The story of an ancient traveller – by Bilal Cheema

The story of an ancient traveller (my son wrote this story for his ELA creative writing assignment)

Many, many ages ago when all the continents were one, when the oceans were untameable and when man had just learned about fire, and how to use it to protect him. When large ferocious wild animals still roamed the land.  The volcanoes still breathed fire and smoke, the sky was dark with thunder and the trees swarmed the planet, there was a man who wanted to be the most intelligent man in the world.

He was as tall as the trees, with black hair the colour of tar and he had a pointy nose. This man had the bluest eyes imaginable and no one knew his name, so we will call him Traveller because that was what he did all the years of his life. The traveller wanted to be intelligent so he was travelling across the continents, over mountains and through forests to find a man who was very wise, who people say was like an angel.

The traveller first travelled toward the rising sun he found only dry land. Next he followed the North Star and found only beautiful lights and wondrous animals. After that followed the rising moon where he found only emptiness, finally he set his footsteps toward the south. After many cycles of the moon, the traveller finally found the wise man of the south.  The man asked him why he was here. The traveller told him, “I want to be the most intelligent man in the entire world.” The wise man said, “I will not tell you my name.”

The traveller asked, “Are you going to help me?”  He said, “Alright, but on one condition, no matter what I do you will not ask any questions.”  After the traveller swore that he will not question the wise man, and promised that if he broke the condition, the wise man would not tell him the secret of intelligence.

The wise man said, “We are going to travel across Pangaea.” The traveller and the wise man started on their long journey. After one cycle of the moon, they were passing through a village, there the wise man asked for food. The strange villagers refused to give them any. The traveller and the wise man were about to leave the village, when the wise man stopped and mended the security wall around the village. The traveller forgetting his promise and in shock said to the wise man, “Why did you mend the wall?” The wise man said, “No questions!”

As they left the village they came across a large river, to reach the city on the other bank they needed a boat. The wise man asked a poor boatman for his boat. He said, “I will take you across in my boat if you want, I will charge you no money as I see you are travellers tired and hungry.” When the traveller and the wise man reached the other side of the large river, the wise man carved a hole in the boat. The traveller once again forgetting his promise and in anger said, “Why did you destroy the man’s boat when he helped us?” The wise man said, “This is your last chance, if you ask me any more questions I will not travel with you or teach you.”

They continued on their journey following the sun every day; they passed through a village with wild trees surrounding it and the water in the river at the edge of the village was gleaming. The people of the village were rich and their houses were like large stick triangles wrapped with beautiful animal skins. They were very kind, and offered food from a large iron pot in the village centre. This is where everyone ate from. For the night the villagers gave us a warm place to rest our bones. Before the sun came up the next morning, the wise man went out of the tent. Everyone was still sound asleep. Suddenly, there was noise in the village centre, and we discovered that the large cooking pot with food for the next day was over turned. The traveller said to the wise man in a suspicious tone, “You did this, but why?” The wise man replied, “Here we part our ways, I said no questions.”

The traveller agreed but said, “First tell me why you did all those things?” The wise man said, “I mended the wall because there was treasure hidden underneath the wall and it belonged to a little child, if the wall collapsed the villagers would find the little boy’s treasure and take all of it and the boy would not get any of it. The reason why I carved the hole in the boat was, because the king of the city passed a law that would make him the owner of all the sturdy boats. The man who owned the boat can use it because the hole was not that big, the boat will still float, but the king will not take it. I overturned he pot because a snake slithered in and had poisoned the food.” The traveller asked the wise man, “How did you know all these things?” With a smile, the wise man replied, “Remember no more questions.”

The traveller did as he was told and started toward his home. He realized no one can be the most intelligent person because there is always something you can learn from someone, and you must always keep learning.

(Loosely adapted form a Quranic story about Prophet Moses (Surah Kahf 18: Verse 60-82)

Good Manners – recall

My son made this for his little sister as a cut and paste recall for the chart we made on Good Manners…

Memorization and its effect on intelligence

Alhamdulillah, my son recently completed Hifz, (memorization of Quran). We moved from Karachi to Winnipeg, having not been in a regular school for about 2 years, I was worried about how he would cope. Especially with the language issue, and that he would be learning French for the first time in his life. Now, just 6 moths later he is multilingual, can read, write and speak Urdu and English. Has beginner knowledge of Arabic and French and speaks Punjabi as well.

I started to home school him throughout the time he was in Hifz, we focused mainly on rudimentary math and language skills. A lot of reading and conversation. Then 4 months of intense all subject training including French. He was tested for English and Math prior to placement in Grade 7, and in 3 months, he has masha’Allah gone from a 50% in math to a whopping 90+% and has increased his reading and comprehension two levels. The most amazing part his teacher tells me is his critical analysis, even when he was just starting out. That was beyond anything she had ever seen in a student.

This got me thinking about the claim that people make about children who are Haafiz and how intelligent they are.

