A clean, beautiful and responsive template for masājid and Islāmic centres.

Features

⚡️ Modern UI Design + Reveal Animations
⚡️ One Page Layout built with React, exported as Preact for optimization
⚡️ Styled with Bootstrap v4.3 + Custom SCSS
⚡️ Fully Responsive
⚡️ Lazy Loading for Better SEO
⚡️ Image optimization with Gatsby
⚡️ Accurate and dynamic prayer times with support for dynamic iqāmah times
⚡️ Ability to view upcoming and previous prayer times. ⚡️ Hijri date display
⚡️ Beautiful visual graph generation of annual prayer timings
⚡️ Up to 1000 blog posts
⚡️ Privacy Policy built-in and included
⚡️ Clear documentation steps on how to replicate for your masjid
⚡️ Built in dynamic last-update feature with direct-link to commit history
⚡️ Well unit-tested
⚡️ Integrated support for 1:1 engagement with audience using Chatwoot.

To view a demo example, click here\

Getting Started 🚀

These instructions will get your Islāmic centre up and running from scratch bootstrapped with Islamic Simplefolio.

Domain name registration

Go to a domain name registration platform and register a domain name. In this example we will use namecheap.com and purchase a domain name for your masjid. In this example we will assume we have registered dar-as-sahaba.com. Note that you do not need any of add-ons like SSL, or anything else. However for privacy reasons I suggest you add in the Free Whoisguard add-on.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare provides websites a set of free services such as DDOS protection and other speed optimizations that will be useful. We will be changing our name servers to Cloudflare to let it route our traffic.

Go to Cloudflare, create an account, and then Add a Site.
Choose the FREE option.
Add the domain-name you have just registered (ie: dar-as-sahaba.com)
Once it asks you to validate all the DNS information, simply continue.
Once everything is complete, Cloudflare will give you some name servers you need to replace your existing ones on Namecheap with.
Open another tab on your browser and go back to Namecheap, and click on Manage to edit your domain name settings.
Under your domain, in the Domain tab, you will see a NAMESERVERS section, from the dropdown use Custom DNS.
In the two fields, set the two something.ns.cloudflare.com addresses that Cloudflare gave you.
Save the settings.
Go back on Cloudflare and click the Recheck Nameservers button.

At this point this may take some time (ie: usually an hour or so) to change the nameservers over.

Go to the DNS section.
Add the following A records:

[
  {
    "type": "A",
    "name": "@",
    "content": "185.199.111.153",
    "ttl": "Auto",
    "proxyStatus": "Proxied"
  },
  {
    "type": "A",
    "name": "@",
    "content": "185.199.110.153",
    "ttl": "Auto",
    "proxyStatus": "Proxied"
  },
  {
    "type": "A",
    "name": "@",
    "content": "185.199.109.153",
    "ttl": "Auto",
    "proxyStatus": "Proxied"
  },
  {
    "type": "A",
    "name": "@",
    "content": "185.199.108.153",
    "ttl": "Auto",
    "proxyStatus": "Proxied"
  },
  {
    "type": "MX",
    "name": "@",
    "mailServer": "mx1.improvmx.com.",
    "priority": "10",
    "ttl": "Auto"
  },
  {
    "type": "MX",
    "name": "@",
    "mailServer": "mx2.improvmx.com.",
    "priority": "20",
    "ttl": "Auto"
  },
  {
    "type": "TXT",
    "name": "@",
    "content": "v=spf1 include:spf.efwd.registrar-servers.com include:spf.improvmx.com ~all",
    "ttl": "Auto"
  }
]

Go to SSL/TLS, and enable Full.
Go to Speed and enable Auto Minify to all: Javascript, CSS, and HTML.
Disable Brotli compression.
Enable Rocket Loader.
Go to Page Rules.
Click Create Page Rule.
For URL matches set it to: http://yourdomain.com/*, in the setting select Always Use HTTPS. Click Save.
Click Create Page Rule.
For URL matches set it to: www.yourdomain.com/*, in the setting select Forwarding URL with 301 - Permanent Redirect and set the redirect to https//yourdomain.com/$1. Click Save.
For URL matches set it to: https://www.yourdomain.com/*, in the setting select Cache Level and choose Cache Everything. Click Save.
Enable all the rules.

