One of three books in the Magnificent Madrassa series, written by Muhammad Akhtar and published by Hikmat Publishing in London. Forty pages, hardback, for readers aged four to seven. All three books are drawn and complete, and the series is on pre-order from the author at magnificentmadrassa.com.
Grey clouds swirl around the madrassa and rain taps at the windows. Inside it is warm, and this is no ordinary madrassa — here every lesson is an adventure.
Imam Idris greets the class with a riddle. What falls from the sky, flows down the mountains, covers our lands and brings so much enjoyment? “Water!” the children answer together. He takes three slow sips from his glass and recites, “And We made from water every living thing.” (Quran 21:30) Then he puts on a wide-brimmed hat and the lesson begins.
The walls fall away. The class is standing by a river in the Amazon, parrots overhead and insects humming in the heat. Imam Idris lifts a giant spider onto his hand and tips a drop of water from a leaf into its mouth. He shows them roots like giant straws drinking from the ground, and the sunlight the leaves turn into food. Then he tosses a pebble into the river and asks them to watch how far the ripples spread.
A single drop of water appears, spinning and growing until it is big enough to sit on. The children climb aboard and rise with it above the forest, cool into a cloud, and fall back to earth as rain — landing with a splash in a puddle on the forest floor. Animals come down to the stream to drink.
They close their eyes once more and open them in the classroom, clothes still damp, a small plant sprouted on every desk. One by one the children say what they learned. Outside the rain is still falling, and as the class leaves they look back at Imam Idris taking a sip from his glass of water. “All praise to Allah,” he says softly.
| Title | Magnificent Madrassa: The Miracle of Water |
|---|---|
| Author | Muhammad Akhtar |
| Illustrator | Amna Zaki, The Rainbow Stories — main illustrator, with the studio’s lead illustrator and team rendering under her direction |
| Publisher | Hikmat Publishing, London |
| Series | One of three in the Magnificent Madrassa series, with Stars & Universe and Mountains as Pegs. All three are drawn and complete |
| Reading age | 4 to 7, and curious early readers |
| Extent | 40 pages, hardback |
| Where to buy | magnificentmadrassa.com — pre-order |
Every spread was roughed in pencil and approved before any colour was laid down. The cover and two spreads are shown here, each rough beside the page it became.
Drawn by hand in Procreate. Nothing in this book was generated.
All three books in the series are now drawn and complete. Amna Zaki is the main illustrator: the character designs, the direction on every spread and the sign-off on every finished page are hers, with the studio’s lead illustrator and team working on the rendering under that direction. It is the same way the studio runs a storyboard or a character design job of any size.
Amna Zaki of The Rainbow Stories, a children’s book illustration studio in Lahore, is the main illustrator — the characters, the direction on every spread and the final approval are hers, with the studio’s lead illustrator and team rendering under her direction. The book is written by Muhammad Akhtar and published by Hikmat Publishing in London.
Both. This series is a Hikmat Publishing title, and the studio also works directly with authors publishing their own books. What changes is who signs the work off and how the files are delivered; the drawing is the same job either way.
Yes, and it is a different job from a character story. A cycle has to read as a sequence — a drop rising, a cloud gathering, rain falling, a puddle on the forest floor — so the same drop stays recognisable while everything around it changes scale. That gets settled at the pencil stage, where a sequence is cheap to change.
That is what this one had to do. Evaporation, condensation and rainfall are the plot rather than a lesson bolted onto it — the children ride the drop that does each of those things, so the science happens to them instead of being explained at them. The storyboard is where that gets tested, because a sequence that only works as a diagram shows up immediately once it is drawn in order.
Yes. This book closes with an Ask your children page — five questions a parent or teacher can use after the story. Back matter is laid out with the rest of the interior so it matches the book rather than looking bolted on.
From the author at magnificentmadrassa.com. All three books in the series are on pre-order in hardback, as single titles or as the complete series; the author’s own site gives the current delivery estimate.
The other books followed the same way here, rough beside printed page: Magnificent Madrassa: Stars & Universe, Sage Sails The World and its Great Barrier Reef sequel. All case studies.
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