Taiwanese student in Turkey develops Muslim prayer invite app
The app allows Muslim worshippers to invite friends to pray with them.
2 min read
The developer was born in Saudi Arabia [Getty]
A Taiwanese student living in Turkey has launched a new Muslim prayer app that allows worshippers to invite their friends to pray with them.
Ping Cheng, 21, started work on the app last year while studying computer science at Ankara's Bilkent University.
The tech savvy Taiwanese national has lived in Ankara since 2013. Cheng's father, Yaser Tai-hsiang Cheng, is Taiwan's top diplomat and de-facto ambassador in Turkey.
Wahdapp, available on both the Apple and Google Play stores, mirrors other Muslim prayer apps in that it shows prayer timings around the world.
Cheng's app also allows users to invite friends or relatives to pray with them.
"The app has an inbuilt map which leads the user to the prayer place," he told Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
The app gets its name from the Arabic word for unity.
"I hope the app helps to bring Muslims together," Cheng told Taiwan's Central News Agency.
He also hopes the app will make practising Islam easier for Muslims living in non-Muslim-majority countries by reminding them of prayer times and helping them organise communal prayers.
Invitations to pray together can only be sent to users of the same gender.
Most Muslims believe men and women should be seperated during prayer.
Wahdapp is currently available in seven languages - English, French, Turkish, Arabic, Indonesian, Russian and both traditional and simplified Chinese.
Cheng's life as a diplomat's son gave him an appreciation of "learning different languages, meeting different people and adapting to diverse cultures", he told Anadolu.
The 21-year-old student was born in Saudi Arabia but moved to Taiwan at the age of two. He later went on to live in Belgium and Turkey.
Cheng has made Wahdapp available as open-source software due to concerns over data security in other Muslim prayer apps.
Several popular apps, including Muslim Pro and Salaat First, were accused last year of selling user data to the US military via a third party.
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Ping Cheng, 21, started work on the app last year while studying computer science at Ankara's Bilkent University.
The tech savvy Taiwanese national has lived in Ankara since 2013. Cheng's father, Yaser Tai-hsiang Cheng, is Taiwan's top diplomat and de-facto ambassador in Turkey.
Wahdapp, available on both the Apple and Google Play stores, mirrors other Muslim prayer apps in that it shows prayer timings around the world.
Cheng's app also allows users to invite friends or relatives to pray with them.
"The app has an inbuilt map which leads the user to the prayer place," he told Turkish state news agency Anadolu.
The app gets its name from the Arabic word for unity.
"I hope the app helps to bring Muslims together," Cheng told Taiwan's Central News Agency.
He also hopes the app will make practising Islam easier for Muslims living in non-Muslim-majority countries by reminding them of prayer times and helping them organise communal prayers.
Invitations to pray together can only be sent to users of the same gender.
Most Muslims believe men and women should be seperated during prayer.
Wahdapp is currently available in seven languages - English, French, Turkish, Arabic, Indonesian, Russian and both traditional and simplified Chinese.
Cheng's life as a diplomat's son gave him an appreciation of "learning different languages, meeting different people and adapting to diverse cultures", he told Anadolu.
The 21-year-old student was born in Saudi Arabia but moved to Taiwan at the age of two. He later went on to live in Belgium and Turkey.
Cheng has made Wahdapp available as open-source software due to concerns over data security in other Muslim prayer apps.
Several popular apps, including Muslim Pro and Salaat First, were accused last year of selling user data to the US military via a third party.
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