About ilmbee
Made slowly,
on purpose.
The gap between “Islamic content for children” and “something you'd actually hand your child” is enormous. Closing it properly takes longer than it should. We think that's the point.
How this started
At ilmbee we believe in empowering minds through knowledge. What began as one family looking for something to read with their children after Maghrib turned into a much longer project than any of us planned.
We started the way most parents do, with a search. What came back was either far too advanced, visibly recycled from somewhere else, or wrapped in adverts we did not want anywhere near a five year old. The few good books we found were scattered, with no sense of what came first and what came after.
So we built the shelf we had been looking for. One hundred books, in a deliberate order, illustrated from scratch and checked against the sources before anything was drawn. Whether you are opening the very first book or working through the last ten, ilmbee is meant to be the place a child grows into rather than out of.
We were not trying to start a company. We were trying to find one book that we could hand over without checking it first.
The process
How one book
gets made.
Five stages, always in this order. The order is the whole trick. Most of what goes wrong in children's Islamic publishing is drawing before checking.
-
1
Sourced
The ayah comes first
Before a word is written we agree what the book teaches and exactly where it comes from. If we can't source it, we don't make it. That decision kills more book ideas than anything else.
-
2
Written
One idea per spread
A first draft at the 6–7 level. Short sentences, concrete nouns, nothing abstract a child can't picture. If a spread needs two ideas, it becomes two spreads.
-
3
Reviewed
Checked before it's drawn
The text goes to review against the source and comes back marked up. Nothing is illustrated until it's clean. Redrawing is expensive, rewriting is not. That's why this step sits here and not at the end.
-
4
Illustrated
Drawn for this book only
Every spread is illustrated from scratch in the palette that title was assigned. No asset is reused across books, which is slow and is the reason they don't all look the same.
-
5
Levelled
Then written three more times
The approved text is rewritten for 4–5, 8–9 and 10–11. Each version is read aloud to a child that age. If they stumble, it goes back. One book, four times the work.
What we're for
Easier to trust a company
that says what it won't do.
Every line below is checkable. If we break one, you'll be able to point at it.
We will never
- Publish a sentence we can't trace to the Qur'an or an authenticated hadith.
- Use generated or stock artwork in a book and call it illustration.
- Build streaks or notifications that pressure a child into opening the app.
- Sell, rent or share anything about your family with anyone.
- Make cancelling harder than subscribing was.
- Put a price in front of you before you've read something.
We will always
- Print the source on the page, where you and your child can both see it.
- Ship every book at four reading levels, at no extra cost.
- Let you read three complete books before you pay anything.
- Answer email from a person, in a working day or two.
- Refund you within 30 days for any reason, without an argument.
- Tell you plainly when we've got something wrong, and fix it.
By the numbers
What one hundred
actually costs.
- 0
- Books in Series 01
- 0
- Levelled editions
- 0
- Illustrated pages
- 0
- Quiz questions
Every book exists four times over, once for each reading age. That is where the years went, and why Series 01 is one hundred books rather than four hundred titles.
The people
Small, and that's
rather the point.
Nobody here is a content pipeline. Every book passes through the same few pairs of hands.
-
Javid Ahmed Khateeb
Founder & Director
-
Sheikh Abu Omar Parvez Nakwa
Umrī · Madanī
Co-Director
-
Ahmed Raza
Partner
-
Abdullah Ashraf
CGO & CTO
Reviewed for accuracy by Sheikh Abu Omar Parvez Nakwa (Umri, Madani). See how a book gets checked
Start tonight
Judge us by the books.
Everything above is easy to say. The first three books are free, so you can check.