Elizabeth Bootman's Blog

Many may have heard of the Queen of Sheba and wondered about her peculiar origin, but they may not know anything about her mother.  Some of my most favourite books use what we do know from history and mythology to speculate about what we do not know, or what has not yet been revealed.  When I decided to us the unseen as the fantasy element of the Sulayman series I knew that I had to explore the story of Sheba and Prophet Sulayman more.  What we do know is that the story of Sheba and Sulayman is so important that there is a surah about Sheba, Surah Saba in the Quran.

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Umm Sheba and her story is part of the background to the Sulayman and the Green Lamp story.  We learn more about Umm Sheba and her children, which will figure in later books in the Sulayman series as well.  In order to imagine what the mother of Queen Sheba would be like we need only read about her daughter and speculate that the apple does not fall too far from the tree.  With the Umm Sheba character we will have a glimpse into the politics and depth of the jinn culture in our story.  I hope to expand upon this in later novels in our series as our hero, young Sulayman, encounters the jinn world and finds himself in need of donor figures and alliance with the believing jinn to succeed in this quests.

We learn in the story of Prophet Sulayman in The Tree of Light: The Lives of the Prophets for Young Muslim vol.2 that the mother of Sheba disappeared after she thwarted a great battle through ingenious sabotage.  We learn that the King of Sheba was so depressed after his jinn bride left that he went in search of her and was never heard from again.  The tragic origins of the child Queen and her meeting with Prophet Sulayman as an adult are the factual underpinning of Umm Sheba’s story.  If you would like to know more about the Queen of Sheba and Prophet Sulayman please see The Tree of Light: The Lives of the Prophets for Young Muslim vol.2 where we are introduced to the stories of the Prophets through the eyes of our little protagonists, Sulayman and Yusuf, before they begin their studies at Al Chemya.

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The Grandfather figure was introduced with the Sulayman and Yusuf characters some years ago when I began writing the prequels: The Tree of Light Series, The Secret Blessing: The Dala’il al Khayrat for Children  and Isra wal Miraj.  Grandfather is an extraordinarily influential donor figure in all of these books as well as the new Sulayman series under construction now.  In the earlier books Grandfather was the keeper of the magical toy box in which Sulayman and Yusuf sometimes found important artifacts with magical powers.  Grandfather told the boys stories that were strangely related to their unexplained experiences before their studies at Al Chemya began in the new Sulayman series.

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The role of Grandfather in our earlier books was basically to prepare Sulayman and Yusuf to enter the Al Chemya school and to guide their rather exciting spiritual preschool education.  Grandfather is a sage around whom the most peculiar things have happened and you really are left wondering who he is.  In our new book Sulayman and the Green Lamp there will be more clues, we will learn about who he is as the boys discover more about him through their experiences at Al Chemya where Grandfather is a revered man of great wisdom, admired by all in their world.  I have seen other books that attempt to teach children with wali (sage) type figures, but so far I have found that they are somewhat unsatisfying because the challenges the characters face do not have enough depth.  When the characters face more desperate and personal challenges we begin to see a hint of the role of the Awliah (sages) more clearly, not just miracle workers or cosmic Automatic Teller Machines but wise ones who guide us on our journey, giving meaning, perspective and benevolent advice as we navigate our own challenges.

Please share your ideas for teaching children about the Awliah.

This post is to introduce our two main characters, Sulayman and Yusuf from the new Sulayman book series.  You may have met Sulayman and Yusuf before if you have followed our other books: The Secret Blessing: The Dala’il al Khayrat for Children and The Tree of Light series concerning the lives of the Prophets available now on Amazon.

In our earlier books Sulayman and Yusuf are learning stories and ideas from their sage Grandfather because they want to go to the Al Chemya school one day.  These earlier stories give a background to the context of our main characters and their early education.  For homeschoolers the format of these earlier books and dialectic education will be all too familiar.  When the boys begin to learn about Islam and their world it is an organic and opportunistic way.  There is no syllabus, no schedule, no agenda.

