Happy Ramadhan

RAMADHAN

As I look searchingly into the sky
I look for a sign from Allah the most high
People think I'm crazy sitting in this cold
But I quest for something more precious than gold

For mankind this sign represents something great
but for the rejected one, it fills him with hate
Suddenly out of the darkness the moon does appear
the whole world rejoices 'Ramadan is here'

During Ramadan the shaytan is in chains
and Allah's mercy for a month reigns
The doors of heaven are open wide
begging for mankind to enter and abide

So often in Hadith we are reminded and told
that rewards are multiplied by many a fold
In this month do good deeds and read Quran
spend your time wisely and learn Islam

After all these years I have made up my mind
the right path and salvation I wish to find
To Allah's will I will surrender at last,
enshallah, Allah will forgive my past

Forgive-all those sins too good it sounds
but Allah's mercy knows no bounds
With sins stacked like mountains so high
will be forgiven within a blink of an eye

This Ramadan my heart and soul are alive
ready to change and ready to strive,
No more will the shaytan hold me back
in the worship of my Lord nothing will lack

Together lets make the decision to change
our priorities in this life lets re-arrange
This life on Earth is short and fast
but the life in the hereafter will forever last

Ironically this life for us holds much value
when the next life is the one that's true
To make effort on the earth we never tire
but will it take us to paradise or hell fire?

This month will give a fresh perspective
on the way we ought to and the way we live
With Zikr and prayer lets increase our Iman
Join me and together lets celebrate Ramadan

With Ramadan here the changes begin,
Firstly walking away from a life of sin
The shackles of sin I have worn so long
Now caste away to the righteous I belong

The seeker finds and mercy does shower
On lail-a-tul Qadr - the night of Power
The Quran came down on this blessed night
A guidance for mankind an illuminating light

From the depth of your Soul please pray
as invocations are accepted and sins wiped away
Ask with a clean heart is all Allah requires
and ask for whatever good the soul desires

Listen to the Quran every night in Tarawih
Ah.. Allah's words what spiritual ecstasy
It cools your heart and calms your soul
So with crystal clear vision perceive your goal

For this goodness to last there is a price
For the Deen of truth you need sacrifice
To toss aside the earth you hold so dear
Nothing but Allah will you ever fear.

Tossing and turning through every night
the demon called Dunya you need to fight
the demon called nafs you need to tame
because struggling to surrender is your ultimate aim

Etikaf is a another gift that Allah sent
The Last ten days in His path spent
in the Mosque in the presence of your Lord
doing Zikr, Talawat or Salah at your own accord

These days to Allah you must also dedicate
then disbelief and ignorance your will hate
The Quran and Sunnah will be your guide
Only then faith in your heart will reside.

Beginning this Ramadan lets make amends
Study and practice until our life ends
Everything but our deeds we leave behind
this is the truth to which we were blind

Our cars, wealth and house on earth will stay
our actions are the companions on that day
when your breath expires so does hope
so hold on firmly to Allah's rope

There is great wisdom in this rhyme
It's dedicated to me before it's my time
for these changes my soul does yearn
this Ramadan Insha Allah it's my turn

Zahid bin Ghulam

Seven Secrets for English Learners

Secret #1: LEARN ABOUT WORD STRESS

Word Stress is golden key number one for speaking and understanding English. Word Stress is *very important*.

You can try to learn about Word Stress. This is one of the *best* ways for you to understand spoken English - especially English spoken fast.

What is Word Stress?

Take 3 words: photograph, photographer and photographic, for example. Do they sound the same when spoken? No!

They sound different, because *one* syllable in each word is “stressed” (stronger than the others).

PHOtograph

phoTOgrapher

photoGRAPHic

This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables:

TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera

The syllables that are not stressed are ‘weak’ or ’small’ or ‘quiet’. Native speakers of English listen for the stressed syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use Word Stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your pronunciation and your comprehension.

If you have an English teacher, ask her to help you understand Word Stress. Try to hear the stress in words each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in films for example. Your first step is to *hear* and recognise it. After that, you can *use* it!

