Fard & sunnah prayers

MashaAllah, the twins have been aware of the 5 daily prayers for a while (see this blog entry for a simple song/poster) but I wanted to do something for each pillar as we cover them this topic... So decided to introduce them to the idea of sunnah prayers. Naturally, to do that they needed to learn what "fard" meant too!

Fard = compulsory, they HAVE to be done - these are the prayers of the pillar of salah.

Sunnah = you don't have to do them but you can if you want to gain extra reward. These are extra prayers the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) used to do.

Everything is very simple at this point! The twins are only just turned 4 1/2 after all!

Next I took out their maths multilink cubes, though you could do the same thing with Lego, wooden blocks, etc. Anything which has different colours and can stack.

We chose red and orange to represent fard. One cube was equal to one rakat. Red meant it was read aloud; orange meant it was read silently. Cue a quick quiz to find out how many rakaat each prayer has and asked the twins to "build" each prayer:

Fajr: 2 red (2)
Dhuhr: 4 orange (4)
'Asr: 4 orange (4)
Maghrib: 2 red, 1 orange (3)
'Isha: 2 red, 2 orange (4)

Lined them up together so they could compare the sizes of the towers they made - numeracy link in counting the cubes and checking the total: 17 rakaat. They pointed out Fajr was the smallest while Dhuhr, 'Asr and 'Isha were the same size. An important observation to keep in mind for later!

Next I asked them to explain to me what sunnah prayers were, i.e. repeat back to me what I'd just told them earlier to check their understanding. 😊

We chose green cubes to represent each rakat of sunnah prayer. Then I told them how many rakaat are typically associated with each prayer so they could add to their towers. The objective wasn't for them to be able to recall exactly how many go where, but the exercise was more in gaining that initial awareness for building on in future years, inshaAllah.

I also told them whether the sunnah prayers came before or after the fard prayers, so their towers ended up like this:

Fajr: 2 green, 2 red (4)
Dhuhr: 4 green, 4 red, 4 green (12)
'Asr: 4 red (4)
Maghrib: 2 red, 1 orange, 2 green (5)
'Isha: 2 red, 2 orange, 2 green (6)

Finally, I explained there was a very special white cube which needed to go at the end of one of the prayers... This white cube was called 'witr' and was special because it wasn't really fard but it was part of the prayer you really shouldn't miss... And it goes at the end of 'Isha. 😁

So the final towers lined up together looked like:

Fajr: 2 green, 2 red (4)
Dhuhr: 4 green, 4 red, 4 green (12)
'Asr: 4 red (4)
Maghrib: 2 red, 1 orange, 2 green (5)
'Isha: 2 red, 2 orange, 2 green, 1 white (7)

They compared and discussed them again: Fajr wasn't the smallest anymore! It was the same size as 'Asr! And Maghrib was only 1 bigger than them! They really found it funny how our Dhuhr tower kept falling over, it was that tall! But insha'Allah that means the fact Dhuhr is the longest when you add in all the sunnah prayers will stay in their mind. And they both liked the one white cube of witr because it was so special. 😂

We finished by counting and adding together the total number of rakaat: 32! A lot more than 17! And emphasised the sunnah prayers were a choice, to gain extra reward, but the red/orange fard cubes were prayers they definitely couldn't miss - once they were at the age to do them... A good few years from now insha'Allah! 💕

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