Pray With Me: Tech for balancing prayers and modern life

The frantic pace of modern life means that finding the time to learn prayers in Arabic can be challenging. For many of the world’s 1.6 billion Muslims, Arabic is not a first language, so learning verses can be even more time-intensive. 

But there’s good news: In the absence of traditional one-on-one coaching from parents or lessons at the local mosque, Brit entrepreneur Jay Dean has come up with an app to help modern Muslims master prayers in the modern age.

London-founded Pray with Me is the world’s first app built to support multi-language prayer learning for all abilities. “I want to make this a universal tool for everyone who doesn’t speak Arabic to have on their phones,” Jay told My Salaam. “It’s an intuitive, easy-to-use learning tool.”

The app is available in iOS and Android versions for smartphones and tablets and has logged 35,000 downloads since its release, with most downloads originating from Europe, America and China, according to Jay.

The 45-year-old tech entrepreneur explained that it was his own battle with the learning disability dyslexia that first spurred the idea for Pray with Me in 2012. The app has been designed from a dyslexic person’s point of view, with the aim of being highly accessible to everyone, with easy-to-navigate colours and brief, readable texts.

“The user places the phone by their side to recite prayers; they are then prompted by a screen countdown, then the narrator’s complete recital of the salat.” Jay added, “When you are a kid, you often learn how to pray with parents, but there are still parts of the prayers that are recited silently, so they can be hard to learn. Pray With Me covers that bridge.”

MULTI-FUNCTIONAL PRAYER SUPPORT

The app can be used as a vocal and visual assistant for the five daily prayers or as a standalone learning and reference tool.

Pray With Me also includes a section that guides the user through the performance of ablutions.

“After a number of initial starting verses, the user has the option of saying any verse from the Quran. The app includes 40 selectable verses, so they can configure the prayers to suit them,” Jay explained.

“Through repetition, it’s possible for users to learn all the prayers. While the app features basic prayers, the user can also learn extra verses for Ramadan, or they may want to read different verses if they are experiencing hardship, for example.”

Pray With Me also features a “sleep” function that allows the user to select 20 or 30 verses, and the volume reduces as they drift off to sleep.

POPULAR WITH CONVERTS

The app’s accessibility means that it is popular with British Muslim converts or “re-verts”, said the entrepreneur. Pray With Me is also downloaded by groups in need of learning support, such as children, teenagers, the elderly and those with learning difficulties.

The next app update, which is scheduled for six months from now, will feature customisable dials for narrator speed as well as prayer time notifications and a community function that allows users to pray for each other. “In the future, we plan to add location-based services and augmented reality services for Hajj and Umran,” said Dean.

The site currently runs separate paid-for and free apps, but Dean plans to evolve the model into one platform with in-app purchases for extra voices and translations. While the entrepreneur said he is seeking outside investor funding to take app to the next level, he highlighted that Pray With Me is primarily an educational service with the aim of “making praying in Arabic accessible to all.”

“All the fees go to sustaining the app. For Muslims to support an app that helps people to learn the Quran is a good thing.”