Song: The 6 Articles of Faith

Another simple song I made up because I find it helps my girls remember things... and even the toddler joins in! The lyrics are just the simple facts, really, arranged in a way that rhymes as best as they can. It's more about being able to sing a catchy tune and having the words stuck in their head. 😂 I printed it out and stuck it next to where our Five Pillars song is, for easy reference.

The 6 Articles of Faith

(Sung to the tune of: She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain)

There are six articles of faith,

There are six articles of faith,

There are six main beliefs,

In Islam,

There are six articles of imaan.

We believe in Allah,

We believe in all His messengers,

His books and the angels,

The Day of Judgement,

We believe in the qadr of Allah.

You can download our mini poster here.

Song: The Five Pillars

I wrote a simple song (nasheed, if you prefer?) to help my girls not only learn but understand the very basics of the five pillars of Islam: testimony of faith (shahadah), prayer (salah), charity (zakat), fasting (sawm) and pilgrimage (hajj).

Sung to the tune of "The Wheels On The Bus". 🚌

(CHORUS)

In Islam, there are five pillars,

Five pillars,

Five pillars.

In Islam, there are five pillars,

Which Muslims all believe in.

The shahadah says that Allah is One:

Laa ‘ilaaha

‘illa-llah,

And Muhammad is His messenger:

Wa Muhammadur-rasoolu-llah.

(CHORUS)

Salah we pray five times a day:

Fajr, Dhuhr,

And ‘Asr,

Maghrib, ‘Isha, five salah.

The prayers we offer daily.

(CHORUS)

Zakat we give to charity,

To help the poor

And the needy.

Zakat, it makes our wealth all clean,

And stops us being greedy.

(CHORUS)

Sawm, we fast in Ramadhaan,

Don’t eat or drink

Til the sun goes down.

Be patient, kind and helpful.

Fasting makes us grateful.

(CHORUS)

Hajj is the holy pilgrimage,

To where Prophet

Ibrahim used to live.

Just once in our life when we have the means,

We should make this journey.

(CHORUS)

I then made it into a small poster (two A4 sheets trimmed down, stuck together and laminated), which you can download a copy of here. 😊

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It was a little difficult to think of another, useful, separate activity to do with the shahadah... We've made it a habit for the girls to recite it in Arabic every night before sleeping, so they were pleasantly surprised to discover they already knew it! As for the English meaning, it's covered in this song... So there wasn't really much else to do lol. That level of detail is fine with us for now. 👍

Song: The Five Daily Prayers

We've always made it a point to include salah as a normal part of our lifestyle, by praying in front of the kids and inviting them to join in if they want (though there's no compulsion, they're still young, and if they want to just continue playing that's fine as long as they're reasonably quiet). Winter time is especially good as they're awake for Maghrib, usually Fajr and sometimes 'Isha too - so they can hear the prayers being recited aloud. 😊 So the girls have been aware of salah for as long as they can remember.

I decided to make them a poster just to highlight when the different prayers take place (by hand, so no download link today, I'm afraid! I like to have a mix of typed/handwritten things on display) and made up a simple song to go with it:

Fajr in the morning,
Dhuhr at midday,
'Asr in the afternooooon!
Maghrib at sunset,
'Isha in the nighttime...
That's the five daily prayers!

...I told you it was simple. Lol.

The tune is one I made up, one of those kind of random/slightly out-of-tune yet catchy melodies you hum around the house while doing chores... Not something I'm willing to record myself singing but I'm sure you could make up a simple tune yourself, if you wanted. 😜

The main points I wanted to include in the poster were:

- pictures of the sun/sky at each point in the day
- the name of each prayer
- pictures to show which prayers are loud/quiet (open/closed mouth smiley faces)
- the rough time each prayer takes place