Tajweed Class: Making Friends

I wrote a while back about joining tajweed classes. It seems in no time at all we are coming to the end of them. The class is 12 weeks long and we focus on the rules of pronunciation for Quranic Arabic and practice our recitation of the Quran.

We are now at week 10, with one week of revision and a test of what we have learned in the final week.  This week one of the ladies suggested we all go around and introduce ourselves as we saw each other every week but didn’t know anything about each other.  We said our names, what we did and how many children we had.  I also mentioned that I was over the moon that this class was running on a weekend and within walking distance so I could attend it too.  I was surprised, I had assumed that most of the ladies were stay at home mothers because most of the Muslim ladies I meet are.  But this group included two teachers, two teacher’s assistants, a solicitor, a civil servant and an audiologist.  Two of the ladies had worked and were now retired. It was nice to think these ladies would have some experiences and challenges in common with me.

The ustadha (teacher) was also surprised that we all worked and asked us to tell everyone a bit about what our days look like.  So, the women explained their various routines: how they managed their work around their children, worked the hours that their children were only at school, or didn’t have children. 

We then went back to our revision, but it was lovely getting to know the sisters a bit more and finding some connection with them.  The ustadha is hoping to teach a tafseer class (covering translation of the meaning of the Quran) along with the tajweed class after the Easter break.  If that happens insh’Allah, that would be a big dream come true for me.