Alhamdulillah Zakat Basket {Tutorial}

May 19, 2018June 3, 2018 acraftyarab Arabic Resource, Plaid Ambassador, Ramadan Crafts

My daughters and I enjoy making a different zakat (‘alms-giving’ in Arabic) box, as part of our 30 day Ramadan crafts challenge, to collect money. We have made them out of wood, glass, picture frames, and even recycled materials.

Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islam and an obligatory form of charitable giving for all Muslims that have the ability to do so.

We wanted to try something different this year and collect money, plus perishable food, daily. We painted a basket with Alhamdulillah (Arabic for “”thank Lord!”). According to Wikipedia: So frequently do Muslims and Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians invoke Alhamdulillah that the quadriliteral verb hamdala (حمدل), “to say al-ḥamdu li-llāh” was coined, and the derived noun ḥamdala (حمدلة) is used as a name for this phrase.

At the end of the month, we will donate everything inside the basket to a local food bank.

The project was inspired by the Bismillah Painted Tray {Tutorial} and uses the same banner letters. I received the paints as my role as Plaid Ambassador.

Supplies

Sharpie
Paintbrush
Glitter paint
Coastal paint
Banner letters

We took our letters to the local craft store to find a basket big enough for food inside and the letters outside. Once we brought it home, we lined up the letters to spell out Alhamdulillah.

We used the Sharpie to outline the letters.

Next we painted the inside of the letters with the coastal paint. Once the first layer dried, we went over it again.

We waited a few hours for the paint to dry and went over it with glitter paint, just to add a little bit of sparkle.

Now our basket was done.

We placed it on the kitchen counter and have already added a few cans inside. we hope to take a photo of our complete basket on Facebook, so please stop by for an update.