Exploring Islam

Exploring Islam is a series of free online textbooks for elementary level Islamic studies teaching.  The curriculum was devised by a group of educators at Universal School in Chicago to provide a much needed Islamic studies texts for young Muslim children born and raised in the United States.  Each level builds upon the one before to provide a complete set of teachings in Quran, Sira, Islamic manners and worship.  It teaches through stories featuring children and animals in fictional and historically based tales to captivate the imagination of a curious and eager young mind.  The stories teach by example rather than through a list of dos and don’ts.

It is difficult to teach Islam in its proper depth while restricting vocabulary to what is deemed age appropriate by a group of educators.  Age appropriate vocabulary for elementary level children is largely influenced by era and society.  Therefore, these texts do not abide by norms set by educators at a given time and for a given culture, but instead use the words as conveyed to us by Allah I.  The meaning of these words is explained in segments accompanying most chapters, titled "Words".

These series were first used in 2005.  The initial texts were in print with limited illustrations.  After numerous revisions, the textbooks are now made available online flipbooks provided free of charge for all who wish to use.

All text, images and sounds are protected by copyright.  Textbooks may be used through this website at no cost, however, it is unlawful to extract portions of the text or images for any use.  The intention is to provide the books in its entirety, free of charge. Schools and individuals who wish to print these books can download the pdf copies of these texts here.  Notification for printing these texts is desirable, however, permission is not required.  Resale of these texts to cover printing and distribution cost is not prohibited. 

To contact the author you may write to: rabdulla@rush.edu 

We ask the kind Lord to bless all who worked to make these book series a reality.  May Allah guide our children to truth and happiness through Islam.

Ra-id Abdulla, MD

Textbooks
Click the icons below to open flipbooks for each of the five elementary grade levels.
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To download PDF files of textbooks, click here
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Workbooks
Click the icons below to transfer to the workbook's webpage.  Workbooks can be downloaded as whole or each chapter separately.
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Teacher's Guide
 Click the icons below to transfer to the Teacher's Guide webpage.  Teacher's Guide can be downloaded as whole or each chapter separately.
Curriculum
Exploring Islam is a series of 5 textbooks.  Each textbook contains 5 repeating topics, these are: Quran, biography, belief, worship and Conduct.  Typically, each textbook has approximately 30 chapters, the topics listed here are repeated 5-6 times within each textbook.
To visit each topic's webpage, please click on the links below:

Dedication

To

My son Muhammed

رحمةُ الله عليه

May Allah forgive his sins and grant him the everlasting Paradise for his efforts in editing these books.  His loving and happy nature was a fresh breeze Allah سبحانه و تعالى graced us with during the 22 years of his life before he returned to his Lord.