At this point of
time, almost everyone carries a smartphone or tablets, be it running Androids
or IOS. These gadgets have
multiple functions. And with it
you are the one who can decide whether the gadgets will bring you closer or
further away from Allah. Prophet Muhammad(s.a.w.) said, "No babe is
born but upon Fitra (as a Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or a
Christian or a Polytheist." (Sahih Muslim). As in this hadith, it us who will determine that the gadgets
will bring us closer to Allah or closer to being a Jew, Christian or a
Polytheist.
1. Ebook Reader.
There
are many ebook readers available both for Androids and IOS. The common formats readily readable by
both are either EPUBs and PDFs.
These two formats are readable by many apps. For IOS, you can use either IBook, Kobo, Stanza or Kindle
reader. For Android, you can use
Aldiko, Kobo and Kindle reader. To
get kindle reader for IOS, you need to register an Apple ID either in US or
Asia Pacific. You won’t see a
Kindle reader in Malaysian Apple Store.
However for Jailbreak IOS devices, you can get it from Installous. For Androids, you can download the
Kindle reader APK and install it directly. However you must set your android to allow installation of
software out of Google Playstore.
To
get ebooks, you can browse the web or buy it online. There are many books available online. Ebooks regarding Tafsir of Quran,
Quranic translation, Sirah Rasulullah, Stories of Prophets, Stories of Sahabats
and collections of hadith from Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari are widely
available. I would still prefer
Epub format ebooks since it will can reformatted either the font and margins
directly from the ereader itself.
You
can also convert word documents or HTML documents into EPubs or PDF using an
excellent converter. I use
Calibre. Calibre allows you to
build a collection of ebooks and convert it to any format. For DRM protected books, you need to
unlock it first. How to unlock it,
would be another tutorial by itself.
Since I bought a Kindle Touch when I was in New Zealand and had
registered for a New Zealand Amazon account, I can buy Amazon ebooks directly
into my Kindle Touch. Then I
download the books into Calibre, unlock it and convert it into Epub. With Epub format, I can transfer it to
other readers in my Iphone and android.
With Calibre too, all of your ebooks are place in one collection and you
can transfer it to your smartphone, Iphone, Kindle4, Kindle Touch, Kobo Reader
and etc. This is similar to “Papers”,
for those who are familiar with this application.
For starters, I would highly recommend to read "Journey through the Holy Quran" by Yahiya Emerick, since the author includes the reasons for revelations for every verses, either from Asbabul Nuzul, Sahih Bukhari or Muslim. Reading through the book give you more insight on the reasons for each verses of the quran. After that, it would recommended for ust to read other English or Malay translations of the Quran for comparison, since we are not arabic native speakers. For Sirahs, I would also highly recommend Tariq Ramadan's "In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons form the Life of Muhammad" and Yahiya Emerick's "Critical Lives of Muhammad".
The
advantage of having ebooks, is that you will have all these books with you at
all times, which allow you to read or refer when you want to read it. Some of the ebook readers also allow
you to copy and this will allow you to share what you read with your friends
via facebook, twitter or email.
2.
MP3 player.
Rather
than loading your smartphones with collection of songs from K-Pop, J-Pop or
Britney Spears, it would be much better for you to load it with talks from
prominent Muslim speakers. There
are thousands of very good Islamic lectures in MP3 formats. For Malaysia, our beloved Ustaz Azhar
Idrus has the whole of series of his MP3 talks available online. In my collection, I have about 3GB of
his MP3 talks. Internationally,
excellent lectures are available for Mufti Ismail Menk, Prof Tariq Ramadan,
Shaikh Hamza Yusuf, Sheikh Yusuf Estes and many more. For Mufti Ismail Menk alone, his whole
series of talks would occupy at least 3GB of your smartphone memory and you will need at
least a month to finish hearing it from your smartphone.
After
loading the whole series of the MP3 lectures to your smartphone, get a
connection from into to your car audio player. This will allow you to use the time driving from home to
work to hear at least one lecture per day. If you use the time to and fro from home to work, you will
learn at least 2 lectures per day.
Within a month of 20 days of work, you will learn 40 lectures. That is lot of Islamic education. Much more learning than going to
kulliyyah maghrib or subuh in your local mosque. As for Kuala Lumpur folks, you would learn more since you
will spend more time in your car in a traffic jam.
3.
Video player.
As
with the MP3 player, rather than loading your smartphone with movies, it would
be much better to load it with lecture videos or better still videos which will
teach you Arabic or Quran Arabic.
