Best (Free!) Short Islamic Kids Stories/Audiobooks on the Internet
If you’re searching for high quality and, importantly, FREE short Islamic kids stories for your children, look no further!
My picks below are short kid-friendly audio stories that can keep your children entertained and learning about the deen. So, you can take a well deserved break to have an uninterrupted cup of tea without an ounce of mum guilt!
If you’re looking for Islamic book recommendations for children, check out my posts on wonderful stories about the Prophet (pbuh) and excellent story books with Islamic morals.
Many of these short audiobooks often teach Islamic moral lessons. They also feature Muslim characters with Muslim names which can help Muslim children feel represented and seen.
I’ll go into my top picks of the best and free short Islamic kids stories on the internet next. But first, let’s talk a little about why audio stories for children are a MUST!
Why should your children listen to stories?
There’s plenty of evidence about the importance of reading books to kids. Most parents know how crucial it is to a child’s development.
But, when I have spoken to my many mum friends about whether their kids regularly listen to audiobooks, I was met with blank stares.
When I ask ‘why is that?’, they reply that they hadn’t considered it before.
Let me tell you why these parents are missing a (genius!) trick.
Here are some of the benefits that listening to audio stories can have for your children:
- Helps keep children occupied without a screen
- Builds their exposure to new language and vocabulary
- Builds language comprehension skills and memory retention
- Helps children to build pictures in their mind and expand their imaginations
- Helps build love for stories
- Builds resilience to boredom
- Builds capacity for concentration
- Useful during quiet times for younger children who are transitioning out of napping
- Supports struggling readers to access stories without the pressure of reading the words
- Great relaxation tool to support mental wellbeing
- May help child feels more ‘grown up’ which can be appealing
- Able to listen alongside doing other hands-on tasks or activities
You can find out more about the benefits of children listening to audiobooks in this research review by the National Literacy Trust.
Once you figure out the stories and shows your child enjoys listening to, they won’t stop asking to listen to them! Win-win.
Availability of free audio stories for Muslim children
I found from my research that there are tons of great audio stories for children in general on the internet. This includes both free and paid audio stories as well as podcasts, radio, and audiobooks.
There are far fewer options for stories specific to Muslim children or featuring Islamic storylines and morals. And when you do find these, you can’t always trust that they are good quality.
My following recommendations are the results of all the research I have done, as well as thorough user testing (with my five year old!)
I have chosen these story options because they are easy to listen to, feature Muslim characters, have a good moral message, and – very importantly – are loved by my five year old.
The stories are short – they are all under 30 minutes (most are closer to 10 minutes). So they are perfect for a trip to school or for winding down before bed.
The best free short Islamic kids stories on audio
Top Choice #1: Once upon a Crescent, Muslim Kids Podcast, Mrs. Hashimi
The Once upon a Crescent podcast has an incredible series of short islamic stories by an American Muslim called Mrs Hashimi.
It features 43 episodes of original content written by Mrs Hashimi for Muslim children.
The episodes are a good length; the average story is around 16 minutes while the longest episode is 24 minutes.
Once upon a Crescent is my daughter’s absolute favourite podcast and she will return to it again and again.
Why we love these short Islamic kids stories:
- Every one of Mrs Hashimi’s stories has a wonderful moral lesson for children told from an Islamic perspective. This could include the power of kindness to neighbours, dealing with jealousy or how to seek help from Allah when scared.
- The stories all feature Muslim characters, which is fantastic for representation. This is crucial for our Muslim children.
- The stories are fun and very relatable! Muslim families will recognise and relate to the scenarios in the stories, just like my daughter does.
- Mrs Hashimi tells each short story in an extremely accessible way for young children. Her voice is not too fast or too slow, and she has a very soothing quality when she speaks.
- You will often hear the super cute voices of her own children in the story!
- Some of the stories have included duas which my daughter has subsequently learned by heart – and I had nothing to do with that at all!
- Mrs Hashimi will often write a story which is topical. For example, there are short stories about Eid, the pandemic, and halloween.
