Learning About Islam: Prayer and the Mosque

In Religious Education, we have been learning about Islam. Our focus has been learning about prayer, especially prayer at home.

To begin our learning, we discussed some of the key concepts and beliefs of the Islamic faith and we learned that Muslims are followers of the religion, which began in Saudi Arabia. We know that Muslims believe in one god, Allah and that Muhammad (pbuh) is his last prophet. We had many questions about what it means to be a prophet and why Muhammad (pbuh) is thought to be the founder of Islam. We discussed that a prophet was somebody who shared a message and can be thought of as a messenger of God. We learned that Jesus is also considered to be a prophet in the Islamic faith.

We learned about the five pillars of Islam in terms of what they mean and why they are so important. The five pillars are the foundations of Muslim life. We learned that they are Shahada (faith), Salah (prayer), Zakat (almsgiving), Sawm (fasting) and Hajj (pilgrimage). We discussed what these words mean and could link and relate some of these to our own faith. We watched a few videos from BBC Bitesize about a young Muslim called Sara as she explained her faith and how she practices prayer at home. We began to understand that it is important for Muslims to pray in a clean and quiet space and they will use a prayer mat to do so, if they are not at the mosque. We discussed that the prayer mat must be facing a place called Mecca. This is where the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was from, and every Muslim across the world will pray towards Mecca five times a day. Some of us began to ask questions about how it was possible to pray five times a day, especially if people have work or school. We learned that Muslims over the age of 12 are expected to pray five times and in some places, they can use rooms within work and school to be able to pray. We also learned that girls and women will wear a hijab which is a headscarf that covers the hair, neck and ears of a woman. This is worn for modesty and to show to Allah that you are humble. Some men will wear a kufi (which also has other names such as a prayer cap) as it is thought that the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) wore one, so men will wear one as a sign of respect or to honour him and they will wear this during times of prayer.

We also learned about wudu. This is a type of ritual which is performed before prayer. Muslims must wash their hands, arms, feet and face before praying. We watched a boy called Kaisan perform wudu as he spoke about the fact that when humans come to speak to Allah, the body (and mouth) should be clean as a symbol of being pure.

On Tuesday afternoon, we were really lucky to be able to visit the London Central Mosque with Year 1. We met Mr Mezzi who discussed lots of things about Islam and we were able to answer lots of his questions! We really impressed all of our parent volunteers with how much we knew about the faith! Mr Mezzi then took us to the library to show us a model of the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi Mosque in Medina. This is also known as the Prophet’s Mosque. He told us that over 700,000 people visit this mosque to pray. Some people can even pray on the roof of this amazing building! There was a switch on the model that we could turn on that showed us the lights that can be turned on during the night, as Mr Mezzi reminded us that it is important for Muslims to pray at this time too.

We then went to see the exhibition within the mosque. This exhibition aims to provide a better understanding of Islam and to promote greater community understanding and harmony. This links to our British Values that we have been learning about. We know that tolerance is one of our values, along with respect. As a class, we said that it is important to learn about others so that we can understand them better, and to recognise that although people may believe things that are slightly different to us, we should still respect others and learn to live happily together. The exhibition taught us more about the prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and showed us his lifetime with different colourful diagrams.

We then went to the main prayer hall. We took off our shoes before we entered and our teachers and parents helpers covered their hair as a sign of respect. We sat underneath the huge dome, which was also home to a very impressive chandelier. We also saw the minbar which is where sermons are delivered from, and the mihrab which is an arch that faces towards Mecca. We saw lots of people praying together, and also saw the holy book, the Qur’an.

We had such a great time on our visit and it really helped to consolidate our learning. We would like to thank Mr Mezzi and our lovely parent helpers for making our trip so much fun. We would also like to thank Mr Kersys and Miss Walsh for helping to organise our visit to the mosque, we have really enjoyed learning all about Islam.