The Chaotic Life of Qadr ul Islam on the Sora 5

The Qa'i'da

It was in the late afternoon, and although it was hard to figure out the time of day in space. The crew of the Sora 5 had their ways. For instance, Qadr liked to associate the time of day with the position of some nearby stars.

speaking of Qadr, he was sat in his quarters reading Quran. It had been ten days since Nero and Britney said they wanted to learn to read Arabic, and Qadr was very excited to teach them. He was worried that teaching them would be hard and that his translation telepathy could get in the way but he knew he would find a way. On another note, the Islamic month of Sha' baan had ended and Ramadan had begun on Earth, so he had begun fasting too.

Suddenly there was a rhythmic knock on the door. "Hey Qadr," Nero said from the other side of the door. Qadr finished the ayat he was reading before replying, "It's unlocked, as usual," Qadr called to him, a smile playing on his lips.

Nero opened the door and smiled, "Well, my Ma' always taught me to knock before going in someone's room. Also, having as many siblings as I have, I know how annoying it is when people barge into your room without knocking." Qadr laughed, "It was the same at the orphanage that I was raised in, it was a decent one compared to others so we had our own rooms, though we all bunked with our children."

"Finally, someone who gets me!" Nero chuckled. "Have you come for those Arabic lessons?" Qadr asked. He nodded eagerly, "Are you free now?"

"Yep," Qadr replied, popping the 'p'. "Is Britney joining us?"

"I don't know," Nero shrugged. The two then headed to the quiet room.

Qadr had downloaded a copy of the Qa'i'da (a book used to learn the basics of the Arabic language, the Arabic alphabet and other symbols used to read Arabic words) onto his holo-laptop. This was, of course, to aid Nero and Britney in their learning process.

Upon entering the quiet room, they were shocked to find Britney already there, meditating. 'Don't disturb her' Qadr said mentally to Nero. The silence didn't last long, however when Nero's singing bracelet started playing "Ways to be Wicked" in Nero's voice. The song he'd sung especially for Britney. "Sorry," Nero verbally winced.

Britney frowned and opened her eyes, "Thanks for crashing my party of one," she said with a slight hint of amusement, it was a favoured song after all. "I'll take it off," Nero said, then did so.

"What are you boys here for?" Britney asked as she shifted around so she was no longer sitting cross-legged. "Qadr was going to give me one of those Arabic lessons we were talking about a few days ago," Nero explained. "Oh," she thought, "I might as well join in with you then."

Nero sat down next to Britney then Qadr sat in front of them and turned on the holo-laptop and opened the Qa'i'da file. "To tell the truth," Qadr began. "You don't need to learn the Arabic language to read Quran, it can be translated into English or romanized for easier pronunciation."

"Just go ahead, teach." Nero cheered, giving him a warm smile, "Just show us the basics, if we decide it's too hard we'll look over our options."

"Yeah, what he said," Britney shrugged. "Ok," Qadr nods, taking a deep breath before beginning. "Bismillah hir Rahman nir Raheem, Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh. To begin, there are about 26 letters in the Arabic alphabet..."

"About?" Britney questioned. "Some people add two more letters," Qadr explained. "'Lam-Alif' and a second 'yaa'."

"Oh?"

"The first letter is Alif, it resembles the letter 'i' except the dot on the top looks like a squashed two and is called a 'hamza', the Alif makes an 'ah' sound, like Arabic and Allah. It's basically the 'A'  in the Arabic alphabet."

Britney and Nero listened attentively as Qadr described the rest of the Arabic alphabet to them, Britney pointed out that he was teaching them like they were kindergartners leading Qadr to explain that he used to teach young children Arabic back before he was picked up by NASA and that was the only way he knew how to teach, so she let him off. Qadr was a great teacher and the two 19 year-olds were great students, after an hour and a half of Qadr's lesson they were already learning a few Arabic words, like kitab (book) and Asad (lion). Qadr said that they didn't have to memorise the words just learn to read them so they can read the Quran.

Before long, the trio was having more and more lessons. And throughout the course of Ramadan, they'd learnt so much that by the time Eid came around, both Nero and Britney were reading the Quran. Qadr was ecstatic, he couldn't help but think this was the best Eid present ever!