Aliya’s Secret: A Story of Ramadan by Farida Zaman
Books like this are honestly a disservice to Muslims. I know the industry means well by having a token holiday book, by an OWN voice writer, ensuring it is joyful and illustrated in a warm way, but when the information is erroneous, it really just perpetuates misinformation. This book will be on shelves everywhere and shared at story times in classrooms and libraries and non Muslims will think they are being inclusive, and Muslim kids will also learn erroneously or doubt if they are in the wrong, or best case scenario (?) have even more to explain to those around them. The book is adorable, yet the information about when we fast and why we fast is wrong, repeated throughout, even in the backmatter. The book is for young children and pivots around lying, the character lies repeatedly with no consequences…in Ramadan no less. Sigh, our kids deserve better.
The book states multiple times, four in fact, that Muslims fast from sunrise until sunset, this is incorrect, Muslim fast from dawn to sunset. Sahoor is not eaten at sunrise, it is eaten before dawn. This is not me being picky, this is wrong. The dad perhaps has his own reasons for fasting, but Islamically we do not fast to feel what those who are hungry feel or to be grateful, those hopefully are results of fasting, but in fact we fast as commanded by Allah swt. Children are required to fast when they hit puberty, not at the age of 13 specific. Many kids fast full and partial days before puberty, and I don’t agree that their growth is stunted as suggested by the book.
The set up of the story is nice, albeit another first fast book, in that at least the character and her classmates and friends know what Ramadan is and thus there is no othering. It talks about charity and praying and shows the Muslim family living their life unapologetically which on the one hand is great, but then makes the lying seem weird. Why would Aliya keep fasting a secret from her friends at school even if she is keeping it from her parents? Why would she lie about it, why would she lie and have it articulated as lying and there be no repercussions for it, in a picture book? She doesn’t even just do it once, she lies THREE TIMES. When you do good things from a place of faith and worship, it seems off to me to have it framed in deceit with no other commentary.
Sure to some the time when fasting starts might be a small thing, but seriously is it that hard to get correct? I wish the editorial/publishing/marketing team would have hired beta/sensitivity readers, not all Muslims know Islam, and not checking the facts really is just sloppy.
