The girls are already a little familiar with Prophet Eesa (AS) as it's been brought up in discussion for the past couple of Christmases (What's Christmas? Who celebrates it? Why?) so this time I wanted to focus on the concept of miracles, using Eesa (AS)'s story as the example.
After reading the stories, I asked the twins what they thought the word "miracle" meant... After some talking, they decided it's "a thing that's not supposed to happen, is amazing and good!" I asked if they could think of any miracles to do with the prophets we'd looked at so far... They came up with Ibraheem (AS) being protected from the fire, Yunus (AS) surviving after being swallowed by a whale, and Adam (AS) being made from clay with no mother or father. 👍 But in Eesa (AS)'s story, there were a lot of miracles mentioned!
For our next session, which was a few days later, I asked them if they could remember any of the miracles to do with Eesa (AS) - the ones which came to mind straightaway for them were making a bird from clay fly as if it were alive, he spoke as a baby, and knowing what was in people's houses without looking. So I told them I wanted some more examples... so what could they do? Look in the books again! As they flicked through the pages, searching for the relevant ones, I told them what they were doing was called research and that I would make notes on the whiteboard as they found more information. After a while, the 8 miracles they came up with were:
- no father
- spoke as a baby
- knew what was in people's houses without looking
- bird from clay came to life
- dead people came back to life
- cured sick people
- made a blind man see again
- table of food sent from heaven
Next, I gave them a piece of white card each and told them to write the word "miracles" in the centre - demonstrating on Z's card. Around the edge, they then needed to choose at least 5 of the miracles on the board and draw a picture to represent each one... When they were done, they could either write what the miracle was themselves or I could do it for them (as I was explaining the task it seemed like they were getting overwhelmed, which is why I offered!) - in the end, they both asked me to do the writing. 😂 Before they started, we talked about the possible pictures they could draw (e.g. a speech bubble for Eesa (AS) speaking as a baby) because they weren't allowed to draw Eesa (AS) himself, or his mother, Maryam (AS)!
Finally, we took the watercolours out again so they could colour everything in. Why watercolours? Because they could thin the paint appropriately in order to paint over the top of the captions but still be able to read them! So they were practising experimenting with the ratio of paint:water and seeing the effect it had during this activity, too. They coloured in the centre bubble first, so it had time to dry as they did the rest of their painting, then I asked them to paint over the writing in a different colour - so this time they needed to make sure their watercolours were less watery to ensure they showed up!
As usual, Z did her own version! I wrote a caption in the corner of her page too, upon her request. 😂
As they worked, we had a little discussion about Prophet Eesa (AS) in Christianity... How he's known by the name Jesus and how Christians believe he's the son of God. Allah is God - can Allah have children? No! So why do Christians believe Jesus is God's son? Because normally, to get a baby inside a woman's tummy, you need a man, a husband to help - like Papa is Mama's husband and your father. But did that happen for Eesa (AS)? No, Maryam (AS) didn't have a husband! Allah just put a baby in her tummy just like that, because He can do anything! But the Christians, they thought if Allah, if God was the one who put baby Eesa (AS), baby Jesus in his mummy's tummy, then that must mean God is the father! So if God is his father and Jesus is God's son, that must mean Jesus is like God too! So Christians pray to Jesus and worship him too. Is that what Muslims believe? Is that what we believe? No! Eesa (AS) doesn't have a father; that's just one of Allah's miracles. And he's not Allah's son! But he is special because he's one of Allah’s prophets. Can we worship anyone or anything other than Allah? No!
As we spoke, I helped by drawing a simple diagram on the whiteboard, similar to the bottom branches of a family tree: crossing out the dad and writing Allah’s name as part of the tree when talking about Christianity, and crossing out the dad completely and writing Allah’s name separate when talking about Islam. We also briefly talked about people who are neither Christians nor Muslims and they don't believe in Eesa (AS) or Jesus at all - they think Maryam (AS) had a baby with a man who wasn't her husband and Eesa (AS) isn't special at all! But we know that's wrong because? Allah put Eesa (AS) in her tummy and Eesa (AS) is special because he's one of our prophets. 💕
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