Before getting into the brain and how the Quran changes it, one should be familiar with how traditional Muslim education took place…

The very first thing taught to an aspiring student was the Quran, which had to be memorized completely. Unlike anything else encountered in spoken Arabic, Quran recitation is a very specific science. Local dialects of Arabic or different ways of pronunciation are not permitted when reciting the Quran. In fact, part of learning the Quran is learning what is called in Arabic taj’weed, which means elocution. The very first thing the student must do is replicate exactly the teacher’s method of reciting the verse… A typical memorization session for a beginner starts with repeating one verse multiple times…to also memorize how it is spelled using the Othmani script. The next day the student reviews the verse several times before returning to the teacher to receive the next verse. After repeating it with the teacher to ensure exact replication of sound and pronunciation,…goes away to begin a new memorization session. The third day begins with reviewing the first verse one final time, followed by the second verse several times before going to receive the third verse. On the fourth day the first verse is not reviewed anymore as it would have taken hold in memory, and the second verse takes its place for being reviewed while the third verse is repeated several times before going to receive the fourth verse. At the end of the week is a complete review session for everything that was memorized in the previous days.

As the days pass the capacity for memorization increases and the student is able to take on several verses or even pages at a time instead of only one or two verses…Eventually, the whole Quran having more than 6,200 verses is memorized word for word with their specific pronunciation and Othmani spelling. Now the hard task begins as the student works to review all the verses on a monthly basis so as to not forget them. This usually means taking the 30 parts of the Quran as it has been divided to facilitate memorization, and reviewing one part everyday until all 30 have been recited by the end of the month…

While learning the Quran, the careful attention to listening and pronunciation of verses stimulates an area of the brain located in the temporal lobe. The temporal lobe is also where the hippocampus is located, which is the memory consolidation center. It’s also the brain region activated for processing of musical sounds such as the case when the Quran is recited…Where this matters is that this is the part of the brain whose activity levels and capacities have been correlated with a person’s aptitude for learning new information. The more activation this area receives, and the more involved this activation is such as the case with the Quran, the better and more efficient it becomes in its functions for learning and memory.

The parietal lobes are also quite heavily engaged as one learns the Quran. The left parietal lobe deals with reading, writing, and functions in speech. It’s also the part whose activity is important for math and logic problems. The right parietal lobe handles speech tone, which is related to elocution. It’s also responsible for visuospatial relationships and understanding facial expressions…The back part plays an important role in attention. Both lobes are also activated during skill learning tasks. Overall, having parietal lobes that have been well activated translates to better logic and math-solving skills, eloquence in general speech, better ability at reading emotional states from facial cues, improved attention, and enhanced capacity for understanding visuospatial relationships…

Other brain regions the activity of Quran recitation strongly activate are the frontal lobes and the primary motor cortex. The frontal lobes activity deals with higher order functions, including working memory, memory retrieval, speech production and written-word recognition, sustained attention, planning, social behavior, in addition to others. For example, as the student is reading the Othamni script, his brain must quickly decide on the proper pronunciation of the word, which…means it must be distinguished from other possibilities that include not only wrong words, but also wrong enunciation…The amazing thing about this is that the brain after practice will do these things without conscious control from the student. This trains the area of the brain responsible for inhibition, which is important for social interaction. Children with ADHD have been shown to have this area to be under-developed…(http://mohamedghilan.com/2012/01/12/how-the-quran-shapes-the-brain/)

A 2008 New York Times article says: A new study has found that it may be possible to train people to be more intelligent, increasing the brainpower they had at birth.

Many question how? And the answer is memorization. The focus is on fluid intelligence, which is along with crystallized intelligence, are both components of general intelligence.

While fluid intelligence involves our current ability to reason and deal with complex information around us, crystallized intelligence involves learning, knowledge and skills that are acquired over a lifetime.

Fluid intelligence declines as we age, but a Haafiz must always for the rest of his life persevere in a schedule of reviewing what he has memorized  hence this protects him from decline in fluid intelligence, much like solving crossword puzzles, logic problems, memory games we played as kids etc…

It is amazing that older methods of teaching and education achieved so much and produced students that went on to be world famous researchers and inventors. There were no ADHD problems, no violence in schools, social issues, bullying, etc… The teacher where my son memorized Quran, used the older students to help the younger students with their lesson for the day, after he had recited it with them a few times till the younger ones had got the annunciation perfectly. He then made sure everyone ate together, whatever little food they had, sharing is caring. My son always ended up eating nutritious meal, fruit, grains, meat, fish, veggies etc… and it was fresh.

Maybe we should go back to the past, teach our kids what they want to learn and they will eventually learn what they have to, instead of teaching them forcefully what we feel they MUST learn.

Recently I was listening to a radio show about how dropping out of university is no longer a stigma, but a sign of being decisive. You know what you want and are not afraid to quit to move into an ‘alternative life direction’. Should we be rethinking our education system?