My First Qur'an with Pictures - Juz Amma Part 1 by Shereen Sharief

📚 BOOK REVIEW 📚 Title: My First Qur'an with Pictures - Juz Amma Part 1 Author: Shereen Sharief Illustrator: Nicola Anderson Publisher: Faith Books Publishing @faith_books Initially, I did a post on this set without doing further investigation from the Islamic point of view. When it was brought to my attention that trying to visually depict the words of Allah (swt) should not be a lighthearted matter, I had removed the post and chose to look into it myself without blindly taking the advise from someone I didn't know. First and foremost, I do want to remind myself and others that this is also a learning process for me, and none of us are perfect in any way. As long as we are walking on this earth, we will make mistakes hopeful that we will learn and grow through them, inshaAllah. 🌸 These are the main concerns that I found in my research regarding this: 1. The high status of the Qur'an (the greatness of the words of Allah) is brought down to a level that is now made comparable to other common picturebooks in the eyes and minds of our kids. The kids then create a certain imagery that stick to their minds for a long time when they repeat these verses on a daily basis. This comes with the risk that it leads to undermining the status of the Qur'an and cause them not to hold it to its high esteem. 2. We are all too familiar with the fact that depicting any of the prophets or even the sahaba is not a practice promoted by Islam. Although, I haven't noticed any drawings in this book that suggest it. 3. Visually presenting the world of the unseen such as the Paradise, hellfire, angels, Iblis etc. is impermissible because we don't know their true reality. Our minds and knowledge are limited to the worldly understandings of these concepts. Thus presenting them with the worldly symbols is understating the real truth. This book does include the depiction of "shaytan", the concept of scaling our good/bad deeds, hellfire. 4. There is a lack of a trustworthy committee of scholars to be involved in the production process of Islamic educational material. This book does include a stamp of review and approval by a shaykh, whose name I had to google.

Which might be why I wasn't initially prompted to look further into the matter, again, this is an oversight on my part.🌸🌸 For me, the points above (especially the first one) give a much needed clarity and understanding into the matter and that is why I have chosen to retract my previous opinions of the book. On this page, we try our best to review the books and highlight any concerns that are not in line with the teachings of Islam (specifically Qur'an and Sunnah). 🌸 We ask Allah to guide us to the truth in all matters and show us His mercy for our shortcomings.

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Nov 25/2019