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28 March 2024

Five must-have mobile apps for Ramadan

Published
By Bindu Suresh Rai

Tech savvy Muslims who are fasting during the holy month of Ramadan are spoilt for choice this year, as a number of mobile applications are now available at the click of their trackpads and touchscreens.

From call to prayers, to recitations of the holy Quran and calculations of the Zakat or charity during the auspicious month, Emirates 24|7 brings you the top five must-have applications that will make this Ramadan pass with a little more ease.

Salat

As the second pillar of five in Islam, Salat comprises five daily Islamic prayers that are essential for every Muslim who is capable of performing them, during Fajr, Zuhr, Asr, Maghrib and Isha.

Praying at the proper time is also mentioned in the Ibn Masad: Bukhari hadith, which is the inspiration behind this free BlackBerry App by Emitac Mobile Solutions.

The Salat app computes prayer times based on your location in the world. If your phone is equipped with a GPS, Salat will update prayer times automatically as you travel from one location to another.

If your phone is not equipped with a GPS, you can update your location using the embedded mapping function.

Salat also comes with a Qiblah feature that indicates the direction to the Kabba in Mecca from wherever you are in the world. Simply locate your position on the map, and the Qiblah direction will be indicated with an arrow.

Qibla Locator

For those of you who prefer to calculate their own Salat timings can still make use of this handy locator app, especially if you travel frequently.

This EMS created BlackBerry app for just $0.99 helps its user to determine the direction of Qibla using built in compass functionality of Blackberry OS 7 devices.

Meanwhile, Apple iPhone users can take advantage of the “alQibla” application that enables you to precisely determine the direction of Qibla in any location using iPhone’s built-in GPS or the search map feature provided in the application.

You can also get Prayer Times for your location in several calculation methods. This free app can be downloaded from the Apple store.

Hadiths by Sahih Bukhari

Those of you who don’t carry around a book of Hadiths or the theories of Islamic law to understand the Holy Quran can download this app for better understanding.

Produced by ASGATech and narrated by Sahih Bukahri in Arabic, you can easily listen to the Hadiths by Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

The application also helps you to search any Hadith by a single word or phrase, with instant results.

You also have the opportunity to add any Hadith to your list of favourites or share it with friends and family via Facebook, SMS or even email.

The only drawback is, there is no English translation.

For iPhone users, the app is available via the Apple store, created by TkXel.

With this app you can view Hadith by specific topics, search for a particular one, take notes, mark them favourite for future reading, and share them from the App through email or Facebook.

Zakah (Zakat) Calculator

Produced by ASGATech, the handy BlackBerry app facilitates Muslims in determining their Zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam, which comprises giving of a fixed portion of one’s wealth to charity.

The easy to use application asks you to type the amount of money income, and the value of assets such as silver, gold, etc that you possess.

The rest is up to the app itself, which number crunches the percentage you should donate to charity within seconds.

The app also provides you with all information you need about Zakat, conditions of Zakat, spending channels, types of charity and Zakah Al-Fitr.

Moreover, you also get the latest conversion rates for all currencies such as the UAE dirham, the euro, American dollar, Egyptian pound and more.

For iPhone users, Adriz Ventures has developed a similar app for iTunes, which not only easily calculates the Zakat you have to pay, but it also serves up an easy to use reference guide about related issues, including its importance for Muslims, its virtues, benefits and the correlation of Nisab or the amount a person’s net worth must exceed for them to be obligated to give Zakat.

Holy Quran recitations

BlackBerry users can take advantage of the uQuran Micro reciter, which displays the holy text in Othmanic script for readers to enjoy, with verse-by-verse translation for better understanding.

All of the application content is searchable and you can select your favourites list or share it with your friends and family via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. You can also SMS or email verses.

Produced by Guided Ways Technologies again, the free version of the app offers up English transliteration too.

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