little ummah cardsScreen-free Islamic audio for toddlers and young children
What Islamic audio suits children under six, how to start a listening habit without a screen, and the cards we've checked for ages 0–3 and 3–6.
A lot of parents start looking for Islamic audio at the same moment. A toddler has found the tablet, or the phone, and the cartoons that come with it, and you'd like something to hand over that isn't a screen. Audio is the obvious place to go. The harder part is finding something a two-year-old will actually want to hear that also says what you'd like it to say about Allah.
What suits the youngest listeners
Under three, short and familiar beats long and new. A toddler's attention moves on quickly, so a track of two or three minutes, heard often, does more than a long story they wander away from halfway through. Songs suit this age best. A simple line about Allah, sung by a voice, is the sort of thing a small child starts humming back long before they could tell you what it means.
Expect to hear the same track a great many times. Grown-ups tire of it long before children do, and a child asking for the same nasheed again is a child learning it. It's worth choosing the first few cards carefully for that reason, since those are the words that'll be going round their head.
Somewhere after three, many children start to follow a short story from start to end, and that opens up a lot more. Stories with a child at the centre, doing something a child would do, tend to hold them best.
Why audio and not a screen
With a screen, much of the choosing is done for the child. The next video starts by itself, and the pictures hold their attention whether or not what's on is any good. Audio asks a bit more of them. They have to listen, and their hands are free to build, draw or push a car along the floor while they do.
On a Yoto there's nothing to scroll and no autoplay deciding what comes next. A child chooses by picking up a card, and even quite young children learn which card is which. If you're still deciding whether a Yoto suits your family, we've written an honest look at what it does well and where it falls short.
Everything on this site is voices only, with no instruments, which we explain in why everything we list is vocals only. For this age that mostly means nasheeds sung by voices alone, and stories told by a single narrator.
Where to start, under three
I Look, I See from Mountain of Light is two tracks, Your Mother and I Look, I See, about six minutes together. It's short enough that a toddler can hear the whole card in one go.
The Zain Bhikha Collection has three nasheeds for young children. Allah Made Everything and Everything Belongs To Allah are about five minutes each, and the titles tell you what a child will be singing. The third, a shorter one, is about mums.
Where to start, from three
Asma+Me Moments tells stories built around Allah's names, with titles like Yusuf's Eid Sleepover and Laila's Maths Problem. There are three episodes, each about eight or nine minutes, and it's listed from birth to six, so it's one a younger sibling can grow into.
Dada and Me follows a grandfather and his two grandchildren, Zayd and Aya, through songs about faith and growing up. It's two tracks, a little under nine minutes in all, and listed for ages 3–6.
All four are checked against our standard, and each one goes into your Yoto library in one tap, free. To see everything we've checked for the youngest children, start with ages 0–3, or ages 3–6 if yours is a little older.
