DEENBLOCKS™ Masjid an Nabawi | Build and Learn Educational Building Blocks Toy

I thought this would be a perfect project to work on with my adult children while they were home for the holidays, since they love building block sets and are also adopted from a majority-Muslim country. I’ve tried to connect them with their birth culture through books, heritage camps, etc. so this mosque building set seemed like a fun way for our multi-national, multi-faith tradition family to connect with their birth religion. I didn’t know anything about the real mosque before we started building the set, but I love that the set is modeled after a real (and as I learned, very famous) mosque and that the instructions offered interesting tidbits of information about the historical site. My older child built the mosque in an evening and thought the set was a lot of fun to build. It seemed like a good balance, not too easy but also not too hard. One puzzling feature is that even though the pieces came in bags, they weren’t numbered or in any particular order, so it’s unclear why it couldn’t have been put into one large bag. My kid had trouble finding the bricks so it would have been helpful to sort the bricks by color before starting to build. I did eventually help them to do that so the building went faster after that. The finished product is not that large (especially for the rather steep current price of $59) but it’s gorgeous. There is lots of detail inside the mosque, including details you can’t see from the outside after the mosque is finished. We especially liked the floor and all the gold bricks, which are uncommon with building sets. You do have to be careful picking it up to move it because the bottom is two pieces, so it can break. Although this set is too expensive to be considered a bargain, I think this set is worth buying if, like our family, yours has a particular reason for wanting to explore Islamic religion and culture, or even if you’re just looking for a new, unusual and educational building set that gets your kids away from the typical, heavily branded sets.

We are not Muslim, yet we want our nieces and nephews to learn about many faiths. This set makes that lesson hands on, interesting, and genuinely fun. It arrives in a sturdy full colour box, everything bagged sensibly, with a clear instruction book and two sheets of crisp decals. The bricks click together with a satisfying snap and are fully compatible with the well known brand, on a par for quality and fit. The finished model is a shade over a foot across, about thirty two centimetres, and it looks the part. It is not an exact architectural replica, yet within the limits of building blocks it captures the character of the real place very well. More importantly, the booklet does more than guide the build. It sprinkles in accessible notes on history and culture, which we used as prompts to look up more together. Ten minutes of building soon turned into a chat about art, design, and why this building matters to so many people. Decal application needs a steady hand, there are quite a few to place, but they lift the model from good to striking. The brick selection feels thoughtful. There are plenty of tiny pieces for detail, yet also a healthy number of larger parts so you are not spending an evening stacking pin heads just to boost the piece count. A brick separator is included, which saves fingernails and family harmony. As a family activity it works on several levels. It is a quality build, it introduces a piece of world heritage without feeling like homework, and it opens the door to wider reading. That is time very well spent in my book. Pros • Compatible bricks with a secure, tidy fit • Clear, fully illustrated instructions plus cultural notes • Decals are sharp and elevate the finished look • Balanced mix of small and larger pieces for an enjoyable build • Brick separator included for easy adjustments • A good springboard for learning about religion, art, and history Cons • Many decals to place, patience required • Not a perfect architectural match, purists may quibble Is it worth the money Yes. The quality is evident, the build is engaging, and the educational angle feels natural rather than forced. For families who want screen free time that builds both a model and a bit of understanding, this is a smart buy.

The instructions and not very clear as its only photos to follow, however was very fun and happy with the final product. Only downside, there was one misisng block which we had to replace with a spare which was a different colour.

A good quality set in all respects. Packaged in a very sturdy, full-colour box, the contents are fully compatible with LEGO and also of comparable quality. The various building blocks come in several separate bags, along with a large and comprehensive instruction book and two sheets of detailed decals. A creditable representation of the building in question, not by any means absolutely accurate architecturally, but very good given the constraints of creating it from building blocks at a shade over a foot across when complete. The instruction book gives a clear guide to building, fully illustrated throughout, and also provides anyone with a genuine historical or cultural interest with a reasonable amount of information about the building which can be followed up with finding more detailed information in books or online. The decal sheets are good quality - there are quite a lot of decals to apply, so a steady hand is required to get them all on straight. The blocks themselves are very good quality, connecting very well, none of them at all loose though it is possible to part them again without overt difficulty. (A tool similar to those found with LEGO sets is included if required). The 883 blocks that comprise the set are varied, there being a lot of very small pieces, but also a good selection of bigger blocks, the sense being that the manufacturers put together the set with the most suitable blocks rather than - as with some - using the tiniest blocks for everything just so that they can claim a huge number of blocks in a set. All in all, an excellent, good quality set ideal for anyone with an interest in history and architecture.

I bought this for my teenagers. They spent 6 hours building the masjid, it was a great fun activity. However, there were a few missing pieces and so they had to improvise a little. I think the manufacturers need to be a bit more diligent when counting the correct number of pieces. Instructions were not as clear and easy as original Lego booklets, but this wasn’t too much of a problem, as it added another challenge for my kids. Great information given about the Masjid Al Nabi as they were building, so actually quite educational. Alhumdolillah, a good effort to make a nice Islamic gift.

There's very little to make this set stand out apart from the building it's chosen to emulate. The blocks are haphazardly put together in bags without any clear idea as to which ones to open. The instructions seem to infer that you've opened all the bags at once and will labour through finding the right blocks. This is quite difficult as the blocks are all similarly shaped and coloured, so set aside a decent amount of time for this set, even though the building techniques are quite simple. There are some interesting historical titbits peppered throughout the instructions, but this is a set I would wait for a deep discount before buying.