مَا شَآءَ ٱللَّهُ لَا قُوَّةَ إلَّا بِٱللَّهِ
Zaynab Books is a small company that was founded in 2015, initially with the name Zainub Perisa Publishing. Its first
publication, Journey Beyond the Great Tree, was launched at the ISNA National Convention in Chicagoland.
When the company founder, Adnan Ashraf, relocated to Jordan to spend the years of the Trump presidency outside the USA, raising his children and learning from traditional Muslim scholars, the company became a secondary concern. During that time, Ashraf helped develop and refine curricula for schools in the MENA region while working as a full-time textbook editor at Preiss Murphy, an educational publisher with offices in Amman. The effort to establish Zaynab Books LLC was revived in 2019 because few if any companies were equipped and motivated to provide young Muslim readers with novels and short fiction that combine the literary, the artistic, and the contemporary, while honoring and manifesting the norms and culture of Islamic tradition.
Journey Beyond the Great Tree, which began as a bedtime story and grew over the years into a novella (launched at the 2015 ISNA convention) and finally a 300 + page adventure novel, is the company’s first published title.
Parent & Child: Seven Stories, a limited edition anthology featuring short fiction written by Muslim children with their parents, was the second publication and is out of print.
The most recent publication is Safa’s Palette: Coloring & Vocabulary Book of Allah’s Names, authored by Shaykh Hatim Yousef, PhD., with illustrations by Sanah Z. Shan, and Arabic calligraphy by Ustadh Usman Ghani.
Ashraf’s experience in publishing began in 1988 in Manhattan, where he worked as an editorial assistant at Workman Publishing Company, home of the Page-A-Day Calendar, The Silver Palate Cookbook and What to Expect When You’re Expecting. In addition to undergraduate and graduate degrees, Ashraf’s training as a fiction writer includes courses completed at UEA London and the Center for Literature and Theatre in Miami.
He has been intermittently learning sacred knowledge from traditional scholars since he studied at the Zaytuna Institute in 2000 and 2001. An experienced schoolteacher, he has taught English (language, or language arts) at three state universities and one Islamic charter school in northeastern Ohio, at Islamic schools in Fremont (CA), Miami (FL), and Chicagoland, as well as at various institutions in Lahore, Jeddah, Kuwait, Amman, and (remotely) Shanghai.
M.A.A., Assistant Editor
Our assistant editor began working with Zaynab Books around 2019, when he enjoyed looking for mistakes and reading. He believed a good editor has a quick eye and thinks about how a story and its plot fit together, rather than just focussing on spelling errors. We hope to update his bio soon to reflect his growing outlook.
M.N.A., Assistant Art Editor
Our assistant art editor learned the basics of using a reed pen and ink while taking lessons in Arabic calligraphy in Lahore with Ustadh Usman Ghani. She was a runner-up in a story-writing contest held by Barnes & Noble. She enjoys working with colored pencils, watercolors, paint markers, and ultra-thin brush pens on sketchbook paper.
The editors have been blessed to work with several talented individuals whose professional contributions are fully acknowledged where appropriate.
الحَمدُلِلهِ رَبِ العَا لَمين