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Tree of Light vol.2

Usually once children begin their formal education there is an uncomfortable adjustment, especially among free range type children.  Because part of the purpose of the Sulayman series is to introduce new ideas to the spectrum of islamic education the story will explore the struggle of this adjustment and possibilities for how islamic education can better serve young muslims.  I welcome your ideas as well, please share your best projects in the comments or at the contact and you may yet see them in print.

Sulayman and the Green Lamp is the first novel concerning the adventures of Sulayman and Yusuf but their adventures began in the earlier books where they learn important lessons about life from their Grandfather’s stories and guidance.  In The Secret Blessing: The Dalai’l al Khayrat for Children Sulayman and Yusuf learn about the Dalai’l al Khayrat, a beautiful collection of salutations upon the Prophet Muhammad (sws).  In this book we do not ask the english speaking Muslim child to memorize a salawat that they do not understand, we ask the child to contemplate that salawat in their own language.

In The Tree of Light series Sulayman and Yusuf learn about the lives of the Prophets.  Each story is accompanied by a framing story where Sulayman and Yusuf use what they have learned from the lives of the Prophets in their own experiences and struggles.  In this way I wish to encourage the internalization of the wisdom of the Prophets over any dictatorial approach.  The point in this series is not that any child memorize the history of the Prophets, the point is to learn to use what they have learned.

The Secret Blessing: The Dala’il al Khayrat for Children

These existing books have inspired me to work on a traditional hero’s journey story for Sulayman where he will have to opportunity to use what he learned in his early education, his formal education at Al Chemya and his own life experiences to navigate his latest challenge.

If you would like to know more follow our website and please share your ideas for developing dynamic characters for children.

In our last article about the unseen we learned a little about what we know about the jinn.  In this article I want to talk a little bit more about what we do not know.  While I do want to use what is known as a jumping off point for the fantasy part of the novel, in short the Sulayman series is based upon what we do know on many topics but once the novel departs into fantasy there is speculation about what we do not know.

As the title indicates the story of Sulayman (as) will be significant to the ark of the character Sulayman (a contemporary character living in a time capsule world from the Golden Age of Islam) who is the hero in our story and we will learn more with him as he discovers more about this important encounter between the jinn world and the Prophetic History.  One of the key things that we do not know when the novel starts is what happened to the jinn mother of the Queen of Sheba.  Because of the significance of her daughter’s story we know some things about her but it is foggy at best.

We also do not know much about what happened to the father of Sheba.  We do know that he broke the terms of his marriage contract and disappeared but other than that we are not sure.  We do know that because the King of Sheba and his Queen and his son have disappeared that his daughter Bilqis became queen.

We know the jinn have tribes and culture of their own but we do not really know anything about how the jinn tribes relate to each other or in other words what their politics are.  For the fantasy element of the novel I will explore this question a little more as well as the relationship between the believing and the unbelieving jinn.  This point will be expanded upon in later books but in book one there will definitely be hints of the scale of what is to come.

One question the reader might ask themselves is what would be the politics of the believing versus the unbelieving jinn?  What is the difference between their function and their appearance?  What is the difference in the way that they interact with the human world based upon their state of belief.  Without considering these questions the jinn might seem like a sort of monolithic unseen and all as more or less malevolent but this is not necessarily so, even according to what we do know about the jinn.

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Ibrahim (as) within the fire.

One of the richest bits I am wrestling with right now in the arc of the Sulayman series is how the jinn can live in water and be cold and wet at times if they are made of smokeless fire or what some speculate to be more or less electrical life forms.  This is a very good question.  Through my research it is clear that they are made of a kind of fire and there is indeed some confusion over their relationship with water.  We know that water burns them but in some folklore the Marid jinn are said to live in the sea.  When we think about sea monsters and mythical sea creatures in folklore it is so that they have many jinn like qualities and so this is an aspect of the jinn world that will take a little more thought.  For  now I will say that the story of the burning bush and the story of Ibrahim (as) feeling cool and at peace in the fire may be a clue about how beings that would otherwise be burnt either by fire or by water might hold a secret that allows them to do so.

