Today I gave an introduction to the second pillar of Islam - Salah.
Namaz is the word they are more familiar with but I tried to repeat the word Salah or Salat enough times throughout the class for them. Here's a summary of what we learnt:
1. There are five prayers (Salah) in a day.
2. They are prayed at certain prescribed timings which fall during the morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night.
3. These prayers are compulsory for a Muslim because Allah had commanded us to perform them.
4. The names of the five prayers are Fajr, Zohr, Asr, Magrib and Isha.
5. We can pray at any clean place. (I showed them a prayer mat that we use to pray at home.)
6. To pray, we face towards the Kaabah (showed them a picture and explained)which is in Makkah, a city in Saudi Arabia.
7. We find the Qibla, or direction of prayer, with the help of a compass or Qibla finder (I passed around a compass for them to see the needle move).
8. Salah involves certain postures including the Rukoo and Sujood. (All the kids had a go at demonstrating the Rukoo and Sujood on the prayer mat).
We also spoke about how Salah benefits us:
1. To bring people closer to Allah
2. To keep human beings from doing indecent, shameful and forbidden things
3. To purify the heart, develop the mind and comfort the soul
4. To remind people constantly of Allah and His greatness
5. To develop discipline and will power
6. To guide people to the most upright way of life
7. To show equality, unity and brotherhood
8. To promote patience, courage, hope and confidence
9. To train people in cleanliness, purity and punctuality
10. To develop gratitude and humility
11. To show obedience and thankfulness to our Creator
We then sang the following song to learn the names of the five prayers (to the tune of Bits of Paper):
Fajr, Zohr
Asr, Magrib
And Isha
And Isha
I pray five times
I pray five times
In a day
In a day.
Then it was time for an activity related to these names. I found the activity sheets here.
The five daily salaat book ,illlustrates the position of the sun for each prayer.
As usual, we ended this wonderfully productive class with yummy, healthy dates!
Namaz is the word they are more familiar with but I tried to repeat the word Salah or Salat enough times throughout the class for them. Here's a summary of what we learnt:
1. There are five prayers (Salah) in a day.
2. They are prayed at certain prescribed timings which fall during the morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night.
3. These prayers are compulsory for a Muslim because Allah had commanded us to perform them.
4. The names of the five prayers are Fajr, Zohr, Asr, Magrib and Isha.
5. We can pray at any clean place. (I showed them a prayer mat that we use to pray at home.)
6. To pray, we face towards the Kaabah (showed them a picture and explained)which is in Makkah, a city in Saudi Arabia.
8. Salah involves certain postures including the Rukoo and Sujood. (All the kids had a go at demonstrating the Rukoo and Sujood on the prayer mat).
We also spoke about how Salah benefits us:
1. To bring people closer to Allah
2. To keep human beings from doing indecent, shameful and forbidden things
3. To purify the heart, develop the mind and comfort the soul
4. To remind people constantly of Allah and His greatness
5. To develop discipline and will power
6. To guide people to the most upright way of life
7. To show equality, unity and brotherhood
8. To promote patience, courage, hope and confidence
9. To train people in cleanliness, purity and punctuality
10. To develop gratitude and humility
11. To show obedience and thankfulness to our Creator
We then sang the following song to learn the names of the five prayers (to the tune of Bits of Paper):
Fajr, Zohr
Asr, Magrib
And Isha
And Isha
I pray five times
I pray five times
In a day
In a day.
Then it was time for an activity related to these names. I found the activity sheets here.
The five daily salaat book ,illlustrates the position of the sun for each prayer.
As usual, we ended this wonderfully productive class with yummy, healthy dates!
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