Secret #2: SENTENCE STRESS

Sentence Stress is golden key number two for speaking and understanding English. With Sentence Stress, some *words* in a sentence are “stressed” (loud) and other words are weak (quiet). Look at the following sentence:

We want to go.

Do we say every word with the same stress or force? No!

We make the important words *big* and the unimportant words small. What are the important words in this sentence? Yes, you’re right: WANT and GO.

We WANT to GO.

We WANT to GO to WORK.

We DON’T WANT to GO to WORK.

We DON’T WANT to GO to WORK at NIGHT.

It’s impossible to explain everything about Sentence Stress in this article. The important thing for you is that you know it exists and try to learn about it. Sentence Stress is *very important*!

Secret #3: LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN!

Students sometimes say: ‘I don’t listen to the BBC news on the radio because it’s too fast for me and I can’t understand it.’ That’s a pity! When it’s too fast for you, when you can’t understand it, that is exactly when you NEED to listen to it!!!

How can you improve if you don’t listen and practise?

When you were a baby, did you understand your own language? When you were 3 weeks old, or 2 months, or 1 year, did you understand everything? Of course not! But you *learned* to understand by *listening*. Think about it. You learned to understand your own language by listening, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. After that, you learned to speak. Then you learned to read. And then you learned to write. *But listening came first!*

Secret #4: DON’T LISTEN!

In Secret #3 I said LISTEN! LISTEN! LISTEN! Now I say DON’T LISTEN! What do I mean?

Do you know the difference between the verbs TO LISTEN and TO HEAR? TO LISTEN is active. TO HEAR is passive.

Sometimes you can LISTEN too hard. Sometimes you can TRY too hard. Sometimes it is better only to HEAR. Let the radio play. Let the cassette play. But DON’T listen. Just HEAR. Your subconscious will listen for you. And you will still learn. If you listen and try to understand, you may block on one word and get frustrated. Don’t worry! Just HEAR! Believe me, you will still be learning. The important thing is to let the radio or cassette or television or record PLAY. Let it play. And you - you do nothing. Your brain will HEAR, your subconscious will LISTEN and you will LEARN!

Secret #5: IMPROVE YOUR VOCABULARY WITH 5 WORDS A DAY

Vocabulary is easy! How many days in a year are there? 365, normally (on Earth).

If you learn only 5 new words a day, you will learn 5 x 365 = 1,825 new words in a year. ONE THOUSAND, EIGHT HUNDRED AND TWENTY-FIVE WORDS. That is a lot of new words. And we are not counting all the other words you will learn in other ways - reading, conversation etc.

Buy a notebook and write in 5 new words EACH day, EVERY day. Learn them! You will soon have an excellent vocabulary.

Secret #6: 30 MINUTES A DAY BETTER THAN 3.5 HOURS A WEEK

In fact, 30 minutes of English study once a day is better than 5 *hours* once a week! Study regularly.

Study often.

LITTLE + OFTEN is better than LOT + SOMETIMES.

It’s easier, too. You can easily find 30 minutes each day. How? You can get up 30 minutes earlier. Or have a shorter lunch break. Fix a particular time every day - and keep it!

Some games and quizzes to look at every day:

Secret #7: REVISE! REVISE! REVISE!

If you revise, you’ll improve your learning by 100%.

What does “to revise” mean? It means “to look again”.

You should be systematic about this. When you learn

something, you should note it. Then you should *look at it again*, 3 times:

- after 1 day

- after 1 week

- after 1 month

Each time you revise, test yourself.

Learn, revise, test.

Revise, test.

Revise, test.

NOTE:

revise (BrE): read again to improve one’s knowledge

revise (BrE & AmE): read and correct; update


(This post is sent to us by email from Josef Essberger - England)

Free Grammar eBooks

Your vigor or enthusiasm in learning English can easily slip away when you learn that it takes up lots of money to buy books. You can tell how much they would cost you just by looking around the book prices at nearby bookstores. It's real madness.