What I love most about this podcast is that Mrs Hashimi follows the principle of gentle and respectful parenting in the stories. This is so refreshing and not something you will easily find!
For example, in ‘Hamza’s Lego Lesson’, rather than chastise and shame Hamza for making a wrong choice in the story, she validates his feelings and tries to understand what happened.
I love this about these Islamic kids stories. For this and all the reaosns outlined above, Once upon a Crescent is my top pick for the best free short Islamic stories for kids on audio on the internet.
#2 – 7 Stories podcast
7 Stories podcast has 15 episodes of fantastic, high quality short Islamic kids stories. Episodes are just shy of 10 minutes each so that you and your children can listen to them on the ‘journey to school’, as it says on the podcast description.
The high production value of these kids audio stories are the best feature of this podcast. It has lovely, whimsical opening and exit music which is very uplifting. It also has professional sound effects throughout the episodes.
The stories feature Muslim characters in everyday situations that children would recognise and relate to.
For example, in ‘My Journey to Salah’, Liyan, an almost 7-year-old girl, gets upset when it begins raining so she thinks her salah party is ruined. She can’t stop obsessing over it and she even thinks Allah has done something bad to her on purpose.
I love this about the 7 Stories podcast, because it acknowledges these feelings Muslim children (and adults!) may have about Allah sometimes. But it doesn’t paint the character as bad. It recognises the feelings and deals with them by teaching the Islamic moral lesson. In this case, the Islamic lesson was that Allah is the best of planners and you may be surprised what Allah will do for you.
There are many more great stories like this. My daughter’s chosen favourites (which she insisted I write on this blog!) are ‘No one sees me’, ‘No more plastic’ and ‘Gifted’.
But the sad news is that there have been no new episodes since April 2020.
From my research it seems that Once upon a Crescent is the only Islamic short stories podcast for young children which has stood the test of time and persevered.
This is a real shame, because the 7 Stories podcast is also much loved by my daughter.
Even though the episodes seems to have stopped, I would still highly recommend this podcast for your children to enjoy the short Islamic stories. You can come back to them again and again (and kids love repetition anyway!)
#3 – MyKidsHQ Podcasts: Stories of the Prophets for Kids
My first two picks for great short Islamic kids stories feature all original content about Muslim children in Muslim situations. However, the My Kids HQ podcast focuses on re-telling the stories of the prophets of Islam in a very kid-friendly way.
This podcast has 14 episodes which are around 8-10 minutes each – so nice and short!
I really enjoy the audio stories on this podcast because I know that it’s not just educational entertainment. These stories give my kids a chance to learn some deep and moral lessons from the stories and lives of our beloved prophets.
There are stories about the prophets Adam, Saleh, Nuh and Idrees, to name a few.
The podcast is also interspersed with longer episodes for the adults! These are conversations with a notable Muslim on various parenting topics and these episodes are around 40-45 minutes in length.
As mentioned above, there are several podcasts with short Islamic stories for Muslim children, but many of them have stopped.
The My Kids HQ podcast started up in January 2022 and ran weekly for the first season.
However, season 2 has dropped 2 episodes since returning. The first aired in July 2022 and the other aired in October 2022. So, it’s tricky to tell whether this podcast has stopped producing episodes altogether or has just run out of steam for now.
It is definitely worth subscribing to know in case new episodes do come out!
Best Free Short Islamic Kids Stories on YouTube
For this list, I have to start off by saying that I know these Islamic stories aren’t strictly audiobooks since they are YouTube videos.
However, when it comes to free content, you can’t do much better than YouTube.
And technically, you CAN listen to these stories!
For the best audio experience, you would need a YouTube Premium subscription. This would allow you to enjoy listening to the stories without any ads interrupting and you can even close the screen and allow only the audio to play. This is what we do in my house, but I appreciate this option isn’t totally free, if that is what you’re looking for.
#4 – Stories of the Prophets – Quran Stories (YouTube playlist)
The first thing I noticed about the Stories of the Prophet – Quran Stories YouTube channel is the sheer quantity of stories the channel has to offer!
