Collection: Shop Middle Eastern

Ex-best friends, Tiwa and Said, must work together to save their Islamic Center from demolition, in this romantic story of rekindling and rebuilding by award-winning authors Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé & Adiba Jaigirdar!

These days, Said Hossain spends most of his time away at boarding school. But when his favorite hometown librarian Ms. Barnes dies, he must return home to New Crosshaven for her funeral and for the summer. Too bad being home makes it a lot harder to avoid facing his ex-best friend, Tiwa Olatunji, or facing the daunting task of telling his Bangladeshi parents that he would rather be an artist than a doctor.

Tiwa doesn't understand what made Said start ignoring her, but it's probably that fancy boarding school of his. Though he's unexpectedly staying through the summer, she's determined to take a page from him and pretend he doesn't exist. Besides, she has more than enough going on, between grieving her broken family and helping her mother throw the upcoming Eid celebration at the Islamic Center--a place that means so much to Tiwa.

But when the Islamic Center accidentally catches fire, it turns out the mayor plans to demolish the center entirely. Things are still tense between the ex-friends but Tiwa needs Said's help if there's any hope of changing the mayor's mind, and Said needs a project to submit to art school (unbeknownst to anyone). Will all their efforts be enough to save the Islamic Center, save Eid, and maybe save their relationship?

Islam has been one of the most powerful religious, social and political forces in history. Over the last 1400 years, from origins in Arabia, a succession of Muslim polities and later empires expanded to control territories and peoples that ultimately stretched from southern France to East Africa and South East Asia.
Yet many of the contributions of Muslim thinkers, scientists and theologians, not to mention rulers, statesmen and soldiers, have been occluded. This book rescues from oblivion and neglect some of these personalities and institutions while offering the reader a new narrative of this lost Islamic history. The Umayyads, Abbasids, and Ottomans feature in the story, as do Muslim Spain, the savannah kingdoms of West Africa and the Mughal Empire, along with the later European colonization of Muslim lands and the development of modern nation-states in the Muslim world. Throughout, the impact of Islamic belief on scientific advancement, social structures, and cultural development is given due prominence, and the text is complemented by portraits of key personalities, inventions and little known historical nuggets. The history of Islam and of the world's Muslims brings together diverse peoples, geographies and states, all interwoven into one narrative that begins with Muhammad and continues to this day.

Perfect for fans of The Day You Begin and Evelyn Del Rey Is Moving Away, author Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and illustrator Shahrzad Maydani's Sister Friend is a heartwarming new picture book celebrating the unique joy of cultivating friendships within your cultural community.

Ameena feels invisible. It's been that way since she started at her new school. But now there is another new girl in class. Ameena sees her brownness and her hijab, even though the other kids do not.

Ameena wants to be her friend, but she can't seem to find the right words or do the right things. Until one day, they find them together: "Assalamu Alaikum, Sister. Welcome."

(Bilingual English-Dari edition) Some 250 years ago, the Great King Ahmad Shah Durrani ruled Afghanistan and, from there, a magnificent empire extending from eastern Iran to northern India, and from the Amu Darya River to the Indian Ocean. Known to his people as Ahmad Shah Baba (Ahmad Shah, our father), the beloved king was an outstanding general and a just and wise ruler. But he was vexed with all kinds of problems that threatened his kingdom, and he realized he needed to find someone with the right qualities to help him. The big question was how to find such a person. Among other things, this story provides a framework through which young readers can consider and discuss the qualities one needs in order to live a useful and happy life. This intriguing legend is retold for young people by the Afghan storyteller and teacher Palwasha Bazger Salam, and is beautifully illustrated by artist Natasha Delmar. Additional pages include a biography of Ahmad Shah, a map of the Durrani Empire and suggested discussion points.

Selected as a Best Book of 2018 by NPR, Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Shelf Awareness!

A young Muslim girl spends a busy day wrapped up in her mother's colorful headscarf in this sweet and fanciful picture book from debut author and illustrator Jamilah Tompkins-Bigelow and Ebony Glenn.

A khimar is a flowing scarf that my mommy wears.
Before she walks out the door each day, she wraps one around her head.

