This gorgeous 40 page picture book biography is both flowing in its storytelling and informative in its sourced details of a fairly unknown, underappreciated figure. I was humbled reading this book and learning about the accomplishments of someone I had never heard of before. Truly this book, bringing to the attention of our young and old ones alike, such a remarkable figure, is a much needed gift. The publisher suggests the book for 4-8 year olds, but I think it also will appeal to older readers familiar with Copernicus, Galileo, and Ptolemy and who will appreciate the efforts driven by curiosity from someone so long ago. The diction in a few lines did give me pause, but nothing that overshadows how well the author has once again proven to master the storytelling of non fiction Muslim accomplishments in an engaging, accessible, exciting way for today’s audiences.
The book opens with a map of the Timurid Empire in 1405, before showing the reader a young prince, Ulugh Beg, gazing out and the stars and wondering how many there are. The next spread makes no sense to me, but I acknowledge others might not be bothered, how can the young boy be watching days fade into weeks, into months, into years, and then wonder how many days are in a year? Seems that either those terms weren’t yet around, or some details about the generalized meaning made him curious about the specifics. Either way, him wanting to know how many days in a year and the changing of seasons, along with counting the stars are the questions he wonders about as a child and works to answer throughout his life.
The king of the Timurid Empire, Ulugh Beg’s grandfather, insured his intelligent grandson had the best teachers and was allowed to travel, learn, and follow him curiosity. At 15, when Ulugh Beg became the ruler of Turkistan, he built a madrasa and invited scholars, artists, students, philosophers, and inventors to attend making Turkistan “a mecca of learning.” Yes, the usage of mecca here made me laugh. I know it is appropriate, but it seemed a little on the noise in a book where Mecca, the direction we pray is also mentioned. The book then details the controversy of studying the stars, as astrology and astronomy at the time, were seen as one and the same. And with only God knowing the future, he had to assert that he was curious about the science of the stars and planets.
I love that faith and Islam is centered and that the inscription on his school is “Seeking knowledge is the duty of every Muslim man and woman.” But it alludes that this is a hadith, and while I agree it is inspired by a saying of Prophet Muhammad (saw), I think adding the man and woman part, where to the best of my knowledge the hadith is just “every Muslim,” is something that should be clarified. None-the-less, that it was Ulugh Beg’s motto, so to speak, and that he made a point to articulate “woman” is remarkable. He determined the exact time of the five daily prayers, the direction to Mecca, and the dates of holidays.
He also built the world’s largest observatory, and numerous tools, including the Fakhri sextant to measure the location of the stars and movement of planets. He encouraged being challenged and challenging others’ findings, and over 17 years wrote a star catalog of more than 1,000 stars. He answered how many days in a year, down to the seconds, why the seasons change, and inspired future astronomers and scientists.
As incredible as the story is, the backmatter is equally impressive with an Author’s Note, Ulugh Beg’s Biography, a Glossary, Astronomical Timeline, Bibliography, Further Reading, and Acknowledgements.
The illustrations are the cherry on top, somehow I don’t love the cover, but the inside spreads are nice and match the tone of the words and the detail of what he was accomplishing. The book is on preorder and I hope, teachers, librarian, and families will prioritize learning about him, and giving him credit for what he helped us to understand, about our world.
There are so few Palestinian middle grade books, so on that premise alone this 216 page book has a lot of value. Because I am not Palestinian, I do not live, nor have I ever lived under occupation, I can argue some of the concerns from a point of privilege, and I acknowledge that is not my right. I have been asked numerous times about this book and how it frames the suicide bombing mentioned in the text and blurbed about on the back of the book. It honestly is not a large part of the story, that being said, in my outside privileged view, I do not know that a 10 year old in the west will have context to understand the act of this level of desperation from the oppression and humiliation mentioned in the book. This is why I have held off my review. The truth does not need to be defended or explained, and I fear my reservations will be taken as such, which is not my intention. Would I let me 8 year old read this, yes, but we will read it together and discuss. My children are aware of what is going on in Palestine, but Karim, the 12-year-old protagonist supports the bomber, and that notion is not clearly pushed back on. With discussion, absolutely, I think readers, will truly get Karim’s perspective that something has to be done to change the status quo. The fear when Karim is alone and the target of soldiers, the settlers forcibly seizing the family land, the humiliation of strip searching men at checkpoints, the curfews, and constant fear of attack and imprisonment are all presented through the main character’s eyes, and would also do better with some discussion, so that empathy and duas and action can result. But, the commentary as to the suicide bombing are minimal, there is even a prank package bombing that is presented as rebellion by a side character, and I would worry how a young child, without guidance, would internalize it. Additionally, this is yet another difficult book for me to review, primarily because it was first published in 2003, and because I don’t know how much comes from a western gaze and how much the Palestinian voice played into it. Islam is clear on the prohibition of suicide. In the early 2000 the news out of Israel was often about such attacks, but as an outsider, I honestly do not know if it was simply Israeli propaganda and stereotypes amplifying the idea as part of their public relations strategy or reality, seeing as now that Palestinians have direct outlets to share their daily life under an oppressive occupation, there is rarely talk of suicide bombing attacks. The author states on her website:
Islamic School Librarian 