Today when internet comes into existence and gains its fame on earth, lots of people say that you can do almost anything you want or get almost anything you need, including getting free English books. All it takes is internet connection and a little bit of patience when surfing the web. It takes a bit of work though, but I'll make it much easier for you. Just click on the book title and have the book downloaded straight into your personal computer. All for FREE.

Here are several English grammar books you can download.

1. GRAMMAR WITH LAUGHTER

2. ENGLISH GRAMMAR WORKBOOK FOR DUMMIES

3. GRAMMAR PRACTICE ACTIVITIES: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR TEACHERS

4. ENGLISH GRAMMAR IN USE: WITH ANSWERS

5. OXFORD GUIDE TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR

6. LONGMAN ENGLISH GRAMMAR: FOR ADVANCED LEARNERS

7. UNDERSTANDING AND USING ENGLISH GRAMMAR

8. BASIC ENGLISH GRAMMAR EXERCISES

9. JUST ENOUGH ENGLISH GRAMMAR: ILLUSTRATED

10. OXFORD PRACTICE GRAMMAR WITH ANSWERS

Check them out now. I'll later update you with a lot more free English books.
Good luck.

Why I Write

When speaking of the function of the language, many people may wonder why should bother writing if we can simply speak to communicate. It may be true to assume so. But writing cannot be separated from speaking when it comes to communication. There is a wide range of contexts that necessitate both use of language such as business contexts, academic contexts, journalism contexts, and etc. Anyway, when you have me answer the same question, I’ll have a tough time finding some justifiable answers at first, but I could then come up with a few plausible reasons, probably not quite convincing. These are what encourages me to write.

First, I feel the urge to write because I've (unfortunately) claimed myself as a scholar (in the process of being as such anyway). I've consciously made this decision to devote my life to advancing knowledge and education. Consequently, I have to write as one of my duties and a characteristic feature of a scholar that distinguishes him from any other professionals. A scholar studies something, questions it, investigates it and in the end reports it in an acceptable academic paper, a kind of report that meets some academic writing principles.You can't imagine if scholars don't write, can you?

Second, I feel the urge to contribute to the world we are living in through writing. I must honestly say that oftentimes I don’t dare say, comment or let alone criticize anything openly through speeches. I usually prefer to be silent and express what I think and feel through writing. By writing, I feel the power to speak, to argue, to criticize, or even to confront anything that I think is improper or inappropriate based on the values and ideals I embrace. I feel that I can control the words, play with them, and make use of them as if they were guns to shoot somebody. I could even use them as a means of freezing or killing people. And I feel the joy of doing this because I think I can contribute to the betterment of the world at some point.

Now, do you have the same reasons as I do? Share your reasons.

Bright Ideas Worth Writing

I flipped through some books in the department's library today and came across with a nice and informative book about a guide to writing. It's title is "Evergreen with Readings" by Fawcett (1996).

Well, I do believe if you read at glance through all these ideas, you most probably will be inspired to write. Just have a try.

Here they are:
- Write down your goals and dreams; then brainstorm the steps you can take to make them reality.
- Write about a problem you are having and creative ways in which you might solve it.
- Analyze yourself as a student. What are your strengths and weaknesses? What can you do to build on the strengths and overcome the weaknesses?
- What class at this college have you most enjoyed? Why?
- Who believes in you? Who seems not believe in you? How do their attitudes make you feel?
- Imagine five other lives you might want to live. Who would you be?
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? What might you do to change it?
- If you could spend time with one famous person, living or dead, who would it be? Why?
- List teh things you would love to do if they didn't seem so crazy.
- Do you have an important secret? Kept from whom? How do you feel about keeping this secret? Why do people have secrets?
- Name three people you are supposed to admire; then name three you really do admire. Do the differences teach you anything about yourself?
- If money were no object, what place in the world would you visit and why? What would you do there, whom would you take, and how long would you stay?
- Use your journal as a place to "think on a paper" about material that you have read in a textbook, newspaper, or magazine.
- What news story most upset you in the past month? Why?
- Write down facts that impress you.
- Record quotations that spark your interest.

Looks exhaustive, right? But no worries, the only important thing you have to do is read them through in case one rings your head. Let's start writing then.