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"Would you like to visit a mosque with me?" I was asked by my friend. The offer sounded for me unexpectedly, but nevertheless I was interested. Ira's husband is a Muslim, and every Friday she visits Islamic Cultural Centre.

It was Friday, hot July day. The Friday prayer started at half past one. We rose to a premise where, facing Makkah, prayed women.

After the prayer Ira arranged for me a small excursion in the Centre.

"Here are carried out different conferences and seminars, — she told to me behind a tea cup, — and also if it is interesting to you, there is a school of the Arabic language. If you wish to learn Arabic, you are welcome".

That was my first acquaintance to the Kiev Islamic Cultural Centre.

After a while I decided to study the language and recollected the school.

""An-Nur" school welcomes you", the signboard on the third floor of the Islamic centre where there are some offices calculated for 20 persons each read.

Lessons pass in the school on Saturday and Sunday—1, 5 hour - the Arabic language and 1 hour is devoted to ethics and culture of Islam. Students of the first level master reading and writing, grammar bases. Considerable time is paid to colloquial practice. In the course of dialogues the native-speaking teachers learn to build simple sentences, there is a storing of necessary expressions: how to ask about name, age of the interlocutor, to ask and answer about trade, nationality, residence, what to tell to the waiter at the restaurant, to the seller in the shop, how to greet, to pass somewhere...

Lectures on ethics and culture of Islam for all comers mention a number of interesting topics: bases of Islamic doctrine, Islamic morals, and family in Islam, polygamy and rights of women, Islam and world religions, Islam and science.

School students freely use rich library with books about Islam, its history and distribution, with biographies of prophets and their associates.

Now I am at the second level and I do not regret that I came here. Exacting, but good-natured teachers every time meet us as kind friends, and their patience and participation are exemplary. After three years of studying graduates get certificates. But to get them, it is necessary to pass successfully examination in the end of each semester.

About advantage of knowledge

• Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "Striving for knowledge is a duty of each Muslim".
• Ali ibn Abu Talib said, "Knowledge is better than riches: knowledge protects you, and riches require your protection, knowledge is the master, and riches are subject to it, expenses reduce riches, and knowledge increases from their expenditure".
• Az-Zubayr ibn Abu Bakr said, "My father wrote to me, being in
  Iraq, "Strive for studying sciences. If you grow poor, knowledge will serve you as riches and if you grow rich they will become for you an ornament".
• Imam Al-Gazali said, "Knowledge without affairs is similar to recklessness, and affairs without knowledge do not happen at all".

Victoria Nevskaya,

Specially for "Alraid.org"