Technical Part (Cloning & Configuration)

This is the slightly technical part. But you won't have to download any tools, but you will have to create a few accounts to get everything to work properly.

Placeholders

Go to /src/mock/data.js and fill your information that are specific for your centre:

Hero Section

This section modifies what appears at the very top of the page such as prayer timings, and hijri dates and links.

Calculation Parameters

These are configured using 12 degrees for the Fajr and ʿIshāʾ twilight angles (ie: Nautical Twilight) for the most accurate version of calculating the Fajr time instead of using the other conventions. Note that using other conventions that your region and other masājid in your area may be using may not result in the most accurate time which is vitally important because it may during the month of Ramaḍān eating Suḥūr later than the allowed time, or praying Fajr before its actual entrance! Read more about this here. Change these at your own discretion.

The only values you should need to modify here are latitude, longitude and replace those numbers with the exact geographical coordinates for your Islāmic centre. You will also need to replace the timeZone which you can find here.

export const heroData = {
  calculation: {
    fajrAngle: 12,
    ishaAngle: 12,
    latitude: '45.3506',
    longitude: '-75.793',
    method: 'NauticalTwilight',
    timeZone: 'America/Toronto',
  },
  …

Labels

If you want to customize the labels of each of the prayer times and events you can do so here.

  …
  labels: {
    fajr: 'Fajr',
    sunrise: 'Sunrise',
    dhuhr: 'Dhuhr',
    asr: 'ʿAṣr',
    maghrib: 'Maġrib',
    isha: 'ʿIshāʾ',
    middleOfTheNight: '1/2 Night Begins',
    lastThirdOfTheNight: 'Last 1/3 Night Begins',
    jumuah: 'Khuṭbah al-Jumuʿah',
  },
  …

Iqāmah Schedule

Some masājid have some variable timings for the different prayers that do not remain upon a fixed schedule throughout the year. As a result this section is a bit more complex, to allow some more customization.

For each of the events (ie: fajr, dhuhr, jumuah, etc.) you can customize exactly when the Iqāmah for that prayer is made in one of three ways.

Fixed Iqāmah Timings

If your timings for a prayer will always be a fixed pattern, you can just include them in text like this:

  …
  iqamahs: {
    …
    fajr: '+20 mins',
    dhuhr: '+5 mins',
    …
  …

This means that no matter what time of the year, the iqāmah for Fajr will always be 20 minutes after the aḏān and the iqāmah for Dhuhr will always be 5 minutes after the aḏān. You can replace it with any text there and it will show up, it does not have to follow the +X minutes pattern, although this is a good convention to use to remain consistent.

Multiple Iqāmahs

If you have more than one congregational prayer (ie: you hold a second jamāʿah), you can enter it in a list like this:

  …
  iqamahs: {
    …
    fajr: ['4:00 AM', '4:35 AM'],
    dhuhr: ['+5 mins', '+30 mins'],
    …
  …

Variable Iqāmahs

If you have very specific timings that vary throughout the year, you will have to be a bit more detailed. For the specific prayer that you need variable iqāmah timings for, you will have to list out all the months (ie: 1-12 with 1 for January, and 12 for December), and then provide the ranges for each.

The following example shows a masjid for which in January the Dhuhr prayer iqāmah will be at 12:30 PM, then in February, they will hold two congregational prayers, one at 12:30 PM, and one at 1:00 PM.

From March 1st (until March 7th inclusive), the iqāmah will be at 12:30 PM, then starting March 8th (until March 20th inclusive) the iqāmah will be at 1:30 PM. Finally starting on March 21st until the end of the month, there will be two congregational prayers, one at 1:30 PM and the other at 1:45 PM.

Then for the rest of the year, the Dhuhr iqāmah will be fixed to 1:30 PM.

You can add as many ranges as you want.

