- Instruments of love

My tear. .

       Will travel through the white of the eye

              Searching for a shore.

Trembly, seeing the sun              

              Lowering his eyelid             

              Writing a dream in his notebook,

Then he returns, and forgets that:                                                 

                                          He was writing it. .                                                 

                                          A letter by a letter.

He cries if he loses his love.

He forgets that:                  

                He drew the rendezvous. .                 

                 He drew the farewell.

Oh my tear. .      

     Instruments of love are not for sale!

6- The result

What was the result of this education system?  Actually, the grammar helped me in some way. For example, the morphemes system eased my learning by understanding the functions of each bound morpheme, so I did not need to memorize the meaning of each word in the dictionary. It was enough to memorize the free morphemes, and then I could use them in many different meanings by adding bound morphemes. I used to translate every English sentence to my first language to understand it. Of course, both languages have different tree diagrams. Therefore, I needed to compare the tree diagrams of my first language to the English. When I understood English syntax very well, I could correct the word order for my English sentence, and make a limitless number of sentences.

It was very easy for me to make a sentence in English, but it was not easy to pronounce it. I could understand the written language much easier than verbal. Reading a short article was taking a long time for me, because I was using the dictionary to translate most words. When I was writing, I focused on grammar and spelling more than expressing myself, so I was very slow. I was very happy when I started to write on Microsoft Office Word program, because it helped me with grammar and spelling, so it gave me a chance to focus on expressing myself. I could not watch an American movie without Arabic subtitles. I could understand people from their body language more than their English, unless they talked really slow and very clear. I have a very deep accent that made it difficult for some people to understand me, so if I met foreign people I tried not to have a deep conversation with them, because I knew that I would not be able to express myself well. Also my deep accent made Egyptian people make fun of my pronunciation when I tried to speak English, so I did not try.

I learned American History in Arabic language, so I did not understand American people when they talked about their history, even though I knew the topic, because I did not know the vocabulary of this topic, so I tried to translate them literally. For example, I called the civil war “national war” and the world war “international war”.

5- Learning style

I was independent, competitive, and self-confident. I had no problem concentrating amid noise and confusion. I enjoyed analyzing grammatical structures. I tried to translate every word, because I felt I had to understand every word of what I read or heard. I thought classroom study was the key to effective language learning. I preferred working alone to working with other people. A lot of people told me, “language is not something you can learn from books only; you need to practice the language with other people, to listen and speak”.  Other people advised me to watch American movies without Arabic subtitles to learn the correct pronunciation. But receiving feedback from other people really did not affect my learning at all.

4- Learning English

I started to learn English as a second language one year before I started puberty; I was twelve years old, in seventh grade in a public middle school in Egypt in transitional programs (Children's native or primary languages and the English language are used as a means of helping them learn English).

In Egypt, there are private English schools that use immersion programs (Approach involves teaching the new (English) language to non-English-speaking (NES) and limited-English-speaking (LES) children by a teacher who is proficient in the learners' primary language. However, the teacher uses English only.) They start teaching English language since kindergarten, and they teach science and mathematics in English. Of course, the students in these private schools master the English language skills much better than other students in public schools.

 The teachers, in my public school, were just following the curriculum that was government mandated, higher-order language functions, and focusing on language rather than on the culture or the content area subject.

The instruction was focusing on reading and writing skills and ignoring listening and speaking skills. Therefore, I felt that the morphology and syntax levels in English are much easier than phonetics and phonology levels. Also, there was no material other than the books.

My first language (Arabic) has a different script. So I spent the first month just studying the alphabet, how it is pronounced and written, and the difference between the upper case and lower case. Then I studied the greeting, short paragraphs, some stories, dialogues and a lot of grammar. 

3- Effective teacher

            I still remember my social studies teacher from the sixth grade Mrs. Saiyidah. Of all the teachers who had taught me, she was the most effective. She smiled all of the time while she was teaching. When she asked the students questions, she gave us enough waiting time to answer, in this way she made us more engaged, so the engaged time were longer. Her reaction was praise and criticism by asking higher-order questions. Also she was Withitness all the time. When she was teaching, she had a lot of enthusiasm for her subject, and that made me love history. She taught history by telling stories not just giving dates and facts. When she would tell the stories, she would act out the story and not just tell about it. In this way, she made history come alive. She had maps (as a visual anticipatory set) to show us where we lived, how the world changed all the time in history, and how countries affected each other. She helped the students to draw maps in very interesting ways. I still remember how she taught me to draw the map of Italy as a boot.     

            Every day before class, she would ask the students what they remembered from the previous class to transition between old and new information. Next, she wrote on the board the title of the lesson and the main ideas. I think this was very good structure, because the teacher provided information and direction, and introduced the topics. Also, she drew the map on the board to show us it was not hard to draw a map. And that is good scaffolding.

            Now, I can understand Mrs. Saiyidah applied Progressivism philosophy of education, she was a facilitator guide, and her class was student-centered class, she used acting, art, group learning, and presentation as teaching strategies.

1- Personal Identity

I was born and raised in a Muslim family in Alexandria, Egypt. That means I am a Semitic racially. And then I was raised up as Muslim religiously and Arab ethnically. I share my mother language, heritage, history, traditions, values, behaviors, area of origin with the whole Arabic world.

That let me ask: Do we acquire our identity by birth and by the way our parents decided how they raise us up? I do not think so, because my identity is more than my culture, and everyone has a personal identity that distinguishes him from the other members of his culture.

All my life stages, I feel that what I am doing is a duty and I have to finish it as soon as I can. I feel the same even if I do fun things, such as swimming or even having sex. Why? I do not know. It seems like I want to do something else after, but it is not true. Or I might like to be free after that? But I do not enjoy any time that feel I do not have anything to do.

I tried to understand this feeling, but when I could not find any reason behind it, I considered it as sign for metaphysical thing. Maybe my life will not extend to try many things, so I might need to race the death hastening everything that I can experience.

I hate this feeling. It prevents me to enjoy my life. But the weirdest thing is that this feeling affects me physically and socially, but not mentally. It made me a fast person. I talk fast, I walk fast, I eat fast … etc. So I could not master any manual thing. I am a very bad handy man and people called me “high strung”. But on the other hand, I like to take my time in reading, writing, and thinking. The ideas have very clear shapes in mind, even if they are in conflict.

That was a barrier for my social life and physical activities in my childhood. So I was involved more in reading, and then in art and cultural activities in my adolescence. I remember a conversation between my parents about me being different than my peers. My mother was worry about me spending a lot of time alone reading and drawing, but my father was happy because he thought that would protect me from bad effect of peer pressure. Now, I wish to have the ability to go back to the past and share their conversation to explain to them “One is the fallacy of universal age-stage linkage and the other is the underestimation fallacy. The first is reflected in the belief that adolescence anywhere at any time is necessarily a period of storm, stress, and confusion. Hence, adults characterize adolescent behavior as confused whenever it deviates from the adult norm. The second assumption suggests that children and adolescents are incapable of appreciating interpersonal relations and unable to cope with their frustrations, tensions, and problems. Hence, when the child does not behave according to the demands of adults, he or she is thought to have symptoms of behavioral or emotional problems.” (Pai, Adler, & Shadiow, 2006. p. 172)