May you all have a very blessed month and may Allah swt accept your fasting and prayers. Ramadan Karim ♥

Every time I see this picture I laugh, look at the guys!!! They really make a good S.

First, thanks to Allah who made it happen again this year. Then, my thanks goes to Dr. Wan, API’s management, and all coordinators Ummu, Syahadah, Merima, Radi, Yasir and Ensar for all your hard work! May Allah reward you all greatly inshaAllah!

To all students, congrats! I know that you all have learned a lot, and also enjoyed a lot there. Now, it’s time to go back home and practice what you have learned. Even a little knowledge practiced, surely it will benefit you for the rest of your life inshaAllah. Otherwise, knowledge without practice is just like tree without fruit, and that would be meaningless and a total waste of your time, money and energy. I hope that all of you are a better Muslim today, and inshaAllah will keep striving for a better you in the future.

“Verily never will Allah change a condition of a people until they change what is within their souls” – Al Quran

Ramadhan Kareem and happy fasting to all of you until we meet again inshaAllah.

Thank you.

/Abu Ilyas

As the days pass by, I am starting to reflect on the many things that had happened during this summer camp. While the students get to evaluate the programme tomorrow, us coordinator need to put our heads together as well, and discuss.

Like I once said somewhere, it’s part of the package, both the good and the bad. Us human beings cannot attain perfection, but we can try as best as we can. Insya Allah the good will outweigh the bad, and we need to look at things in a positive light. Having said that, I am comforted, as I feel that I might fail short of being a good coordinator. But then again, this is the process of learning. As the students learn, so have I.

Tomorrow is the exams, and students will be given the evaluation forms. I hope the forms are ready. I’ve offered to help with the forms, but the ever dependable SMA coordinators say it’s okay, even with the exams and all.

Thursday is a free day for all, Naida already has plans for me (I should have not asked her to my place last Saturday, now she’s full of ideas…heheheh, just joking Naida,  I’ll ask you again and again if I can). Friday is the closing ceremony, which me, Syahadah and Radi need to plan for. This year apart from the certificate,  we are also giving awards for best students for every subjects, to appreciate those who did well in class and exams.  Saturday is Malacca day, though I am not going, since I have to attend a seminar this weekend. Looks like our time together is getting less and less…

I am trying to type the questions for the evaluation and came to think that it’s our last week here.. It feels like we just got here and the time has, as usual, gone incredibly quickly. But as they say, when you have fun the time passes quickly. Tomorrow we have our last real schoolday, from 08:30 to 17:30. On Wednesday we have exams, evaluation on Thursday and the closing ceremony on Friday. And then it is only the last weekend and we will travel back to Sweden on Monday insh’Allah! But Alhamdulillah, I’m thankful that I got this opportunity to come here again. I’m also a bit sad because I know that I wont visit Malaysia for a really long time.

This saturday, the others are going to Melakka and I hope that they will like it! I remember how happy I was that I went there last year, because of the wonderful mosque on the waterfront. Mash’Allah! For us, we’ll take the opportunity and use this weekend to do all that I have not had time for, and buying all the gifts that must be purchased. Moreover, it is an exciting congress this weekend where the coordinator Ummu is going, on both Saturday and Sunday .. exciting!

I will try to update with some pictures as soon as I manage to find the transfer cable in our messy room!

Anyway, I haven’t really thought of writing here, but I see that Merima is the only one so far who has so faithfully been putting up posts, so I decided to keep her company.

So far things have been both good and bad. As a coordinator, I wish I could have manage things better, especially in regard of the schedule. The schedule has undergone changes quite a few times, since our teachers have been busy with their other responsibilities. And when one teacher asks me to change his or her time slot, then other teachers’ time will be affected as well. For example today was hectic (for me at least), with the class has to be changed to another place since the seminar at API today used our classroom (how they mixed that up I do not know, we had that room since the beginning), while  one teacher could not make it on time, another asking to change his time slot and we had to move  the Tafsir exam to an earlier time, and the Ibadah class for girls had to be canceled since the instructor could not make it tonight.

I really do not like it when classes are disrupted like that. I guess it could not be helped sometimes, and this is the only day when too many things happened at once. Otherwise on most days it is okay. Sometimes (very rarely, though I wish it could be oftener) I join the students in their lesson. I just sit at the back of course, not actually part of the class and get to leave when I want heheh. I think the students are very lucky, to be able  to learn like this, and especially from such great teachers. I never had such opportunity. That is why I feel very guilty when a class has be canceled or if the teacher cannot make it on time, because I believe the students deserve every minute that they spend here to receive more knowledge. But like I said some thing cannot be helped and I guess in the long run everything happened for the best.

The visits to the Islamic schools during the second week were very beneficial, even for us Malaysians. I think we should have such visits in the future summer camps as well. We have many more great schools, and we can go and see different ones each year, what do you think? The summer camp participants will learn much from these visits, and it will be good for the community of the schools, especially the students to meet with people from other places, especially from foreign countries. I know from experience that these students do not really mix much with people outside their own group, so it will be a good exposure to them.

We do not have as many study visits as we did last year i think, because we have more subjects and the schedule is rather packed. I saw that in the beginning the students were quite tired, as they adjusted themselves to the time, weather, food, people and classes.  I’m not sure whether they were expecting that, but the next year’s participants cannot expect anything less! But I think this is how it should be. You do get time to relax, and go see places and such, but since the main reason to be here is to learn, then we should use time to the fullest. Now that the days are slipping away, I hope everyone will use the time they have left to learn more. Who knows when else you guys will be able to have such opportunity.

I see that my thoughts are quite random. Since I have not written anything before, I wanted to say a lot of things, but the ones above are the utmost in my thoughts.

We’re back from Langkawi. It’s been three wonderful day! Many of us, however, are burned by the sun but for me personally it’s been so worth it. The entire group is going to Singapore this weekend but my husband and I decided to skip that journey. I want to visit Singapore but not this time, I want to explore Malaysia .. I’m thinking strongly about going to the other side of Malaysia.

Now, back to studies!

Right now I’m sitting at my room and reflecting on this year’s trip and trying to see the biggest differences from last year’s summer camp to this year’s. There is so much that has happened and there is much that has improved since last year. The biggest difference this year is the group dynamic – it is a wonderful group of students this year and we work well together.

Right now, most of the girls are sitting in our Surau and studying, we have several assignments and exams tomorrow. We have completed these courses: Islamic worldview and Akhlaq. Tomorrows exams are in Aqidah connected with sufism and Ulum al-Qur’an. The courses have been really good, and instructive. I really appreciate the teachers and their knowledge. I just hope they understand us and have sabr with us – we have a very different kind of relationship with teachers in Sweden and it may perhaps be a little too much for them here – as we always attend to say what we think.

Anyway, I also think that everyone looks forward to the weekend, we will spend it in Langkawi insh’Allah! I personally have longed to Langkawi for a whole year!

This is my first visit to this portal. It is nice and will always connect us all wherever we are. I would like to take this oppurtunity to welcome you all, althought it is a bit late. Hope the first half of the summer camp has been good and I pray the second part will be better. Enjoy yourselves and I am always in your service.

WS