Teaching Your Little One Who Allah Is

Who is Allah?

It’s easy to make a child remember an answer to a question if you’ve asked them and told them the answer over and over again. I’m no stranger to Rote Learning. Drilling information may make a child seem like they know their stuff but do they truly understand what they are saying? Teaching a child that their God is Allah is not as easy as telling them it is so. What is God and how do you explain this to a child? This is a lesson that may help you do just that, In Sya Allah.

Who made it?

Whether it is play dough or a drawing or building a tower of blocks, you may teach the concept of a creator to a child. After he has made something ask him, ‘Who made this?’.  Do this whenever he makes anything and he should understand that things are made and what a ‘maker’ is. You can also ask this question when you make something that he sees you do to increase his understanding that things are made. You can if you like, substitute the word ‘maker’ with ‘creator’ and in time he’ll understand that they both mean the same thing. Once your child understands what ‘made’ and ‘maker’ or ‘creator’ means you can do the next activity.

Who made you?

Asking your child ‘who made you?’ is a good way to start. Let him think of an answer and then tell him that Allah made him. He’ll probably ask who Allah is and where he is and how he looks like. Keep your answers simple. An example of what you might say is Allah is the One who made you. You can’t see him but you can see all the things he made and that’s why we’re going out for a walk now…to see all the things Allah Made.

Being out in nature is the best time to point out all the wonderful things made by Allah.

Nature or Manmade Walk

Going for a walk is an excellent way to introduce Allah’s creation and in time an understanding of Allah, the Creator to your child. Bring along a basket or a bag to collect stuff from your Nature or Manmade Walk.Point out things and ask him, ‘Who made this?’. Posing this question casually in your conversation while you have fun doing anything he feels like is better than spending the whole walk just doing this alone. Children can tell when they’re being pressured into learning something. There’s no rush and in time he’ll get it In Sha Allah. We collected some leaves, stones and flowers for Allah’s creations and then dropped by the small grocery shop for some yummy manmade stuff.

Sorting it out

After the walk we sat down with 2 containers to sort out the things we collected. I labelled the containers with the word Allah on one and a picture of a man on the other. You can introduce adjectives while sorting, like the red Kit Kat, or the small grey pebble. You could also explain where things are made. For instance the chocolate would be made a chocolate factory. The best part though, is to ask your child if the leaf and the flower look the same as us to which he should say ‘No’. This can be followed by an explanation that although the flower, the leaf and humans don’t look the same we are all made out of the same blocks called cells, just like a lego car or a lego house don’t look the same but if you take it apart it it made out of legos. You can know that every living thing is made by the same creator because at the tiniest level- the cell- we are all the same. If he’s curious what a cell looks like, you can show him pictures of cells. We have our own little microscope so looking at some samples from his own cheek swap and from an onion skin is possible.

Does he have a hard time sitting down?

Some children have a harder time sitting down while learning so keeping them on the move is always good. If this is the case, place the container of stuff you collected a running distance from the 2 labeled baskets and have your child sort it out by running back and forth from the collection basket to the 2 labeled baskets taking only one item at a time. You can time him using a stop watch to make it even more challenging and fun for him.

Make a Book

Using your items you can make a scrapbook of what Allah made and what Man Made. If the items are not easy to paste into a book simply have your child trace the shape around it and colour it in. Keep one item for one page even if the item is small. Clearly label each item. You can do this for him if he can’t write yet or make dotted lines for him to trace over. He can colour it in if he likes. Bind the finished product and make a cover. Making a book is a great way of having him revise what you’ve learnt without even you doing it for him. It needn’t be anything grand or fancy. Do what you can your child enjoys doing. A book that he made is beautiful in his eyes even if it doesn’t look like something store-bought. Keep his book on the book shelf along with all his other story books so that he can look at it whenever he wants to.

Book Link

A good book to read with this activity is by Fatima M. D’oyen by the tittle “Allah Gave Me Two Eyes to See’.

Song Link

Yusuf Islam’s ‘I look I look I look I see’ is a really nice song to sing for this activity. Here are the lyrics:

I look, I look, I look, I see
I see a world of beauty
I touch, I touch, I touch, I feel
I feel a world around so real
And everything I do
I dedicate to You
Cause You made me
I am for You

I listen, listen, listen, I hear
I hear the words of God so clear
I read, I read, I read, I know
It helps my knowledge grow
And everything we do
We dedicate to You
Cause You made us
We are for You

He sent the Prophet to show us the way
He made Religion perfect that Day
Peace be upon him, upon him we pray
Salatullah, wa salamu aalyai

I sleep I sleep, I sleep, I dream
I dream I’m in a garden green
I wish, I wish, I wish I pray
I pray to be here everyday
And everything I do
I dedicate to You
Cause You made me
I am for You

I work, I work, I work, I strive
To make something of my life
I seek, I seek, I seek, I find
I find another hill to climb
And everything we do
We dedicate to You
Cause You made us
We are for You

He sent the Prophet to show us the way
He made Religion perfect that Day
Peace be upon him, upon him we pray
Salatullah, wa salamu aalyhi (3)

Take your time

Keep it simple and don’t rush it. If you can’t do all of this in one day, no worries. You can continue on the next day and make it a ‘few days project’.