  …
  iqamahs: {
    …
    dhuhr: {
      1: '12:30 PM',
      2: ['12:30 PM', '1:00 PM'],
      3: {
        1: '12:30 PM',
        8: '1:30 PM',
        21: ['1:30 PM', '1:45 PM'],
      },
      4: '1:30 PM',
      5: '1:30 PM',
      6: '1:30 PM',
      7: '1:30 PM',
      8: '1:30 PM',
      9: '1:30 PM',
      10: '1:30 PM',
      11: '12:30 PM',
      12: '12:30 PM',
    },
    …
  …

Adjusting Hijri Date

Sometimes throughout the year the calculated Hijri date can differ from the Islāmic date due to moonsightings which are supposed to take precedence over the calculated date. This is especially important in months such as Ramaḍān where your centre may be following the moonsighting of the locality to determine the Islamic date. During those times you may need to adjust the calculation by modifying the hijriAdjust value. -1 means show the Hijri date to be 1 day before the calculated one, -2 means 2 days before, 0 means leave it exactly as calculated, 1 means show the Hijri date to be 1 day after the calculated one, 2 means it should be 2 days after the calculated one, etc.

  …
export const heroData = {
  …
  hijriAdjust: -1,
  …

Links

Sometimes you may need some additional details you want to provide to your audience regarding specific prayers. For example if your Fajr prayer timing differs from the other masājid in your locality, you may want to explain why. You can do this by adding the specific prayer you want to add this link for with the URL you want to link that prayer to.

The following example shows both the Fajr and Dhuhr prayer labels that will be rendered as clickable links.

  …
export const heroData = {
  …
  links: {
    fajr: 'https://archive.org/download/fajr-letter-das/Letter_Fajr-Ishaa_Ottawa-2016-06-27.pdf',
    dhuhr: 'https://anotherlink.pdf',
  },
  …

Calendar Link

Instead of duplicating your events information on the website, it is optimal for you to create your events on Google Calendar and then link to it on the website so your audience can see the most up to date information about it.

  …
export const heroData = {
  …
  calendarUrl: 'https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=60me58mrktt0lt24mijjkhddvc%40group.calendar.google.com&ctz=America%2FNew_York',
  …

If you don't want to include a calendar link, simply remove the calendarUrl entry from data.js.

To create a calendar for your Islāmic centre:

Go to https://calendar.google.com.
On the left-side, under Other Calendars, click Create New Calendar.
Give it a name, description and set the timezone.
Click Create Calendar.
On the left side click on your newly created Calendar.
Under Calendar Settings scroll down to Access Permissions.
Check the Make available to public and ensure See all event details is selected.
Scroll down to Integrate Calendar, and copy the Public URL to the calendar value.
This is the URL we will use in the calendarUrl to allow your audience to access your centre's events.

Sāʾ al-Istijābah

You can display a reminder for all those who visit your website at the time when duʿāʾ is accepted in the last hour of Friday. You can show them a hadith or some custom text in the istijabaText field. If you do not want to display anything, then remove that.

  …
export const heroData = {
  …
  istijabaText: 'The text you want to show',
  …

Donate Section

You can set all the ways your audience can donate to your Islāmic centre here.

For the PayPal you can either use a paypal.me link, or use a payment button link.

The etransfer email address will automatically be scrambled so that spam bots do not pick it up, but it should show up fine for the users.

In the expenses field, you can list out the individual expenses for your Islāmic centre that your audience will be donating to support. The app will automatically add the values up to create a total, and build a pie chart breaking down each expense.

You can remove any of the fields if you do not want to show them.

export const donationsData = {
  directDeposit: 'Direct deposit information',
  etransfer: 'youremailaddress@gmail.com',
  expenses: [
    { label: 'Rent', value: 1000 },
    { label: 'Utilities', value: 600 },
  ],
  khutbah: 'After the Friday sermon, donations for the muṣallá are collected.',
  paypal: 'https://paypal.me/yourbrand',
  reminderDawah: 'Reminder text here',
  reminderReward: 'Another reminder about ṣadaqah',
};

Footer Section

Set your center's social media information here. You can set platforms such as twitter, soundcloud, instagram, facebook, telegram, and youtube.

