First Discipline

Our teacher of Introduction to the Religion of Islam, Dr. A.Hakim, is 100% Jewish but always says he will convert all of us to Islam at the end of the semester. He is a nice person and quite popular in students with his jokes. Generally, most of the students in our class are Jewish, doing their second or third year in college in US, and exchange to Tel Aviv University for a semester. None of us know much about Islam before.
At the first class, Hakim said, if you want to study Islam, you need to understand Muslims; if you want to understand them, you need to accept their ideas first. The only way to study Islam as a religion, is to take a Muslim's view.
"So, I'm a Muslim." he said very seriously that we almost believed him. "And all of you are Muslim now." then he said, and we all laughed.
It's the beginning of our class. Actually later we all realized what he said was really important.
"You are born in a free country, whose constitution are written by men, by human beings. That means you can change them when you think differently. But for Muslims, they are not live under any man-made law or constitution, they live by the words of God. It is a belief which means you never doubt, never ask why. " Hakim said, "if you don't think this way, you'll never understand Islam. Never question God, this is the first discipline in our class."
He speaks English with a Middle East accent, but always slowly and clearly, which is very good for the non-English speakers to understand. I'm happy for this. Last semester I had a famous and great teacher for Middle East history, whose fast English I can never understand. I also realize that if I don't start to practise writing in English now I will never manage it. Hope this notebook may be helpful.