Assalamu alaykum.

I first built Khalifah for my five-year-old son. I wanted a game I could hand him without worrying: one that would never frighten him, rush him, or try to sell him something.

It grew into a gentle, Minecraft-style world for Muslim families with children of about five to twelve. A child places and breaks blocks of sand, marble, glazed tile and gold, shapes a village, plants a date palm, and prays on a carpet when the adhan calls. The villagers, each with a trade of their own, come to pray with them.

Khalifah is free and will stay free. There are no ads, no accounts, nothing to buy inside the game, and no tracking. It runs in a web browser at khalifah.app, with nothing to install.

What it isn’t

This list matters more than the feature list:

• No jinn, shayateen or dark creatures of any kind.
• No death, no timers and no fail states. Nothing a child does breaks anything they can’t repair.
• No chat with strangers. Friends join with a five-letter room code, device to device, with no Khalifah server in between.
• No in-app purchases, no ads and no tracking.
• No account to make.

Life in the village

Villagers keep their own trades, greet you with salam and sleep at night. Your camel comes when you whistle.

How the learning works

Inside the world is a small madrasah with eight short classes: Arabic letters, Quran, wudu, salah, manners, pattern and design, history, and craft and trade. A child walks in when they choose to, never before. Each class is six questions with no rush, and a child can retake it as often as they like.

The Quran stand holds seven short surahs, read verse by verse in Arabic, with transliteration and the English meaning.

The game does not recite and does not teach tajweed. It points back to a parent and a teacher for anything that matters. It is a doorway, not a replacement.

For children eight and up there is an optional story year, The Aqueduct Year, in which the child serves as amir: appointing a wali, funding a water project and distributing zakat. It stays switched off by default while families test it.

What your sadaqah pays for

All gifts go into one fund and are spent in this order:

1. Arabic and Urdu. Today the game is almost entirely in English. Native speakers will translate it into Arabic, then Urdu. Where a line can’t be translated well, it stays in English: blank is safer than wrong.
2. A scholar’s review. A qualified scholar reads every lesson, du’a and story line, so parents can trust what their children read.
3. Every child’s tablet. Many young children play on a tablet, often an older one handed down in the family. Your gift lets me test and tune Khalifah on the iPads and Android tablets families really own, so it runs smoothly for every child, not only those with the newest devices.
4. Nintendo Switch. Many children already play on a Nintendo Switch, but Khalifah runs in a web browser and the Switch doesn’t have one. Your gift goes toward Nintendo’s development kit and the console engine licence needed to rebuild Khalifah for it. Nintendo approves every game on its store, so this step depends on them saying yes. If they don’t, the money moves on to the next item.
5. The next expansion. New lands, new classes and new tools.

Every dollar raised goes back into the game. I’ll post an update here as each step is done.

Who is building it

I’m Afridi, a web developer in Regina, Saskatchewan, and Khalifah is a one-person project. You can play all of it before giving anything, at khalifah.app. Questions, bug reports and tone feedback are welcome at [email protected].

If Khalifah finds a place in your family’s week, a gift of any size helps. If you can’t give, passing it on to one family who might enjoy it is a gift too.

May it be sadaqah jariyah for everyone who helps build it, insha’Allah.

Jazakum Allahu khayran,
Afridi

Questions

Is this zakat-eligible? No. Please give from your sadaqah, not your zakat.

Is my gift tax-deductible? No. Khalifah is not a registered charity, so it can’t issue tax receipts.

How much of my gift reaches the game? LaunchGood charges no platform fee. Card processors take about 2.9% + 30¢ per gift, and everything else goes into the game. The optional tip at checkout goes to LaunchGood itself, and it’s your choice.

Will Khalifah ever charge money or show ads? No. No ads, no subscriptions and no in-app purchases, now or later.

What ages is it for? Roughly five to twelve. On first launch it asks whether the player is 5–7 or 8+.

What about privacy? No accounts and no analytics of individuals. No data leaves your browser except when you play with a friend, and then only to that friend.