A young girl plays dress up with her mother's headscarves, feeling her mother's love with every one she tries on. Charming and vibrant illustrations showcase the beauty of the diverse and welcoming community in this portrait of a young Muslim American girl's life.

The marvels of Islamic patterns--the most recognizable visual expression of Islamic art and architecture--are not just a beautiful accident. The ancient practitioners of this craft used traditional methods of measurement to create dazzling geometric compositions, often based on the repetition of a single pattern. The results are magnificent in their beauty and awe-inspiring in their execution.

Now, with the aid of this book, everyone can learn how to master this ancient art and create their own intricate patterns or re-create classic examples. All that is needed is a pencil, a ruler, a compass, and a steady hand. Technical tips demonstrate the geometric basics such as how to create designs from one of the foundational "family" shapes: a square, hexagon, or pentagon. This is followed by step-by-step instructions for reproducing some of the best examples of geometric patterns.

Islamic Geometric Patterns contains twenty-three geometric patterns and brief histories of some of the most famous and beautiful Islamic art and architecture from around the world. This revised edition features seven new patterns from locations including: Ak Medrese in Nigde, Turkey; Chellah necropolis in Rabat, Morocco; Shah Jahan Mosque in Thatta, Pakistan; the Tomb of I'timad-ud-Daulah in Agra, India; the Alcazar in Seville, Spain; Zaouia Moulay Idriss II in Fes, Morocco; and Darwish Pasha Mosque in Damascus, Syria.

A remarkable and thought-provoking new novel set on Israel's West Bank, by the author of The Breadwinner.

On Israel's West Bank, a cat sneaks into a small Palestinian house that has just been commandeered by two Israeli soldiers. The house seems empty, until the cat realizes that a little boy is hiding beneath the floorboards.

Should she help him?

After all, she's just a cat.

Or is she?

It turns out that this particular cat is not used to thinking about anyone but herself. She was once a regular North American girl who only had to deal with normal middle-school problems -- staying under the teachers' radar, bullying her sister and the uncool kids at school, outsmarting her clueless parents.

But that was before she died and came back to life as a cat, in a place with a whole different set of rules for survival.

When the little boy is discovered, the soldiers don't know what to do with him. Where are the child's parents? Why has he been left alone in the house? It is not long before his teacher and classmates come looking for him, and the house is suddenly surrounded by Palestinian villagers throwing rocks, and the sound of Israeli tanks approaching.

Not my business, thinks the cat. And then she sees a photograph, and suddenly she understands what happened to the boy's parents, and why they have not returned. And as the soldiers begin to panic, and disaster seems certain, she knows that it is up to her to diffuse the situation.

But what can a cat do? What can any one creature do?

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.3
Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).

A young Palestinian girl living in diaspora struggles to find her homeland on a map in this gentle and heartfelt picture book.

At school, Falasteen and her classmates are tasked with finding their families' home countries on a map, but no matter how hard she looks, Falasteen can't find Palestine.

Can a place exist if it's not on a map? Confused, Falasteen turns to her family for answers. Her grandfather, grandmother, and Mama encourage her to see their homeland from a different perspective, and each of their stories helps her understand her people's history and her own place in the world.

Filled with beautiful, inspiring illustrations and thoughtful back matter that outlines key terms and historical moments, this is a story of family, resilience and home always being where the heart is.

A unique wordless picture book about Palestine that will fill your imagination and tickle your senses with a hearty dose of Palestinian family, food, and fortitude.

To celebrate her birthday, all Amal wants is to bite into the sweetest slice of cheesy kunafa from Nablus Sweets, the best place in town. When her party ends with no kunafa in sight, she comes up with a plan. Will Amal be able to overcome all the obstacles that she must face in order to get her birthday kunafa?

Temperamentally and intellectually, Natan Sharansky is a man very much like many of us--which makes this account of his arrest on political grounds, his trial, and ten years' imprisonment in the Orwellian universe of the Soviet gulag particularly vivid and resonant.

