Islamic studies at home
Teach your child the prayer.
Twenty minutes a day. Every word written down.
Standing. A first term on the prayer, ages seven to nine.
You are not behind.
Almost every parent who finds us arrives feeling late. It is a very ordinary place to be standing. Begin where you are.
What you are actually buying
Sequence, and the words to say
Somebody has to decide what comes first, what comes second, and what a nervous parent should say out loud at each point. We have decided it, written it down word for word, and had it checked before it went to print.
Nothing in these books will teach your child as much as watching you pray. The books exist for everything after that.
The shape of a lesson
The twenty minutes you actually need
Five steps, the same in every week of every term. Learn the shape once and it never changes.
Prepare
2 minutesOne item, put out before you begin. Never more than one, because a lesson that needs a shopping list is a lesson that does not happen.
The lesson, word for word
4 minutesThe script, read aloud as it is written or said in your own way. Every pause is marked.
Read this once
4 minutesOne passage from the child's book, read once, and said beforehand that it is only once.
Tell it back to me
5 minutesFour words, and then silence. The pause is where the work is happening.
The Anchor
5 minutesOne action, tied to something that already happens every day. Never a craft and never a worksheet.
Read a page before you pay
This is what the guide sounds like
This is the middle of the lesson from week two, exactly as it is printed. The lines set in grey are stage directions for you and are not read aloud.
The lesson, word for word
Do you remember the last time we went to a wedding?
Let them answer, and let them tell you about it if they want to.
What did we do before we went?
Let them list it. Showered, new clothes, hair done, good shoes. Let them say it. There is no need to say it for them.
Right. Now here is a question for you. Did the people at that wedding need us to be clean?
Pause.
Not really. They would have let us in either way. We did it because of what the day was. When something matters, you get ready for it, and nobody has to tell you. You just do.
Point to the clothes on the bed, and say nothing.
So. Five times a day, you are going to stand in front of Allah. And before you do, you get ready.
The term at a glance
Twelve weeks, in the order they are taught
The order is the product, so here it is in full.
- 01
The gift that came from above
Isra and Miraj. Why this one command was received rather than sent
- 02
Clean before you come
Tahara. The two kinds of clean
- 03
Water, and what it carries away
Wudu step by step, and what leaves with the water
- 04
The call
The adhan, its words, and the first man to call it
- 05
Which way, and when
Qibla, the five times, and why they sit where they do
- 06
Allahu akbar
The takbir, and what it shuts out
- 07
What you are actually saying, one
Al Fatiha, the opening lines, and the answer to each
- 08
What you are actually saying, two
Guidance and the straight path
- 09
Down
Ruku and sujud. Why the body does this
- 10
Sitting
Tashahhud, the testimony, and sending peace
- 11
When it is hard
Distraction, laziness, a missed prayer, and returning
- 12
Standing together
Jamaah, the rows, Jumuah
Band B, ages seven to nine. Book one in the series.
Everything taught is restricted to what the four Sunni schools hold in common. Every verse is referenced by chapter and verse, every narration by collection and grading, and weak narrations are not used.
On the illustrations
No face is drawn on any human or animal, and no prophet is depicted in any form. We draw the place a thing happened, not the person it happened to.
The child’s book
Standing
A first term on the prayer
The parent’s guide
Standing
Every word written down
Two PDF books, delivered the moment you buy.
Term One
Standing. A first term on the prayer
£19once, for the whole term
The child’s book
Twelve illustrated chapters, with the verse for each week in Arabic, transliteration and English.
The parent’s guide
The lesson word for word, every pause marked.
The Friday Table
Twelve family sessions.
Sources
Every verse and narration referenced and graded.
To print and put on the wall
The tracker, the anchor cards and the certificate.
The files arrive by email the moment you pay. Our refund position is written down and it is kind.
Before you decide
The questions careful parents ask
Do I need to know Arabic?
No. The Arabic is set out in full so that your child sees it and so that a parent who reads it is not made to work from transliteration. Underneath it there is a transliteration and an English translation. You are never asked to read the Arabic, and the guide says so in the front matter.
Which school of thought does this follow?
Everything taught is restricted to what the four Sunni schools hold in common. Where the schools differ, the difference is either set aside for a later book or stated plainly in the sources at the back, so that your family can follow its own practice. Nothing is taught as the only position when it is not.
How long does it actually take?
Twenty minutes a day, four days a week, and one longer family session on a Friday. The twenty minutes is the real figure rather than an optimistic one, and the five steps that fill it are set out on this page.
What if we fall behind?
Begin where you left off. Do not restart the term and please do not press two weeks into one. There is a chapter in the guide on what to do when a week does not go to plan, and it is there because most weeks do not.
Are there pictures of people?
No face is drawn on any human or animal, and no prophet is depicted in any form. What is drawn instead is architecture, sky, water, light, textiles, doorways and geometry, seen from the child's own eye height. We draw the place a thing happened, not the person it happened to.
Has anybody checked this?
Nothing ships without review by a qualified scholar. Every verse is referenced by chapter and verse and every narration by collection and grading. Weak narrations are not used, and where a well known one has been deliberately left out, the guide says so and explains why.
Begin tonight