How can we maintain positive habits after Ramadan?
It’s common to lose momentum after Eid, but the makers of the Guider App want to help Muslims maintain their good habits and relationship with Allah.
The app provides bite-sized content tailored to daily needs, helping users make consistent progress and avoid falling into a post-Ramadan slump.
“Imagine that you maintain your progress in Ramadan. So insha’Allah, that’s where Guider comes in, where in a few minutes, whatever that goal is, you can keep working on that goal,” Shinaz Navas, co-founder and CEO of Guider App, told Islam Channel’s The Big Ramadan Show recently.
Described as the “Duolingo for Muslims,” the app enables you to select your top priority, such as understanding the Quran or what you read in salat.
On a daily basis, you tick off a to-do list that contains brief, bite-sized material that you can complete in just five minutes, forming constant routines that bring you nearer to Allah and assist you in reaching your goal.
“We all want to get better as Muslims in one way or another, but we struggle to find the time, the motivation, the content — we all do,” said Shinaz.
“And there isn’t a single way right now to consistently make progress with our faith. It’s just not possible — and that’s where Guider comes in.”
Watch: The Big Ramadan Show episode Shinaz Navas appeared on
Building the Guider app
After leaving his job as a venture capital investor, Shinaz set out to help millions of Muslims transform their relationship with Allah. Guider launched at the start of Ramadan — and it has already helped thousands of Muslims progress with their faith.
Shinaz has been part of the education industry in different ways for the past 10 years. But he wanted to do something that would help the Muslim community specifically.
“Guider has been in the back of my mind for a while because I love education — it’s been a big part of my career,” said Shinaz.
“But at the end of the day, my purpose as a Muslim is my faith. It’s the one thing I care about the most, so education for Muslims made a lot of sense. That’s why I quit my job and that’s why I’m building Guider.”
For the past three years, Shinaz has been working in the educational tech space — he’s invested in 20 companies that went from having no users to 25 million users. This experience gave him the confidence and inspiration to work on Guider.
“I learnt a lot about what it takes to build these great products,” he said.
“And I realised that for Muslims, there isn’t a single good education app out there today. And that’s what inspired me. So I thought, you know what, why can’t we have something that we deserve – that is world class?”
Building a community of learners
The app already has many features — as well as tailored goals-based learning, you can also achieve rewards like planting trees.
But it wants to build further and create a community of engaged users who support each other in improving their worship and attaining that closeness to their faith.
“It’s nice to learn on our own but it can be hard to motivate ourselves; it’s hard to hold ourselves accountable. But what if you could learn with a friend?” said Shiraz.
“But at the same time, some of us don’t have that friend. Some of us might feel isolated or alone. And for those people, we had a lot of demands to actually connect with others on the app.
“Like, what if you can match with other people who are like you, who care about those goals, who can share those goals, and support you on that journey? So that’s the next big phase.”
Shinaz says his big vision is to see a world where Muslims thrive because of their faith.
“That’s why I quit my job because I knew that we have such limited time to do what we want to do.
“If we’re spending so much time in our career, why would we not spend that time building something which helps us as Muslims?”
For the Islam Channel community, we have partnered with Guider to offer a gift code that gives you complete access for free for 1 month. Redeem this access by downloading the app and entering the code: gift100. Download Guider and try it out.
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