Since Fear No Evil was originally published in 1988, the Soviet government that imprisoned Sharansky has collapsed. Sharansky has become an important national leader in Israel--and serves as Israel's diplomatic liaison to the former Soviet Union! New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Serge Schmemann reflects on those monumental events, and on Sharansky's extraordinary life in the decades since his arrest, in a new introduction to this edition. But the truths Sharansky learned in his jail cell and sets forth in this book have timeless importance so long as rulers anywhere on earth still supress their own peoples. For anyone with an interest in human rights--and anyone with an appreciation for the resilience of the human spirit--he illuminates the weapons with which the powerless can humble the powerful: physical courage, an untiring sense of humor, a bountiful imagination, and the conviction that "Nothing they do can humiliate me. I alone can humiliate myself."

A captivating biography of one of the world's greatest adventurers, the itinerant Mughal Princess Gulbadan, based on her long-forgotten memoir

"Finally, a serious consideration of Gulbadan's achievement.'"--Kirkus Reviews

Situated in the early decades of the magnificent Mughal Empire, this first ever biography of Princess Gulbadan offers an enthralling portrait of a charismatic adventurer and unique pictures of the multicultural society in which she lived. Following a migratory childhood that spanned Kabul and north India, Gulbadan spent her middle years in a walled harem established by her nephew Akbar to showcase his authority as the Great Emperor. Gulbadan longed for the exuberant itinerant lifestyle she'd known. With Akbar's blessing, she led an unprecedented sailing and overland voyage and guided harem women on an extended pilgrimage in Arabia. Amid increasing political tensions, the women's "un-Islamic" behavior forced their return, lengthened by a dramatic shipwreck in the Red Sea.

Gulbadan wrote a book upon her return, the only extant work of prose by a woman of the age. A portion of it is missing, either lost to history or redacted by officials who did not want the princess to have her say.

Vagabond Princess contemplates the story of the missing pages and breathes new life into a daring historical figure. It offers a portal to a richly complex world, rife with movement and migration, where women's conviviality, adventure, and autonomies shine through.

Uprooted from her childhood in Germany and set adrift in the American Midwest, Maureen was raised by a kind but neglectful mother who loved Jesus more than her own child and a stern, disinterested grandmother who waxed nostalgic about Nazi Germany. Growing up queer and isolated, Maureen often felt unmoored and unloved.

Years later, Maureen reflects upon her complicated past. Queen of Snails follows Maureen through time and memory in her quest to untangle the trauma passed down to her over three generations of women. Part memoir and part family history, Queen of Snails is a beautifully drawn, powerful story that examines and transmutes the emotional baggage of violence, abandonment, and displacement.

Sofia's Mexican relatives, who are not Muslim, get to experience a day in Ramadan - the Islamic month of fasting. Together, they enjoy a day filled with a cultural blend of decorations, foods, games, and languages.
Book 2 brings back some of the Spanish words from Book 1, and teaches thirty more, including their meanings in Arabic!

Dynamically pairing traditional and experimental forms, Philip Metres traces ancient and modern migrations in an investigation of the ever-shifting idea of home.

In Fugitive/Refuge, Philip Metres follows the journey of his refugee ancestors--from Lebanon to Mexico to the United States--in a vivid exploration of what it means to long for home. A book-length qasida, the collection draws on both ancient traditions and innovative forms--odes and arabics, sonnets and cut-ups, prayers and documentary voicings, heroic couplets and homophonic translations--in order to confront the perils of our age: forced migration, climate change, and toxic nationalism.

Fugitive/Refuge pronounces the urge both to remember the past and to forge new poetic forms and ways of being in language. In one section, Metres meditates on the Arabic greeting--ahlan wa sahlan--and asks how older forms of welcome might offer generous and embodied ways of responding to the challenges of mass migration and digital alienation in postmodern societies. In another, he dialogues with Dante to inform new ways of understanding ancestral and modern migrations and the injustices that have burdened them. Ultimately, Metres uses movement to create a new place--one to home and dream in--for all those who seek shelter.

Words Under the Words gathers into a single volume the finest poems by one of the most exciting, accessible poets in America today. This long-awaited collection draws from Naomi Shihab Nye's three critically acclaimed books: Different Ways to Pray, Yellow Glove, and National Poetry Series winner, Hugging the Jukebox.