Set the effectiveDate to the date your website launched live to enforce the Privacy Policy for your users.

export const footerData = {
  networks: [
    {
      name: 'twitter',
      url: 'https://twitter.com/DarAsSahaba',
    },
  ],
  privacyPolicy: {
    effectiveDate: '18 July 2020',
  },
};

STYLES

Change the color theme of the website ( choose 2 colors to create a gradient ):

Go to src/styles/abstracts/_variables.scss and only change the values on these classes $main-color and $secondary-color to your prefered HEX color

// Default values
$main-color: #02aab0;
$secondary-color: #00cdac;

Site Properties

Go to package.json and only change the values on these properties homepage, author and description to your brand.

// Default values
$main-color: #02aab0;
$secondary-color: #00cdac;

Images

Replace /src/images/splash.jpg and /src/images/favicon.png with images matching your brand.

The splash picture should be 2000 pixels in width, by 1200 pixels in height.

The favicon is used to display a visual of your website on the browser tab, it should be square 192 pixels and transparent.

CNAME

Replace the value of the /static/CNAME file with your domain. It should not contain the https: any other prefix but simply just yourdomain.com.

Environment Variables

Here we will be creating various accounts needed to get the most of your website.

Cypress.io

Cypress.io is used for end-to-end testing of your website to ensure it stays up and running.

Go to cypress.io.
Click Sign Up and create your account. I would recommend you sign up using your GitHub SSO.
Click Create New Project and name it Website.
Select your CI as GitHub Actions.
Edit /cypress.json and fill in the projectId with the one given from Cypress.io.
In your GitHub repository, go to Settings.
Go to Secrets on the left.
Click New Repository Secret.
In the Name put: CYPRESS_RECORD_KEY
In the value paste the record key you were given cypress run --record --key PASTE_THIS_VALUE_IN.

GitHub Access Token

To allow automated updates to the website, you will need to create a GitHub access token. You can see some details on that here.

Go to your GitHub Personal Access Tokens.
Click Generate New Token.
Name it Website Publish Permissions.
Check the repo, workflow to give it access.
Click Generate Token and copy the value you are given.
In your GitHub repository, go to Settings.
Go to Secrets on the left.
Click New Repository Secret.
In the Name put: REPO_PAT
In the value paste the copied token.

GitHub Settings

Go to the Repository settings, then Overview.
Ensure Issues and Wikis are checked.
Under Custom domain enter your domain (without the https://www.).
Enforce HTTPS should be unchecked.

Mail Forwarding

Go to https://app.improvmx.com.
Set your domain name, and add the gmail address you want to forward it to.
An email will be sent to your inbox, validate it.
Follow the steps here to send emails using Gmail https://improvmx.com/guides/send-emails-using-gmail.

Technologies used 🛠️

Gatsby - Static Site Generator
GraphQL - Query language for APIs
React - Front-End JavaScript library
Bootstrap 4 - Front-End UI library
Sass - CSS extension language

Development

Adding static images

If we ever want to import an image directly which Gatsby can process we can do it like this:

Let's say we wanted to include image from 'src/images/das_bg.jpg', we can do:


import dasBg from '../images/das_bg.jpg';

And then in the render()

<img src={dasBg} />

Learned from tutorial Level Up Tutorials: Scott Tolinski - Pro Gatsby 2

Updating the Website

Each update to the website should consist of the following:

Bump up the package version in package.json and package-lock.json.
Update the CHANGELOG.MD to include all the changes that have gone into the release.
Create a GitHub milestone matching the new website version and include all the issues and pull-requests into that milestone.
Once everything is merged, create a GitHub release and name it the new version of the website.

Authors

Ragaeeb Haq - https://github.com/ragaeeb

License 📄

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE.md file for details

Acknowledgments 🎁

The app is a fork of the beautiful Gatsby Simplefolio by Jacobo Martinez with several modifications to adapt the content to be suitable for masājid.

It uses adhan-js to compute the dynamic prayer times.

Files

README.md

Latest commit

History