A rich and vibrant collection of stories that will be treasured by all who wish to broaden their understanding of Islamic tales and traditions.
Winner of the 2004 Aesop Prize, Ayat Jamilah: Beautiful Signs draws from the core of Islamic spirituality and ethics, the Qur'an and the hadiths, and also from a rich history of mystical verse, folk tales and figures of the Islamic narrative. Ayat Jamilah gathers traditional stories from the farthest reaches of the Muslim world, which stretches from Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east, and from China in the north to Tanzania in the south. This singular anthology, with its thorough explanatory notes, will be invaluable to anyone wishing to understand, or to teach, geography, world history, or world religions. It will also be treasured by Muslim families and by all parents committed to broadening the lives and values of their children and themselves.
About the Author: Sarah Conover has written six books on world wisdom traditions and the spiritual education of families. Her interests lie in building bridges of understanding between people of differing world cultures and wisdom traditions. As a former high-school teacher, she strived to bring multicultural perspectives to her students by collaborating with other educators worldwide. She was the recipient of two U.S. State Department grants that brought U.S. teachers to the Middle East to initiate classroom collaborations between students in the two regions. Sarah lives in Spokane, Washington, where she teaches creative writing and Buddhist meditation.
Freda Crane is an educator who has worked to develop Islamic curriculum on three continents. She received an MA in curriculum from the University of California, Berkeley, and an EdD from the University of Cincinnati. A practicing Muslim for over thirty years, Dr. Crane has developed instructional methods and curriculum for Muslim students in the United States, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Malaysia. For several years she was children's book editor for American Trust Publications, an Islamic publishing house, and she has long been active in the Islamic Society of North America. Dr. Crane lives in Cincinnati, Ohio, with her family.
Valerie Wahl is a graduate of Washington State University where she studied Fine Art. She is the illustrator of Kindness: A Treasury of Buddhist Wisdom for Children and Parents and Ayat Jamilah: Beautiful Signs: A Treasury of Islamic Wisdom for Children and Parents.
