How to Muslim websites
What our websites collect, why we collect it, and how to switch it off.
Last updated: 23 October 2026
How to Muslim runs a family of free websites for new Muslims, reverts and anyone learning the basics of Islam. This policy explains what those websites collect, why, who else handles it, how long we keep it, and the rights you have, wherever you live.
The short version: there are no accounts and no sign-ins, we do not show ads on our sites, and we never sell your information or use it for personalised advertising. We count visits with Google Analytics. Because we advertise on Google Search, Google Ads tells us whether people who click our ads go on to use the site. Where we show a cookie bar, both stay off until you say yes. If you join the newsletter, donate or email us, we keep only what we need to do that.
How to Muslim (“we”, “us”) runs the websites listed below and decides how the information they collect is used. Under data protection laws such as the GDPR, that makes us the controller of your information. You can reach us about anything in this policy at info@howtomuslim.org.
You never have to give us personal information to use our websites. Every guide is free and open to read.
This policy covers every How to Muslim website:
www.howtomuslim.org, the main site: articles, courses, free materials and givingguide.howtomuslim.org, the learning librarychildren.howtomuslim.org, little Amanah, the Muslim parenting guidequran.howtomuslim.org, Ayah Unpacked, the Quran mind mapsseerah.howtomuslim.org, Prophetic Footsteps, the seerahhistory.howtomuslim.org, Athar, Islamic historyummah.howtomuslim.org, Ummah Atlaslibrary.howtomuslim.org, the book libraryapp.howtomuslim.org, the How to Muslim app in a browserThe installed How to Muslim app for iPhone and Android collects nothing at all and has its own policy: see the App privacy policy.
Our websites use Google Analytics 4 to count visits. It records the ordinary things a website measures: which pages were opened, how you arrived (a search, a link or an ad), roughly which country and city the visit came from, and what kind of device, browser and language were used. It does not tell us your name or email, and Google Analytics 4 does not store your IP address. We use it to see which guides actually help people and what needs improving.
We pay for ads on Google Search so that people looking for things like “how to pray” can find our guides. When you click one of those ads, Google Ads records the click. If you allow it, the Google tag on our websites then records whether you go on to reach certain pages, such as our free downloads page. This tells us whether the ads are helping anyone, so that we do not waste money we could spend on the sites themselves.
We use Google Ads only to measure our own ads. We do not use your visits for remarketing (showing you our ads elsewhere because you visited us) or for personalised advertising, and our cookie bar never switches ad personalisation on. Google, as a third-party vendor, does use cookies to show ads across the web, and its advertising cookies let it and its partners show ads based on people’s visits to websites. You can turn that off for yourself: see Your choices.
If you join our newsletter, we collect your email address and nothing else. On the learning library and our other subdomains the sign-up form is run by MailerLite. On www.howtomuslim.org it is run by Wix. We use your address only to send the newsletter, and every email has an unsubscribe link.
If you email us or use the contact form on www.howtomuslim.org, we receive your name, email address and whatever you write. We use it only to reply to you.
Donations are taken on a secure checkout page run by Revolut. We never see or store your card details. Revolut handles the payment under its own privacy policy and gives us a record of the payment.
Like every website, ours have to receive your IP address and basic details of each request in order to send you the page. Our subdomains are hosted by Cloudflare and www.howtomuslim.org by Wix. They use this information to deliver pages quickly and to protect the sites from abuse.
Some of our tools, such as the web version of the app, save your progress (for example a tasbih count or a streak) in your own browser’s storage. That information stays on your device and is never sent to us.
We do not build profiles of individual visitors, make automated decisions about you, buy information about you from anyone else, or combine what our websites collect with other sources to work out who you are.
Our websites are about Islam. The simple fact that you read them, join our newsletter or donate could suggest something about your religious beliefs, and data protection laws in most countries, including the GDPR, treat information about religion as especially sensitive. We handle everything with that in mind:
Data protection laws require a lawful reason, called a legal basis, for each use of your information. These are ours, with how long each kind of information is kept:
| What for | Information | Legal basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visit statistics (Google Analytics) | Pages viewed, how you arrived, approximate location, device, browser and language | Your consent, given in the cookie bar | No more than 14 months, then only totals |
| Ad measurement (Google Ads) | A click on one of our ads, and whether you then reach a key page | Your consent, given in the cookie bar | The cookie lasts 90 days. Google keeps its reports under its own rules |
| The newsletter | Your email address | Your consent, given when you sign up | Until you unsubscribe |
| Replying to you | Your name, email address and message | Our legitimate interest in answering people who write to us | As long as we need to answer you and keep a record of the conversation |
| Donations | The payment record Revolut gives us | Taking your donation, and a legal obligation to keep financial records | As long as the law requires for financial records |
| Delivering and protecting the sites | IP address and basic details of each request | Our legitimate interest in running safe, working websites | A short time, under our hosts' own rules |
Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time, and doing so does not affect what happened before. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed them against your rights, and you can object, as described under Your rights.
