No more Ummah Films videos until further notice

Bismillah ar-Rahmaan ar-Raheem,

Ummah Films videos are on *pause* :(

When I made the Reminder videos, I kept saving money and buying better equipment so I could give the viewers a higher quality video. Although I made the videos for free, I didn't want to take the cheap route and wanted to do things with the same professional quality as if I was getting paid. The fruits of the hereafter are worth far more than whatever anyone can pay me in this dunya.

Anyways, the only drawback with buying high end equipment is that if something fails, its cost more than a few pennies to fix it. Long story short, my wireless mic isn't working anymore and until further notice, the Ummah Films videos are on hold. My goal was to record and edit Season 3 by the end of Ramadan but sometimes things don't work out the way you plan. Either way, we should always say Alhamdulillah.

On the bright side, my game Kalimaat has been doing really well. About 945 games have sold so far (Alhamdulillah) which is great considering the game launched a few weeks ago . Although Kalimaat from the outside looks like just a word game, it does have indirect benefits.

In a nutshell, the game is played like this: You have 60 seconds to give clues to your teammate so they can guess as many of the 10 Kalimaat words on the card. Each time they guess a word, they put a token down on the table. Once the 60 seconds is up, you'll have 30 seconds to remember what those words were. The words you remember, you get a point for...the words you can't recall, the other team will try to steal it by remembering them.

Of the 10 words, there are usually 1 or 2 words that are Islamic or Muslim-related.

So here are some of the benefits:

1. Communication: How many times have you seen a very knowledgeable person put people to sleep during Jummah. Just because one has knowledge doesn't mean that they know how to communicate that knowledge. As you know, there are some eloquent speakers that just speak nonsense but because they know how to communicate, they are able to get their message across while there are some very knowledgeable people that unfortunately do the opposite and don't get the attention they deserve. The game, Kalimaat, forces the clue-giver to speak at a level which the guesser can understand. When the Prophet (saw) spoke to people, he did it in a way so that person listening would understand. The way he spoke to a common person may have been different than the way he spoke to a Bedouin even though he was explaining the same Islam. Although the Prophet (saw) last Khutbah was short, it was effective because it was simple, informative, and to the point. These days, you can listen to a guy speak to the 30 minutes and its hard finding the actual point. Anyways, the game Kalimaat teaches you to communicate words to your partner so they will understand and because you're timed, you have to do it simple and to the point. Plus the pressure of being timed makes the game fun and entertaining (lots of laughs). You quickly learn that communication isn't as easy as you imagined and you have to adjust your words to get the other person to understand you.

2. Memorization. Even before Islam, people use to memorize hundreds of lines of poetry due to the lack of resources. Today, we can't goto the grocery store without a list and we still end up looking at the list a few times. This is because we don't use the memory part of our brain like we use to. If you notice the people who are Hafiz do really good in school because once you use the memory muscle on a consistent basis, you'll find it easier to memorize other things. Kalimaat encourages you to use your memory more and that can be very beneficial InshAllah.

3. Indirect Learning: Last but not least, players can learn indirectly. A little while ago, I was playing Kalimaat in Cleveland with some random brothers and the word "qiyas" came up and i was trying to explain it to my partner, but I ran out of time. Then one of the players from the other team later asked me what the word meant, and lead to a discussion. As you know, there is a Hadith that talks about the person who hangs out with the perfume seller vs the blacksmith. Even if you're just hanging out with the perfume seller, you're going to start smelling nice and if you just hanging out with the blacksmith, you're going to get you're clothes dirty. The idea behind Kalimaat is to provide a halal game that is fun, entertaining, and indirectly educational. Any by making things indirectly educational, people can naturally learn Islamic terms that they wouldn't normally learn.

The younger generation is constantly told this is "haram" and that is "haram" and we have to give them halal alternatives InshAllah instead of just saying every other thing is haram. I hope to make those alternative products like Kalimaat and I hope people will benefit from them as well InshAllah.

I posted some new reviews on Kalimaat from recent customers: http://www.babaaligames.com/reviews.html