Simple Paper Mobile

To finish off our topic on the six articles of faith, I thought it'd be nice to make a craft to summarise what the articles are... So we made some paper mobiles. 😊

We used A4 coloured card cut in half lengthways for the main body. Along the top they used a medium star-shaped holepunch (0.6 inches) and along the bottom they used a large heart-shaped holepunch (1 inch) to cut out 6 hearts - one for each article (around 4.5cm between each one). I bought our holepunches from Hobbycraft since they were on sale, but I'm sure you can find similar for cheaper online. 👍 In the centre of the strip of card they wrote "The Six Articles of Faith", then decorated with glitter gel pens and stickers.

For the hanging part, we used shiny paper around 4cm wide (when it's time to repeat this for younger siblings, insha'Allah, I'll probably get them to write on different paper then stick on as labels, since the shiny paper was difficult to write on/smudged easily!) and used the star-shaped holepunch to cut out a star in the centre at the top of each. Then they wrote one article on each (singing our song from before to help - without any prompting from me! 😂)

Finally, they chose which coloured ribbon they wanted to put through each article, and which two colours they wanted for the top - then I had the (tedious lol) task of tying them all on. 😏 I used the first ribbon to measure out the length I wanted, then used that as a template for the rest. Same for the top ribbons - these, I threaded through opposite stars so the two ribbons made a cross in the centre, then tied all four ends together at the top.

I hung their mobiles on display in their bedroom (they have a piece of string going across the room for this purpose... paintings, posters, etc.!) using a mini wooden craft peg to keep them up. 💕

Predestination

For our final article of faith, we began by reading the relevant pages in the Safar Islamic Studies Textbook 1 (kindly gifted to us by my sister-in-law!). We followed this up with a discussion into what it meant, i.e. Allah knows everything (when I asked them this morning, "What do you want for breakfast?" Allah already knew what they would choose before they'd even decided!) and that both good things are from Allah (e.g. sunny weather so they can ride their bikes outside) as well as things they don't like (e.g. it's raining so they can't play outdoors anymore) - but everything that happens Allah knows about and everything that happens is for a reason, even if we don't understand it.

Then we looked at the above worksheet: the first part is a fill-in-the-gaps activity (with an accompanying list of words/phrases to choose from as prompts, if needed). We did this together and continued our discussions to strengthen their understanding as we did it.

The second part looks at two ayaat from Surah Al-Baqarah. We did them one at a time; we read the Arabic together and the translation, then discussed its meaning in a way they could relate to. For the first, about liking a thing which may be bad for us and vice-versa, I explained it in the context of sweets (they taste good but if we ate too many of them it wouldn't be good for our health!) and used examples like playing outside (e.g. having to come indoors when it's raining, maybe they don't want to stop playing and it makes them sad but what about the flowers and the worms and frogs? Are they happy it's raining? And if they kept on playing outside in the rain, what might happen? They could catch a cold! So even though they don't like having to come inside, it was actually a good thing.). For the second, about the burden upon a soul never being too much, we talked about a "burden" being something really difficult and the word "bear" being something they were able to manage - so Allah never gives anyone anything too difficult for them to manage. If something bad happens to us, Allah knows we can manage, e.g. I might have to go to the hospital and stay there for a long time to look after the baby, so they wouldn't be able to see me for a few days,,, maybe a whole week! Would that be hard to manage? But if that happened, then Allah knows they could manage or He wouldn't let it happen. And would Papa be able to look after them and the house for all that time? If it happened, then of course he would be able to or Allah wouldn't have let it happen! We also talked about when they fell over and hurt themselves, it wasn't nice but they were able to manage the pain.

This was definitely the most complicated article of faith - and one even many adults still struggle to understand! - so as long as they just know that everything comes from Allah, then that's good enough for me at this point.

You can download our worksheet here.

The Day of Judgement

For our 5th article of faith, we looked at the belief in the Day of Judgement.

At this age, I don't want to go into too many details as I want to focus more on the positives of faith - i.e. jannah, Allah's love and forgiveness - as opposed to potentially scaring them with the punishment of the fire.

