Everyone on the Islamiphobia bandwagon might as well bail on this article now.
To the rest of you, a peaceful Ramadan in the same spirit Muslims I know sincerely wish me Merry Christmas. Hate may be turning into the default value by many professing faith, but I still like to think some can still love their fellow Earthlings despite a spat a couple of brothers had (and resolved) back at the beginning of mankind.
With the period of sawm upon us and intolerance dominating headlines, it seems like a good time to relax and – dare I say – expand horizons. So I put a big target on my forehead for Homeland Security by snagging a roundup of Islamic games and other entertainment apps, wondering if they are any better than the totally uninspirational Bible games companies were selling back when I was a teen with an Atari and various home computers.
Short answer: not really. But read on anyhow since there’s still diversions to be had, even if you don’t spend a penny.
Just doing a search of “Islam” in the App Store can shatter stereotypes with results like “Heavy Metal Islam” (an e-book too expensive to recommend at $15). Some free and cheap non-game apps for Muslims such as compasses, alarm clocks, greeting card makers, prayer beads and calculators offer entertaining insight into daily life (bad enough to have one alarm go off every day; can’t say I’d be keen on five). Many versions of each are found with a quick search and trying to pick out the best goes beyond the scope this article. Also worth browsing are novelties such as Find Mecca, a GPS-enabled app that tells you how far you are from Mecca and what direction you need to start walking.
For those interested in something more serious, iQuran is the best of many free English translations, IMHO. Muslim Book Pack by Condetsoft is an outstanding 99-cent collection of five books, including a highly accessible collection of short folk-like tales in “1001 Inspiring Stories.” Another good library is the 99-cent Islam Book Collection by FQ Publishing, which includes The Quran, overviews of the faith, tales about mystics and saints, and “The New World of Islam.” Plenty of other apps offer tutorials for learning the basics of Islam, comparing its aspects to other religions and the rules for virtually any aspect of life from sex education to table manners.
Not surprisingly, a number of gaming apps with Islamic themes have been banned. Most seem to be of the defile-faiths-not-my-own variety, but I would have liked to try the one where the player shoots down Islamic myths.
What remains in the App Store’s game section these days is a few simple learn-the-alphabet diversions, concentration variations, a lot of trivia quizzes and a trifling oddity or two. Only a few held my interest long enough to justify keeping on my iPod, but one short-term special may worth the 99 cents just to get a well-rounded sample of the lesser species.
Glorious Quran IQ Quiz (3 stars)
This is by far the best trivia app I found and the only one where non-Muslims can actually use their existing intellect to answer questions while learning from their mistakes. Most trivia apps are collections of questions with wording only someone who’s studied Islam can do anything but take a wild guess at – and some don’t even indicate the correct answer if you guess wrong (some do provide a list of answers at the end of the quiz). Glorious Quran IQ Quiz, on the other hand, seems designed with someone of the Christian or Jewish faith in mind. Questions typically cite a Quran verse and ask for its meaning, offering the Biblical names of people where applicable (i.e. how Musa (Moses) and Harun (Aaron) were to deliver their message to Fir’aun (Pharaoh)). More often than not I was able to answer questions correctly with existing knowledge and common sense, but getting them wrong felt educational rather than demeaning. The original sin in Islam is murder, for instance, not lust (I always felt the real original Biblical sin was envy of God, resulting in Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit that made them aware of lust, but I digress). The only hesitation is not knowing how many questions are in the collection. If you don’t need your trivia games coated in TV game show glitz, this is the way to go.
Seller: Aneesa Memon
$0.99
Rated 4+
iPhone OS 2.0 or later
3.0 MB
1
Ramadaan Special (1 star)
First, the spelling of the title is not a typo, but one of three alternative English spellings. Second, this 99-cent collection of five games doesn’t feature anything great, but may be worth a pickup for its trivia entry (and to see what some of the many “throwaway” apps are like). The keeper is Ramadan Quiz, where you try to answer as many questions about the month of fasting in 90 “time units” (they seem somewhat speedier than seconds). I didn’t get many right, but the program does immediately tell you the correct answer – and unlike some quizzes about Islam the material isn’t over the head of the average infidel. The rest are banal: Arabic 1 and Arabic 2 are variations of the same game, where letters in that language are briefly displayed before turning into stars. The player then tries to touch the stars in the proper order. Memory is the same game with English letters, making one wonder why it’s in this collection. Similarly, Maths is an OK application for kids, where the player is required to touch numbers invading a planet in order (with a rock music loop in the background), but again it has nothing to do with Islam. It seems unlikely many people will miss this being available when Eid ul-Fitr arrives.
Seller: Obaid Inc.
$0.99 (available until end of Ramadan)
Rated 4+
iPhone OS 3.0 or later
4.5 MB
1
Arabic Match (2 1/2 stars)
Easily the best of the concentration games I sampled, both because it’s playable by anyone regardless of their knowledge of Islam and its effectiveness as a learning tool. The program offers several categories such as Arabic letters, colors and shapes, with the player getting a quick look at the playfield and then 99 seconds to match all the tiles. All of the categories start with a board of 12 tiles except for Asmaa Al Husna (99 names of Allah) which has 24 – and the Arabic script on the latter is far more complex and less distinctive than the simpler options. Complete the easier board and a new one appears with more tiles (I’m not skilled enough to say if this happens with Asmaa Al Husna). The longevity of this app is limited, but once you’re able to breeze through all the categories it’s hard to say you didn’t get your money’s worth.
Seller:Laila Rashid
$0.99
Rated 4+
Requires iPhone OS 2.2.1 or later
13.1 MB
1
Al Rambone – Hussein in the Membrane (1 star)
I’m not sure this qualifies as an Islamic game, and not just not on the off-chance the character’s name is an innocent affiliation (with Rush getting his dittoheads into a daily frenzy about “Imam Hussein Obama … anti-American president” one can never be completely sure). The real dilemma is the app is almost entirely devoid of entertainment value due to sloppy programming. The promo copy says you are “Al Rambone, washed up war veteran whose only skill is to kill,” and I’m hardly so PC I don’t mind suiting up as Abu Aajir (Arabic for “raven,” meaning father of omens, for those who grok the reference). Al Rambone’s mission is to fight “what seems to be an army of radical terrorists, only to find out that these evil powers might just exceed the limits of this planet.” OK, the description and screenshots of what’s clearly tongue-in-cheek gameplay are captivating, but the execution is purely the work of infidels. The controls are awful, the aiming mechanism useless, the graphics a mess, and the sound simplistic and irritatingly repetitive. It doesn’t bottom out at zero stars because some of animations are funny the first time or two, but it’s still a dubious buy at $1.99.
Seller: Interactiu S.A.
$1.99
Rated 9+ (infrequent/mild/suggestive themes; frequent/intense cartoon or fantasy violence; infrequent/mild profanity or crude humor)
Requires iPhone OS 3.1.3 or later.
50.1 MB
1
Coexist (1/2 star)
The concept of a game rewarding peace between faiths has enormous appeal, but the content of Coexist is … um, non-existent. Symbols of the Jewish, Christian and Islamic faith appear in various colors around an icon in the center, with the player touching the icon as symbols appear and dragging them to a match in the outer circle. Matching the correct faith keeps the game going, while also getting the color right awards points. You need to move quickly to avoid losing one of your three lives, but that’s it for challenge. I was bored with this in less time than it takes for a communion wafer to dissolve on the tongue, but at least it’s free.
Seller: Kilby Designs
Free
Rated 4+
Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later
6.4 MB
