[06] اَلسَّلَامُ (As-Salaam): The Source of Peace/The Flawless
Sing 99 Names (5min)
Play PowerPoint of the first 33 names, 2-3 times. Sing together and do the actions so far plus:
Action for As-Salaam: Hold hands with yourself and shake hands, as if giving salaam.
Today’s focus is on the name As-Salaam which means The Source of Peace/The Flawless.
Story relating to today's name (7min)
Read a short story to the children relating to peace and quiet, e.g. Five Minutes' Peace, I'm Not Reading, etc. or to do with friends falling out then reconciling, e.g. It's Mine!, Pip & Posy: The Snowy Day, etc. - or both! Discuss the morals of the stories and how the characters felt when they weren't at peace, i.e. they weren't happy, they weren't comfortable, they wanted peace/to be friends again, etc.
Discuss meaning, apply to children's lives (15min)
As-Salaam can mean two things: The Source of Peace or The Flawless. Do you know what "flawless" means? If something has a flaw, it means it has something wrong with it; it isn't perfect. e.g. show children a perfectly flat piece of paper (Post-It note size is fine) - it's flawless. Then put a small rip in one of the edges and tear a corner off. Is it still flawless? Draw some seemingly random dots and marks on the paper. How many flaws does the paper have now? Join the dots and marks together to make e.g. a flower. Are the flaws still flaws? Even if we can't make all our flaws disappear, we can always work hard on making them less of a flaw and focus more on our good points instead.
Flaws don't have to be just physical things, or things we can see. They could be to do with our personality or actions. Together, look at sheet of statements from the resources file: which of these things do you think are flaws? Discuss each one in turn - you could draw a tick over the non-flaws or highlight the sentence in one coloured highlighter and a cross over the flaws in a different coloured highlighter . Allah (SWT) has no flaws at all. He is completely flawless in every way - just like we learnt from the name Al-Qudduus, Allah is perfect. Do you think, as Muslims, we want to have flaws like the ones mentioned here? Can you think of any other flaws we should work hard on getting rid of?
Let's think about the other meaning now: The Source of Peace. What does peace mean? Peaceful means calm and quiet and nothing is disturbing you. Everyone stand up and run around, shouting and jumping! Is it peaceful now? No! Now sit down, breathe slowly and deeply, maybe close your eyes. How do you feel now? Is it nice when it's peaceful? Give children a task to do, e.g. threading beads onto a string, a simple jigsaw, drawing a picture from memory, etc. Keep disturbing them by asking continuous questions, making sudden noises, making a mess where they're working, bumping into them etc. Is it easy to concentrate when it's not peaceful? Being at peace is a good thing! Peace can also mean not fighting, e.g. when you stop fighting with someone, you become at peace with each other. Is fighting a good thing??
Did you know, as Muslims when we say "hello" to each other we say, "As-salaamu 'alaikum (wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuhu)" - do you recognise that word "salaam" in there? Can you guess the meaning of what we're saying? "Peace be upon you"! Ask children to shake your/each others' hands and give salaam.
Flaws don't have to be just physical things, or things we can see. They could be to do with our personality or actions. Together, look at sheet of statements from the resources file: which of these things do you think are flaws? Discuss each one in turn - you could draw a tick over the non-flaws or highlight the sentence in one coloured highlighter and a cross over the flaws in a different coloured highlighter . Allah (SWT) has no flaws at all. He is completely flawless in every way - just like we learnt from the name Al-Qudduus, Allah is perfect. Do you think, as Muslims, we want to have flaws like the ones mentioned here? Can you think of any other flaws we should work hard on getting rid of?
Let's think about the other meaning now: The Source of Peace. What does peace mean? Peaceful means calm and quiet and nothing is disturbing you. Everyone stand up and run around, shouting and jumping! Is it peaceful now? No! Now sit down, breathe slowly and deeply, maybe close your eyes. How do you feel now? Is it nice when it's peaceful? Give children a task to do, e.g. threading beads onto a string, a simple jigsaw, drawing a picture from memory, etc. Keep disturbing them by asking continuous questions, making sudden noises, making a mess where they're working, bumping into them etc. Is it easy to concentrate when it's not peaceful? Being at peace is a good thing! Peace can also mean not fighting, e.g. when you stop fighting with someone, you become at peace with each other. Is fighting a good thing??
Did you know, as Muslims when we say "hello" to each other we say, "As-salaamu 'alaikum (wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuhu)" - do you recognise that word "salaam" in there? Can you guess the meaning of what we're saying? "Peace be upon you"! Ask children to shake your/each others' hands and give salaam.
Craft activity (20min)
Complete the page for the book.
On part of the page, children can draw around their right hand to represent giving salaam, gluing the "salaam" speech bubble on top. On another part, they can recreate the Post-It note example from earlier about flaws (i.e. turn marks on the star into a picture) using the star template and stick it down.
When to use this name (8min)
When you're angry and you want to calm down, you can make du'aa to Allah as As-Salaam to help you become peaceful again. What about if you've had an argument with someone and want to be their friend again? You can ask As-Salaam to bring peace between you. What about when you need to concentrate on something difficult? Can you think of any other examples when you might want peace?
What about when you've made a mistake, like in the flaws we talked about earlier (show sheet again as a reminder). What kind of du'aa do you think you could make then?
What about when you've made a mistake, like in the flaws we talked about earlier (show sheet again as a reminder). What kind of du'aa do you think you could make then?
On the back of their page, help the children write a few thoughts about the name As-Salaam and their feelings.
Sticker chart (5min)
Ask individually: Which of Allah’s names did we learn today? What does it mean? Give children a sticker each for their chart.
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Other activities:
- Practise giving salaam to each other again, including e.g. soft toys sitting in a circle together. Relate to appropriate hadiths, e.g. always replying to someone giving you salaam, being the first to give salaam, giving salaam when you enter a room/gathering, replying either with the same length or a longer salaam than you were given. Act out with toys etc. You could extend to creating a mini-poster of hadiths too, e.g. taking photos of the children/soft toys acting out salaam to print out and stick on and use speech bubbles (pre-prepared for children to cut and stick, or let them write them themselves) for the hadith.
- Discuss idea of physical perfection and being flawless - what we look like on the outside doesn't matter to Allah. Discuss the hadith, He looks at our hearts and deeds. Relate to previous name of Al-Qudduus, the story of Nazeef and Aneeq and the activity to do with black spots on the heart.
- Talk to your child and help them think of one or two flaws they have which they want to improve (they can refer to the resource sheet for ideas to start with). Make a mini target poster for them, with the flaw on one side and what they can do to improve on the other. They can decorate it if they wish. Write the date on it, hang it on display from a piece of string and use it as a reminder over the next week or so. After a week, take it down and talk about how they did. To make the activity more inclusive, you can do this as a whole family (including parents!) to show that nobody is perfect and we all have flaws we can work on - so having flaws is ok, but it's better to have the intention to fix them. Can link to hadith on actions being judged by intentions and on how good/bad deeds are recorded based on intention.
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