We began by recapping previous discussions on the Day of Judgement with me simply asking them what they already knew. Because of their hifz studies, and our method of becoming familiar with the surahs by watching YouTube videos which have the English translation, they were already aware of some of the basic points since reading the translations had led to them asking questions. Their understanding was that the angel Israfeel (which they remembered from last time!) would blow the trumpet, everything would break and all the people would die, then Allah would wake everyone up, look at their book of good deeds and bad deeds, and decide if they would go to the fire if they had more bad things or to jannah if they had done more good things. I then just filled in the gap by telling them about everyone waiting all together for a very long time and that it would be a very hot day.

We also talked about some surahs they're familiar with wherein the Day of Judgement is mentioned, (e.g. Al-Qariah, Al-Zalzalah) and talked a little about their meanings and descriptions of that day.

Finally, I gave them the pictured worksheet to complete in their own words (and colour in as an optional extra once finished).

You can download our worksheet here.

The Angels

For our next article of faith, we looked at belief in the angels.

We talked about what the girls already knew about angels, e.g. what they're made from and how some were given special jobs (such as the ones who record all our actions) and some are named in the Quran, such as Jibreel (AS). I showed them the top half of the worksheet and we discussed it together while they filled in the blanks from the options given.

Then we looked at the four examples of some angels and their jobs. They guessed what each picture showed, with me clarifying (the Quran, a trumpet, the hellfire, a mound of dirt/grave), then we read through the four boxes and I gave some brief information on each (Jibreel: the best of the angels, he taught the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad (SAW); Israfeel: blows the trumpet on the Day of Judgement; Maalik: keeper of the fire; Angel of Death: takes people's souls when they die). The girls then matched each picture to the correct box by cutting and sticking, then coloured them in.

You can download the worksheet here.

As an extra activity (because one of them wanted to do painting and I thought it would help them remember all the new information!), we then turned the worksheet into a poster.

I showed them this picture as an example of a background to paint. (Taken from a Google image search which came up with this website) Why? Because angels are made from light but are we allowed to draw pictures of the angels? No! But we can draw light, e.g. from the sun, to remind us of what they're made from.

I gave them a piece of yellow card each and set them up with the paints they thought they needed: yellow, orange and white. I showed them how to start from the bottom of the page and use long brushstrokes to paint the beams of light and we reminded ourselves of how to mix different shades. We also talked about whether it would be better to start with the dark colours first or the light colours and why, then I left them to it.

We also talked a little about light sources, e.g. the sun, light bulbs, fire - just as their painting always started from the same spot for their rays of light, light always comes from a source and spreads out.

Once their background had dried, we used the worksheet from before and they copied the sentences using gel pens onto colourful pieces of paper to then stick on. They also cut out the 4 boxes and stuck these down too.

The Holy Books in Islam

Our next article was the holy books, so understanding Allah sent revelation/divine scriptures to some of His prophets and being able to name the four mentioned in the Quran. If they could remember which book was sent to which prophet, that would be a bonus at this stage!

First, we recapped who the prophets were, i.e. messengers from Allah to teach people how to behave, guide them away from wrong and towards good deeds instead. I asked them to name me a couple of prophets then I explained to them that there are two different Arabic words for the prophets in Islam:

Nabi (نَبِي) = prophet
Rasool (رَسُول) = messenger

So all the prophets are nabi but only some of them are rasool... I didn't expect them to remember this at this age, it was just a precursor to the point: so Muhammad (SAW) was both a nabi and a rasool. He was a nabi because he's a prophet and he's a rasool because he was given which book as a message? The Quran!

There are 3 other holy books mentioned in the Quran: the tawraat, the zabur and the injeel; these were given to the prophets Musa (AS), Dawud (AS) and 'Eesa (AS) respectively. So were these three prophets rasool as well? Yes!

The activity was a simple cut, stick and colour to consolidate this new information.

You can download the worksheet here.

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.

Who Were the Prophets?

For our second article of faith, we looked at belief in the prophets.

We started by recapping the difference between the pillars of Islam (things to do) and the articles of faith (things to believe in) then I got them to recite the shahadah and give a rough translation: "I believe in Allah" (which we did last time as our first article of faith) "and Muhammad (SAW) is his messenger."

