As-salamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu.
This thread is a continuation of conversations I've had around the forum, so here's a little background information:
I am 16 years old and I go to a standard American high school. I am a Junior (year 3 out of 4) and I've always missed my salah. Like, I don't think I have ever made all five prayers in a single day. Recently, I've been trying to be a lot more religious but I've run into one major problem. Doing my Salah at school. For me, school starts at 6 AM and ends at 2 PM. I have 7 classes, each about 54 minutes long except for the first one (called 0 period, because it's before 1st period, which marks the official start of the day) which lasts 45 minutes. I get out of my PE class at 6:45 and "school" doesn't officially start until 7:20. Fajr for tomorrow starts at 6:07 and sunrise is at 7:30 AM. This causes a little problem for me. For one, wudu, and second the actual prayer. At school they only have regular bathrooms that aren't private. I, personally, would find it very awkward to do wudu in there. Especially washing my feet. I could do my hands, face, head, arms, mouth and nose, but the feet would just be rather awkward in a public bathroom. Then the actual salat. As far as I am aware there is no room where I could do it in private. And I don't think I could do it in a public place in school because it would just be really awkward. I am a white convert that is morbidly obese, and I get made fun of enough already, I really don't want to make myself stand out even more (I'm on a diet, btw :) ) The only place I can really think of is in the library, but even still there are students there as soon as I could get there. I know I should only fear Allah swt, but I find it very difficult. :( A sister has offered to call the school for me and ask if arrangements could be made for me to make the prayer, but I don't want my mum to find out either. She doesn't really approve of Islam and doesn't know I've reverted. Astaghfirullah. I talked to her before about Islam and wanted to revert, but she always got rather upset by it. So I just dropped the subject and didn't bring it up again. I've been going to church every week and praying with her and she probably thinks I'm just a good Christian boy again. I'm afraid that if the sister calls my school that they will contact my mum or require her to request it as well. Also, this is my 3rd year there and I've never expressed interest in salah at school, so I don't want them to think I'm just being whimsical about it. So tomorrow I was thinking about asking my 1st period teacher (class starts at 7:20) if I could miss the first 10 minutes of his class to make my prayer (I'll have to explain that I'm a Muslim and the daily prayers are recited at specific times of the day and that it really means a lot to me) and if he agrees, then I might have the sister call my school and request an empty classroom so I can do it in private. But I still don't know. I'm really confused and I just want to be a better Muslim, but I find it so hard. Shaitan is really putting blocks in my way. Please make Du'a that everything will go smoothly and that I can find a way to pray InshAllah. If you have any advice, please let me know either here or in private. InshAllah I will post updates about how things are going with the issue of praying at school, doing my salat in general, and how everything is going. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it wasn't too boring and rambling . . .
This thread is a continuation of conversations I've had around the forum, so here's a little background information:
I am 16 years old and I go to a standard American high school. I am a Junior (year 3 out of 4) and I've always missed my salah. Like, I don't think I have ever made all five prayers in a single day. Recently, I've been trying to be a lot more religious but I've run into one major problem. Doing my Salah at school. For me, school starts at 6 AM and ends at 2 PM. I have 7 classes, each about 54 minutes long except for the first one (called 0 period, because it's before 1st period, which marks the official start of the day) which lasts 45 minutes. I get out of my PE class at 6:45 and "school" doesn't officially start until 7:20. Fajr for tomorrow starts at 6:07 and sunrise is at 7:30 AM. This causes a little problem for me. For one, wudu, and second the actual prayer. At school they only have regular bathrooms that aren't private. I, personally, would find it very awkward to do wudu in there. Especially washing my feet. I could do my hands, face, head, arms, mouth and nose, but the feet would just be rather awkward in a public bathroom. Then the actual salat. As far as I am aware there is no room where I could do it in private. And I don't think I could do it in a public place in school because it would just be really awkward. I am a white convert that is morbidly obese, and I get made fun of enough already, I really don't want to make myself stand out even more (I'm on a diet, btw :) ) The only place I can really think of is in the library, but even still there are students there as soon as I could get there. I know I should only fear Allah swt, but I find it very difficult. :( A sister has offered to call the school for me and ask if arrangements could be made for me to make the prayer, but I don't want my mum to find out either. She doesn't really approve of Islam and doesn't know I've reverted. Astaghfirullah. I talked to her before about Islam and wanted to revert, but she always got rather upset by it. So I just dropped the subject and didn't bring it up again. I've been going to church every week and praying with her and she probably thinks I'm just a good Christian boy again. I'm afraid that if the sister calls my school that they will contact my mum or require her to request it as well. Also, this is my 3rd year there and I've never expressed interest in salah at school, so I don't want them to think I'm just being whimsical about it. So tomorrow I was thinking about asking my 1st period teacher (class starts at 7:20) if I could miss the first 10 minutes of his class to make my prayer (I'll have to explain that I'm a Muslim and the daily prayers are recited at specific times of the day and that it really means a lot to me) and if he agrees, then I might have the sister call my school and request an empty classroom so I can do it in private. But I still don't know. I'm really confused and I just want to be a better Muslim, but I find it so hard. Shaitan is really putting blocks in my way. Please make Du'a that everything will go smoothly and that I can find a way to pray InshAllah. If you have any advice, please let me know either here or in private. InshAllah I will post updates about how things are going with the issue of praying at school, doing my salat in general, and how everything is going. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it wasn't too boring and rambling . . .
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