World Religion Focus - Islam Launch Day
13 Dec 2021
A day with Imran
On Wednesday we had the privilege of spending the day with Imran Kotwal. He came to visit school to help us to launch this years World Religion Focus on Islam.
Imran started the day giving us an insight into Islam, teaching us that whilst the religion is called Islam, followers of this faith are called Muslims. Their practice and beliefs are all based on 5 pillars which he taught us all about.
The Pillars of Islam faith are:
Belief - This is the most important!
Prayer - Salah
Charity - Zakat
Fasting - Sawm
Pilgrimage - Hajj
Imran showed us this film to help us understand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hW3hH9_7pI
Each class then enjoyed a workshop which was relevant to their learning journeys in RE.
Class One
Explored and enjoyed some stories from the Quran, their holy book. These stories are told in Muslim families to learn more about God, Allah. The Imran told us that he read these to his own children at home! The children enjoyed listening to the stories and learnt that prayer was very important to Muslims. They also learnt that when a Muslim prays they use a prayer mat to make sure the ground they use to pray is clean.
Class Two
Class Two also had a workshop focusing on stories and artefacts important in the Islamic faith. Imran told us a little bit about a Muslims belief
in God. God is called Allah, but he has 99 names!
Imran also shared lots of lovely stories from the Qur'an:
Aby Talha's Guest
Two baby chicks
Who burned the ants
The crying camel
The Garden owners.
The children listened carefully and thought about the messages of the story. Each story teaches Muslims about what Allah was like; all-seeing, all-hearing, all-loving. Afterwards, Imran shared some special artefacts including, a prayer mat and a model of the Kaaba (Allah's house). The children found out that when Muslims visits Allah's house, they walk around anti-clockwise seven times and wear two white clothes.
The children also then looked at pictures of the three important mosques, a Muslims special place of worship, and learnt about the special parts of the buildings.
Class Three
As part of their exploration of the big question “Why do people pray?” The children were able to ask the Imran all about how Muslims pray. It was fantastic to learn all about how important prayer is for Muslims. The children learnt that a Muslim will pray 5 times throughout the day. They also learnt about the rules for Muslim prayer, of which the Imran showed us that there are a lot! It is important for a Muslim to do the prayers correctly. Imran also sang some of the prayers and showed us some of the positions of prayer he uses on a prayer mat. It was a special experience to hear him sing and to see him perform the prayers. It helped the children to understand how special the time of prayer was for the Imran. Even with all of the Imran’s excellent teaching, the children still had lots of questions and the Imran was kind enough to answer these! The Imran was also going to tell them more about the Muslim holy buildings, mosques, but sadly they ran out of time! However, he was able to teach the children all about Mecca and how Muslims face Mecca when they pray.
Class Four
For Class 4s workshop, Imran focused on the fifth pillar, Hajj. This is a pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims should make once in their lifetime if they have the money to go.
Imran talked them through his own Hajj trip, and it was captivating to see the pictures and videos he had taken whilst he was there.
The children found out that there is only one opportunity a year to go on a Hajj trip and so 2.5 million Muslims go to Mecca at once. They heard about the clothing they wear, the tents (or open air) they sleep in, the hair cuts they have to have, and the activities they do. These include: throwing stones at the three stone representations of the Devils as Ibraham once did; asking for forgiveness from Allah at Mount Arafat; walking anti-clockwise around the Kaaba (Allah's house) 7 times, this is called Tawaf; and walking 7 times between the hills of Safa and Marwa