Cookies are small files a website stores in your browser. These are the ones our websites can set:
| Cookie | Set by | What it is for | How long |
|---|---|---|---|
_ga, _ga_* |
Google Analytics | Tells one visit apart from another, so pages are counted correctly | Up to 2 years |
_gcl_au, _gcl_aw |
Google Ads | Connects a click on one of our ads to a later visit to a key page | 90 days |
Wix cookies (such as svSession, hs, XSRF-TOKEN) |
Wix, on www.howtomuslim.org only | Keeps the main site working and secure, and gives Wix its own statistics | From the end of your visit up to 2 years |
__cf_bm |
Cloudflare, on our subdomains | Bot protection. Only set if Cloudflare needs to check a visit | 30 minutes |
On guide.howtomuslim.org, children.howtomuslim.org, quran.howtomuslim.org, seerah.howtomuslim.org, history.howtomuslim.org and app.howtomuslim.org, Google Analytics and Google Ads set no cookies until you allow them in the bar that appears on your first visit. Choosing “No thanks” keeps them off, and the bar asks again after six months.
www.howtomuslim.org runs on Wix, which manages cookies on that site with its own controls. You can also stop Google Analytics there, or anywhere, with Google’s Analytics opt-out add-on or any tracker blocker, and our guides work exactly the same without it. Ummah Atlas and the book library load no analytics or advertising tags at all.
Do Not Track: there is no agreed standard for browser “Do Not Track” signals, so our websites do not respond to them. Use the cookie bar or the tools under Your choices instead.
We never sell your information, and we do not share it with anyone except the services that run our websites for us. They may only use it to provide their service to us:
We would only share information with anyone else if the law required us to, for example in response to a valid court order.
Some of these companies are based in, or use servers in, other countries, including the United States. When information leaves the UK or the European Economic Area, it is protected either by an adequacy decision (such as the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, which Google and Cloudflare take part in) or by the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses and the UK equivalent.
You can ask us, free of charge, to:
Email info@howtomuslim.org. We may ask you to confirm the request comes from you, for example by replying from the email address you subscribed with. We reply within one month. If a request is unusually complex we may need up to two more months, and we will tell you if so. If we cannot do what you ask, we will explain why, and you can ask us to look again by replying to that answer.
In practice, the only personal information we hold about anyone is a newsletter email address, a donation record or a message they sent us. Analytics data is not linked to anyone’s name, so we usually cannot find “your” visits in it. You can stop it being collected using the choices above.
You also have the right to complain to a data protection authority: in the UK, the Information Commissioner’s Office, and in the EU, the authority in your country. We would be grateful for the chance to put things right first.
Everyone gets the same rights. We apply the rights above to every visitor, wherever you are, including the UK, the EU, the United States, Canada, Brazil, Egypt, India and Australia. You can also complain to the data protection authority in your own country.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act and similar state laws, here is what we collect, in the categories those laws use:
We collect it from you and your device, for the purposes described above. We do not sell personal information, we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not use sensitive information to infer anything about you. You have the right to know what we hold, and to correct or delete it, and we will never treat you differently for using these rights. If we turn a request down, you can appeal by replying to our answer.
Our websites are only served over encrypted (HTTPS) connections. We use established providers that protect the information they hold, we keep as little as we can, and only the people who run How to Muslim can see newsletter, donation and message records. No system is perfectly secure, but if a breach ever put your information at risk, we would tell you and the relevant authorities as the law requires.
Our websites are written for a general audience, and children.howtomuslim.org is written for parents. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. The newsletter is meant for adults: if you are under 16, please ask a parent or guardian before signing up. If you think a child has sent us their details, email us and we will delete them.
If this policy changes, the new version will be posted at this address with a new “last updated” date. If a change affects how we use your information, we will make it clear at the top of this page and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent again.
Questions about this policy, or about your information: email info@howtomuslim.org.
We’d like to use Google Analytics to see which pages get read. It is off until you say yes, and saying no changes nothing about how the site works. What it records. We’d like to use Google Analytics to see which pages get read, and Google Ads to see whether our ads help anyone find them. Both are off until you say yes, and saying no changes nothing about how the site works. What they record.