Those who have opted for email course on Arabic at Shariah Program will agree that Mohtanick Jamil has already told us three very interesting and useful things.
(1) Even the letters and positioning there of have logic and meaning behind them in Arabic language. (On the authority of Mr Syed Hasan Shahid Rizvi, who has retired as a Senior Scientific Officer from the Physics Department of the Aligarh Muslim University and who has worked on Speech Analysis and Acoustics for a long time, we can say that Arabic has least entropy of all languages. Entropy is a measure of disorder. To put it in common parlance it has the following meaning. When we learn a rule of a language then we are happy. This is because a rule gives us a whole way of doing the things. In language classes the teacher, in the next turn, will tell us about the exceptions to the rules. This creates a churning feeling in our stomach. This is because the exceptions reduce the reliability of the rules! This introduces lack of order, or disturbs the order and hence increases entropy. This is what is implied by the above remark about entropy.)
(2) Do not jump to next thing before mastering the current one.
(A very sane advice indeed. Jumping to the next thing is easiest way to spoil any chance of learning. While revising the Shining Primer Hazrat Muhi-us-Sunnah (RA) wrote in the instructions to the teachers that unless the child has mastered a lesson do not go to the next one.)
(3) Do not overtly try to make learning a fun. It is work and let it be so.
(Again a very reasonable advice. Our western brothers are crying themselves hoarse in order to make learning fun. Why should every thing be fun? Can it be? If not then why be obsessed with it?
In the Method (tariqat) there is a parallel to this observation. First time Seeker very soon gets some experiences that are rather, well spiritual, enlightening and sublime. Like very pleasant dreams and feelings of ecstasy and/or premonitions. At such things the Seeker is excited and usually reports them to the Shaikh. In response he is, in fortunate cases, deflated by the Shaikh. Shaikh tells that these things are worthy of congratulations but do not concentrate on them and get busy with your routine.
Hedonism is not the object of the Method, even spiritual hedonism. Pleasure of Lord Most High is.)