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What I hope to achieve with the Sulayman series is a more clearly drawn picture of the jinn world than you find in the One Thousand and One Nights.  In the Sulayman series the jinn world is a multi sensory and cultural experience, rather than a superficial and unsatisfying hint as you find in the Richard Francis Burton translation.  Please share any research or stories you may know of about the jinn and if it suits the story arc you may find it in print.

In our story Sulayman and the Green lamp the most colourful villains are from jinn, or rather unbelieving jinn.  What is revealed over time in the story is that there are politics in the world of the unseen that the human world is unaware of and part of that has to do with the difference between believing and unbelieving jinn.

But what do we really know about the jinn?  Over the last few months I have been looking into the topic more and there is credible information from the Quran and the sunnah regarding the jinn.  There is even an entire chapter devoted to the jinn in the Quran.

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People who are not Muslim might have heard of genies and written them off as pure Arabian Nights fiction but in the Muslim world jinnare an all too real part of the unseen world, like angels.   The Quran refers to the unseen in many verses.

With Him are the keys of the unseen. No one knows them other than Him. He knows what is in land and sea. No leaf falls but He knows it; nor there is a grain in the darkness of the earth or a green or dry thing but in a manifest Book. (6.59)

When reading Sulayman and the Green Lamp you might ask yourself if you are among those who believe in the existence of beings you cannot see or you are not.  Do you believe that things you cannot see can affect your life?  Do you hear things that go bump in the night?  Have you ever had an experience that led you to believe that there was something you could not see but knew was there all the same?

Among the things we do know are that the jinn are said to be made of smokeless fire; the jinn can be burned with water; the jinn live a very long time; the jinn can believe in Allah or they can be disbelievers because they have free will like man and some jinn can change their shape, and even be visible to some people.

Part of the fun of the Sulayman series is that we will learn more about the world of the jinn and over the course of the series speculate more about their dominion.  Many works of  literature mention jinn, like the Arabian Nights, but not many attempt to describe their world in any detail.  This is partly because little is known.  As a reader what I love the most is fiction that gives you a peak into what might be the world behind the myth, a story that touches upon what we know, and what may be.

The better question might be what isn’t wrong with contemporary Islamic education.  I know scholars that are doing their best to improve Islamic Education but the methods and materials still leave something to be desired.

Let us start with reliance on ONLY rote memorization over any other kind of learning. This is not a problem because memorizing is bad this is a problem because it is not combined with other elements of the learning process, such as context of the information being memorized or contemplation of the information. If the lesson stops with memorizing an ayat then what has the student learned?

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In our story Yusuf has got something to say to you about the Quran, and you had better listen.  He doesn’t like it when people make Quran lessons boring. He doesn’t like it when people tell him not to ask questions about the Quran.  He is showing you his favorite artwork from his special illuminated Quran that he is learning from at Al Chemya. At this tender age he, like Alice in Wonderland, cannot comprehend the point of a book with no pictures and so he wants you to know that he likes his Quran, the one that has pictures.

In the Sulayman and the Green Lamp world of our story one hour contemplation is worth 7 years of worship, or 70 years or 1001 years depending on how you are counting and in which dimension.  I would ask our readers why they think that is?  Why did the Prophet (sws) speak about contemplation being superior to worship?  When I consider the question what I come to is that for our worship to be effective there must be an underlying understanding of what we are worshiping and why.  It is absolutely the goal of the Sulayman series to explore this idea and create an interest among young Muslims to contemplate these very important questions.

In the current climate of Islamic Education analytical and original thought are discouraged.  Why is this?  I think that this is because we have decided that being correct is more important than being sincere.  If we want young Muslims to have the skill to ask and to answer the big questions then we need be prepared to sometimes be wrong.  The creative process is one of trial and error and we need to give our children a safe place to ask and to come up with their own solutions to their questions.  Many are uncomfortable with this because they see Islam as only black and white and cannot themselves contemplate to a useful degree.  They prefer to ignore or discourage contemplation in Islamic Education in favor of rote memorization which does not challenge or expand their own understanding.