But what is a messenger?

We talked about it in everyday terms first, i.e. the person who delivers a message/news/etc. to someone else, using examples they could relate to (e.g. Mama sending one of them as a messenger to tell Papa to wake up!) Then we talked about it in terms of religion, defining it simply as someone Allah sent to tell people not to do bad things and to teach them how to do good things instead. As we've covered Prophet Ibraheem (AS)'s story in detail already, we used him as an example - what were the people doing before he was sent? Praying to idols. What was Prophet Ibraheem (AS) sent to tell them? To pray to Allah instead.

We then talked about other prophets they knew, e.g. from stories I'd told or read to them (we used to read from My First Quran Storybook as bedtime stories when they were 3-4 years old, paraphrased where needed) or they'd heard mentioned in the Quran... and briefly recapped one or two points about each one, e.g. Prophet Yunus was swallowed by a whale; Prophet Adam was the first man and was tricked by Shaytaan into eating from the tree, etc.

I asked them if we were allowed to draw pictures of the prophets and why not? They said no because it was rude - we didn't know what they looked like and we might draw them wrong. 💕

Finally, I showed them the worksheet and we read through it together, with me pausing at the blanks for them to give ideas of what should go there. They were amazed when they heard Allah sent thousands of prophets to mankind! I told them only 25 are mentioned by name in the Quran and we would insha'Allah learn about those ones one at a time, just as we learnt about Prophet Ibraheem (AS). I also checked they knew that no more prophets were going to be sent to us because Allah has already sent His final messenger - and that they knew this was Muhammad (SAW)!

We went through the picture clues together too, with them guessing which prophet's name should go where, then I left them to colour and fill in the sheet themselves. They just wanted help with spelling the prophets' names when they got to that part. 👍 They also noticed that they wrote (AS) after all the prophets' names except for Muhammad (SAW) so we talked about why that was too.

You can download the worksheet here.

Thank You, Allah...

After recapping what the 6 articles of faith were, I asked them which one they thought was the most important? Of course, it has to be Allah! We talked about some of Allah's blessings and all the things they like doing/have, which are only possible because of Allah - I suppose we could have read a short children's book to reinforce the idea, but I feel like we've done a lot of work on this already due to going through the 99 Names together...

I then gave them the pictured worksheet (trimmed so they could choose which coloured card to mount it onto) so they could write any words/phrases about Allah on the page then colour and decorate with pictures using pencils, gel pens, glitter glue, etc.

You can download the worksheet here.

The 6 Articles of Faith

Taking a break from stories of the prophets, I decided to cover the 6 articles of faith with the girls, i.e.

1) Belief in Allah
2) Belief in the angels
3) Belief in the prophets
4) Belief in the holy books
5) Belief in the Day of Judgement
6) Belief in predestination

At this age, I just want them to have an understanding of the basics - insha'Allah there will be plenty of time to go into the details as they get older. (You can download our Reception targets for Islamic Studies in this post.)

We recapped the idea of the 5 pillars in Islam and what they were, by singing a simple nasheed (see this earlier post!) then quizzing them on what the pillars were. The 5 pillars are things all Muslims need to do.

I then explained that as Muslims we also have the 6 articles of faith, i.e. 6 things all Muslims need to believe in. This belief, or faith, is called "imaan" in Arabic.

I showed them the pictured worksheet, with Post-It notes covering each cloud, then asked them to peel off each Post-It note one at a time as I briefly explained what each thing meant. When we were done, they then coloured in the sheet.

You can download the worksheet here.

For "predestination", we linked this to Literacy and knowing about prefixes and root words. I covered the prefix pre- with my finger and we read the word "destination" together. We talked about the meaning of destination as the end point of a journey, or where you're going to end up. Pre- means it happens before/already, or in this case it's been decided already by Allah. So everything that happens and everything we do, Allah already knows about and Allah has already planned for us. It's a little tricky to understand, even for adults! But they just needed to know that Allah is the best of planners and everything that happens, good or bad, is for a reason.