Learning English

I came across this little booklet my grandparents were given when they arrived on the shores of the United States as Displaced Persons. It is a whopping 23 pages long. No wonder my grandma went to learning English by watching the Price is Right. She'd also go through newspapers with a red pen, circling any words she knew.

My grandparents citizenship process was under $100. My grandfather worked long hours, full-time, for $50 a month. The mortgage was $45. My grandmother stayed home raising 5 little children, while doing endless piles of laundry and ironing for neighbors all day, all for a total of $1 a week. And yet, my grandmother still found a way to purchase books for her 5 little children, the first Americans in our family, because she believed so deeply in literacy and education.

On another side of the globe, 1500 years ago, the world was told:

"Read! in the name of thy Lord, who created man out of a clot of congealed blood:

Read! And thy Lord is Most Bountiful, He who taught (the use of) the pen. Taught man that which he knew not" (96:1-5)

The first words of the Qur'an revealed and ever recited were a command to read. Reading is the key to knowledge.