As with the My Kids HQ, these videos tell stories from the Quran about the Islamic prophets. The playlists are well organised so it is easy to search whatever story you would like. The length of videos can vary wildly depending on which playlist you choose to listen to, so some are shorter than others.
I do think these stories don’t have the natural storytelling flow and quality as the choices I have already listed above, but that has never seemed to bother my daughter. She enjoys all of this channel’s short Islamic kids stories nonetheless.
#5 – Story Time with Ms Giraffe (YouTube channel)
This is a wonderful channel with just over 20 stories which are read out loud by ‘Ms Giraffe’. These read alouds all feature Muslim storybooks written by Muslim authors.
Ms Giraffe sets herself apart by her soft, warm and welcoming tone and body language, along with her animated and emotive reading expression.
The first time my daughter watched and listened to these stories read by Ms Giraffe, she was enthralled. A great channel to save.
#6 – Mini Muslims – Islamic Stories for Kids (YouTube playlist)
This is another Youtube playlist which is worth knowing about and having in your back pocket!
The Mini Muslims channel has only 3 episodes so far in this particular playlist because the channel mainly focuses on Islamic children’s songs and less so on stories.
The 3 stories feature Muslim characters and Muslim stories rather than Islamic or Quranic content. They are very short, around 5-8 minutes long.
Even though there are such few episodes, I still thought it was useful to add this to the list because the 3 stories are great!
I particularly enjoyed, ‘How Much Does Allah Love Me?’ which is a touching, heart-warming story about love for and from Allah. It has incredible imagery and language which would enrich any child’s vocabulary.
Other free Islamic audio content, but not stories
I want to give you as many options as possible to source Islamic audio content for your children. Especially considering that the free options are limited.
With this in mind, there are two options below aimed at children which are like little lectures.
#7 – Mufti Menk’s – Children’s Series
There are 28 episodes of audio from Mufti Menk which teach Islamic moral lessons to young kids in a friendly, non-threatening, and lighthearted way.
The episodes are around 6-7 minutes long and cover topics such as dealing with death and when we should say ‘Bismillah’.
These lectures are great audio alternatives for your children if they are not interested in listening to stories.
#8 – Khutba for Kids by Noor Kids (YouTube playlist)
Khutba for Kids is another YouTube playlist which has so much great Islamic content for kids on the Noor Kids channel. Over 80 videos feature on this playlist of ‘storytime khutbas’ delivered by Brother Amin Aaser.
He delivers these khutbas over Zoom video call with loads of children who join in. The video is then recorded and put on YouTube for the benefit of other Muslim children.
The videos are fun and lighthearted – Brother Amin is extremely animated in each one!
Brother Amin covers lots of topics on Islamic morals and manners, including why it’s good to give and how to be good to Allah’s creatures.
I also noticed that in the most recent episodes, they feature a brother who signs (American Sign Language) so that even deaf or hard of hearing children can benefit, masha’Allah.
It should be noted though, that these khutbas are very long! They range from 40 minutes to over an hour.
The channel in general is a fantastic resource for Muslim kids and I highly recommend you browsing and checking it out.
Other good paid options for short Islamic kids stories
#9 – Miraj Stories app
We have a small paid monthly subscription to Miraj Stories, an Islamic kids stories and games app which has tons of wholesome Islamic content for young children, including audiobooks.
Miraj Stories is developing this app all the time with new books continually being added. So, it’s a great, cheap option and you can get started with a free trial for 7 days to see if you like it.
#10 – Audible Islamic Kids books
For individual purchases, Audible always has paid options available but it would require some searching and researching to find the exact Islamic kids stories you are looking for.
Final words
There you have it. My top 10 choices for short Islamic kids stories and Muslim children’s audio content on the internet. I hope my top choices provide you with the options you need to make informed decisions about the types of audiobooks and stories to share with your children.
I hope these stories give your kids plenty of opportunities to hear excellent storytelling from an Islamic perspective and help them to feel seen and represented.
And I hope it gives you a chance to have a well-earned break too!
I pray your children enjoy and experience the magic of great stories, that Allah enlightens them and places goodness in their hearts. May Allah bless you and your efforts. Ameen.
Salaam x
