Cover of Who Makes It Grow?, a Qur'an-inspired hardback picture book for children aged 3 to 7 inspired by Surah Al-Waqi'ah. Watercolour illustration of Yusuf crouching in a green garden to press a seed into the soil.

Who Makes It Grow?

£21.00 GBP
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Cover of Who Makes It Grow?, a Qur'an-inspired hardback picture book for children aged 3 to 7 inspired by Surah Al-Waqi'ah. Watercolour illustration of Yusuf crouching in a green garden to press a seed into the soil.
  • Cover of Who Makes It Grow?, a Qur'an-inspired hardback picture book for children aged 3 to 7 inspired by Surah Al-Waqi'ah. Watercolour illustration of Yusuf crouching in a green garden to press a seed into the soil.
  • Cover of Who Makes It Grow?, a Qur'an-inspired hardback picture book for children aged 3 to 7 inspired by Surah Al-Waqi'ah. Watercolour illustration of Yusuf crouching in a green garden to press a seed into the soil.
Who Makes It Grow?

Who Makes It Grow?

£21.00 GBP

You can plant the seed. But who makes it grow?

A story about doing the small work that belongs to us and trusting Allah with what does not.

Inspired by Surah Al-Waqiʿah · Ages 3–7 · Hardback edition

Read Who Makes It Grow?

Yusuf plants a small brown seed.

The next morning he runs outside.

Nothing.

He waters it.
Waits.
Checks again.
Still nothing.

Yusuf can dig the soil. He can carry the watering can. He can protect the little patch of earth and return to it every morning.

What he cannot do is pull a green shoot from the ground.

Then, one day, something appears.

Who Makes It Grow? gives a child a beautifully concrete way to meet an enormous idea: we do the work that is ours to do, while knowing that the result was never entirely ours to command.

And when Yusuf’s garden eventually gives him more tomatoes than he and Baba can eat, there is enough to carry next door too.

Inside the book

  • 24 illustrated story pages
  • Inspired by Surah Al-Waqiʿah
  • A child-sized introduction to effort, patience and tawakkul
  • A Prophetic teaching about planting and charity
  • Pronunciation guidance
  • A short dua
  • One question to wonder about together
  • Premium hardback to keep

Ages 3–7 · Hardback · Ships worldwide

Or read all six stories together in The Abundance Collection.
a gift for the kitchen table

Six colouring pages, drawn from our books.

Print them at home, leave them on the table with some pencils, and see what happens.

A bee from the colouring book, drawn in outline

Free, printable, and yours to keep.

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See inside the books

Watercolour, room on every page, and lines short enough for a four-year-old to say back to you. A few notes from the desk where they were written sit underneath.

Amira picking a fig from the laden tree while Mama watches
The fig tree was laden with soft fruit, so heavy the branches bent. She picked one, and it was sweet. “The figs are a gift too,” said Mama.
7
Every Good Thing · Surah Ar Rahman

We did not want to hand a child the word gratitude and hope it stuck. So she gets a fig instead, off a branch bending under the weight of it, something she can hold and taste and thank Him for.

The word can come later. The feeling has to come first.

Baba kneeling in the soil beside Yusuf at the new shoot
Baba knelt beside him. “You planted it,” he said. “But Allah grew it. That is how every good thing works.”
15
Yusuf sitting back on his heels, thinking about the shoot
Yusuf thought about that. He had done a small thing, and Allah had done the big one.
16
Who Makes It Grow? · Surah Al Waqiah

This is the spread we rewrote the most. Yusuf’s part had to remain real: he did plant it. And the growing had to remain something he could never do for himself. Both truths sit in one breath, so effort and trust never end up on opposite sides.

Then we stopped. No “because”. No “therefore”. No moral added afterwards. The moment had already said enough.

Rutab Books studies how young children learn, looks to the Quran and Prophetic example for guidance, and designs stories that help children notice the signs of Allah in everyday life.