I know Islamic teachers who are trying to change this but the environment is not supportive and it can be a lonely task so I am going to tell you why we need the principles of the Al Chemya school in our story.  We need a better model, a better idea of what an ideal school of Islamic knowledge looks like and that is where Al Chemya comes in.  The motto of our fictional school is that “Your greatest adversary is and ever will be – yourself.”  The purpose of education at Al Chemya is not to create parrots that can memorize their lessons but to create evolved human beings who can develop their own consciousness.

I welcome comments and thoughts from our readers about how to better inspire young Muslims in an ideal school and what you think is the best way to inspire.

If you are interested to know more about dialectical education and how to embrace and encourage the questions of young Muslims please see The Tree of Light Series and The Secret Blessing: The Dala’il al Khayrat for Children available now on Amazon.

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If you are interested in using the dialectical style to teach Islam to your children please see our Ramadan Curriculum The Pool of Paradise and our Illuminated Quran Curriculum.

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What is your favourite part of the Arabian Nights lexicon?  Alchemy? Flying Carpets? A jinni in a lamp?

This blog follows the development and research for the new novel Sulayman and the Green Lamp under construction now.  I wanted to share some of the inspiration and information that went into the new story and ask for feedback from our readers.  Some of you have followed our other books about the adventures of Sulayman and Yusuf in The Tree of Light Series and The Secret Blessing: The Dala’il al Khayrat for Children among others.

Sulayman and the Green Lamp is a fantasy novel that touches on the world of the unseen.  The characters in the story use their knowledge of the sunnah to navigate the adventure and it is our hope that this genre expands and improves in the future as an inspiration for young Muslims and an introduction to others about the Golden Age of Islam.  Please contribute your favourite elements of traditional Arabian Nights culture to our discussion and you may yet see your suggestion in print.

Ihya Ulum ad-Din or The Revival of the Religious Sciences was written in the 11th century by Al Ghazali.

Among some of the most respected Sufi leaders in the world Ihya Ulum ad Din is said to be the best book for the study of Sharia, particularly for western converts because the volumes work as a summary to much of the scholarship concerning Sharia.  I am considering the inclusion of more detail about this foundational work in later parts of the Sulayman series but for now I have included this text as an example of the sorts of books that would be references in an ideal school of Islamic knowledge and mysticism.  From the scholars that I do know I have learned that when this subject is approached with the context and depth of a work like The Revival of the Religious Sciences that the subject of Sharia is more easily understood and more difficult to twist into an oppressive and inappropriate system which is why the best scholarship must be included in an ideal school of mysticism.

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This text is but is but one example of the sort of book I would like to highlight in the Sulayman series, but I need your help.  The MOST common complaint that I hear is that there is so little translated about the importance of ladies in Islam and I completely agree.  What I have read is unsatisfying and very poorly explained even if translated.  It is my hope that this unfortunate situation changes with time but one of the strengths of popular fiction is that attention can be drawn to a problem and give people a cause to rally around.

I would like to welcome any of our followers and in particular our Shaykhas to participate in this conversation and add suggested books to what you consider part of an ideal curriculum so that the voices of ladies are included.  I may consider adding the reference in one of the books if the synopsis suits the plot of one of the Sulayman books in our series.  I am particularly interested in any important spiritual works written by Lady Awliah (saints) or scholars.  Even if the work is not translated an idea of the synopsis may be enough to use as a passing reference.  The reason I would like to do this is that part of the purpose of the Sulayman series is to popularize works that might be translated if there was more demand.  I recently researched the cost of translations to see if Sulayman and the Green Lamp could be translated into a few other common languages but quickly saw that the cost could be between $10,000 and $20,000 dollars for a text of this length.  In order for more important scholarship concerning important ladies in Islam to be translated there must be a more widespread demand.