Or for those who are planning to go Hajj, you can load it with videos of
Hajj lectures. Datuk Hj Kamal Muhammad from Pena Gemilang Sdn Bhd, Hajj videos are excellent. To learn quranic
Arabic, I would recommend for you to subscribe at www.understandquran.com. Dr. Abdulazeez
Abdulraheem is an excellent teacher. He has taught widely in India and many other countries worldwide. Theyhave a whole series of youtube lectures
of about 19 hours which will allow you to learn 50% of quranic words. The second part of the series, for
another 19 hours allows you to learn another 20% of the quranic words. At the end of these two courses, you
will learn 70% of the quranic words. The whole course will cost about USD100. For Malay translation of quranic arabic, a DVD series from Ustaz Nasaruddin Hasim is also
available titled “Pendidikan Bahasa Arab Al Furqan” which is a course of 60
hours which is given in 10 DVDs. These DVD is priced at RM190. These are small price to pay to learn more about the Quran.
How
to bring these youtube lectures and DVD lectures to your smartphones. First you need to convert all these
videos to formats readable by the Video player of your IOS or Androids. For Macs, Iskysoft Itube Studio allows
you to download any Youtube videos to your PC in FLV format. I am not sure for windows, since I am
using Mac only. Fortunate for
android, FLV videos can be read directly with your smartphone. You just need to load all the videos
into your microsd card and it can be played immediately. Make sure to buy the biggest one
available, at least 32GB.
Unfortunately for IOS, you need to convert it again. For Mac, you can use Aimersoft Total
Media Converter and convert all these FLV videos into MP4 format. And you need to use Itunes to transfer
all these to your Iphones, Ipads or Ipods. But mind you these videos are big, so make sure to invest in
the largest memory Iphones or Ipads.
The www.understandquran.com
videos occupied about 5GB of my microSD card. The “Pendidikan Bahasa Arab Al Furqan” video occupied another
5GB space.
4. Native android or IOS apps.
a. Quran and translation.
There
are hundreds of apps available. I
have tried and bought a few. After
a few trial and errors, have decided to use only two apps. Fortunately, both of these apps are
available for both androids and IOS.
Highly recommend to buy IQuran and MyQuran. IQuran has the advantage of the availability of the colored
mushaf tajweed built in into it.
It has other features such as translations from many English translators
such as Shakir, Mohsin Khan, Yusuf Ali and Mohammad Assad. Malay and Indonesian translation is
also available. It also has
recitation from many famous reciters. You can download the whole reciters
readings directly into your smartphone.
With this, you don’t need to wait for it to download when you want to
hear the readings. Another benefit
is that it allows multiple bookmarks and also allows you to share the verses
either via facebook, emails or sms.
MyQuran
has the extra advantage of Tafseer from Maulana Maududi. It also can teach the Makhraj of the
Arabic words. It also have some
vocabulary and allows you to learn the quranic Arabic. However I have yet to explore this
feature.
Reading the translation after reading the arabic for every verse will give you more understanding of the quran. Many excellent education and stories are to be learnt.
(This is) a Book (the Quran) which We
have sent down to you, full of blessings that they may ponder over its Verses,
and that men of understanding may remember. (Surah Sad 38: 29).
b.
Tafseer Ibn Kathir.
Few
good apps for Tafseer Ibn Kathir are available for both android and IOS. However there are usually
shareware. Fortunately they are
quite cheap, less than USD10 in price.
c. Hadith
As
with quran, there are many Sahih Muslim and Sahih Bukhari apps available. Only that you need to read the review
or compare with the authenticated
books to make sure it is a correct book or not. Unfortunate I cannot recommend the best book, since I have
yet to explore these two Sahih yet.
For those who have explored, feel free to give me some suggestions.
5. Offline Reader.
Websites
about Islam and teachings of Islam which you have authenticated can be imported
into your smartphone which allows you to read it offline. I would highly recommend to use
Evernote and Pocket (formerly Read it Later). Evernote is subscription based and not totally offline. However Pocket is a true offline
reader. With Pocket, you just need
to copy the URL from your smartphone browser and it will download the whole
webpage into the application. Pocket
and Evernote is available for both IOS and Android. The good thing about these two apps, it allows sync in which
if you have download it into one device, it will be available to all device
with the same login account. So
your data will be save, no matter which smartphone you use. This is good for those who change their
phone every year.
What I did for Evernote and Pocket, is to download quranic doas with its translation or doas for the various sunat prayers or night prayers. This will allow you easy accessibility for these doas right after prayers without searching for books which you are unsure of its location.
So, I hope all
of you can digest this. I am just
trying to share what I have gathered for the last 3 months of my life. And I am still learning, and I have yet
to finish my MP3 collection of Mufti Menk’s lectures after hearing it to and
fro from home to work for the last 3 months. Currently learning the 1433H Ramadan lectures about “Life of
the Last Messenger, our Prophet Muhammad”, hoping to finish it by next week.
Enjoy your
learning and education. And I pray
that all of us can be closer to Allah and given paradise by his mercy in the
hereafter.
Amin.