If you know any lady scholars, or ambitious students of Arabic who could be called upon to comment and raise awareness about the lack of resources on the history of ladies in Islam I would greatly appreciate it.

For now I would suggest any of our titles including The Tree of Light series, The Secret Blessing: The Data’il al Khayrat for Children and The Illuminated Quran where I have tried to emphasize the stories and histories of ladies as much as possible from the sources available to me.  In our new story I hope to give a more dynamic view of ladies in Islam and stir more interest in most foundational books of spiritual Islam and with your help I hope to do both.

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Master Nasruddin is closely modelled after the Mullah Nasruddin figure from classical Arabian Nights literature.  As far as I know he has not been woven into a fictional tale before but I have included him just the same as an example of what Sufis call majdub, a person so attracted by the divine that they seem a little mad, but they are benevolent and essentially harmless.  Master Nasruddin is included in the story to give some background to the traditional world feel of the novel and make homage to the wisdom of the idiots.

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In our story wisdom is not only held by lofty and arrogant scholars but by those who appear tattered, addled and distracted, yet this is but a guise.  The truly inspired can be somewhat hidden and reveal themselves only to the prepared.  Master Nasruddin is a member of the Al Chemya faculty but he is not alone in his notoriety.  Al Chemya has attracted a wide array of very famous teachers and figures from the Golden Age of Islam whom we will learn more about soon.

If Mullah Nasruddin is one of  your favourite figures you will not be disappointed to see him appear in our story both in this book and later in the series but do not mistake him for just a comical and inconsequential figure.  Despite his humour Master Nasruddin is so much more than he seems and is able to crack the most stubborn nuts at Al Chemya and we will begin to suspect that his humour is just a veil for his true reality.

Hanum Rabia is loosely based upon the historical figure Rabia al Adawiyya, an extraordinarily important Sufi saint.  Why have I kept her name instead of changing it?  Like with the Master Nasruddin character this story employs these very important Sufi figures to honour them and include them in the lexicon of contemporary literature for young people.  To me these figures do not only belong in old dusty books that are inaccessible to young people and perhaps unknown until discovered in adulthood.  The ethos of Hanum Rabia is to embody and instil sincerity.  The details of her colourful history and the high level of spiritual achievement she reached only serve to to make her a legend at the Al Chemya school and a great inspiration to the more ambitious female students in the story.

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It is my hope that by referencing important lady saints like Rabia al Adawiyya that more lady saints and important lady sahaba become more prominent among young Muslims.    Sources and stories about them can be hard to find and are often not translated.  I think that this can change if there is more interest in them, especially as young Muslim ladies enter academia and wish to know more about the female figures in their own tradition.  As you might notice from the Rabia al Adawiyya article on wikipedia scholarship surrounding her story is problematic and I have heard directly from one other female saint that parts of her commonly known story are not correct.  For the purposes of Sulayman and the Green Lamp I am trying to stick to the aspects of her legend that are agreed upon and in particular her philosophy.

On our character card I call her “The Judge” because of this philosophical discernment.  She marks the difference between sincerity and hidden self service and egotism in her own legend and in the context of our Sulayman series to honour her message over any of her other particulars.  I have focused on the bucket and the torch in her iconography for the artwork of the book to further emphasize “The Judge” persona and the contrast of her message.  The figure I have chosen is based on an Erte drawing that I particularly liked because it had a power that overrides and gender stereotypes, a bias that Rabia combatted in her own legend, while still a clearly a feminine aspect she does not appear any less for her femininity, if not actually more powerful in this image.  What I really wish to convey to young Muslim ladies is that their role models can have an underlying, or even frightening strength.  This is why Hanum Rabia is a somewhat feared person at Al Chemya.

If Rabia al Adawiyya is one of your favourite lady saints, as she is mine and you want to share her legend with your children then you will enjoy this character in this book and other books of this series.