Our Story

It began with a small voice — and a question we couldn't answer well.

The story of how Soul Of Us came to be: made slowly, at one kitchen table, by a family who only wanted to read the Qur'an with their children — and couldn't find the right book.

That night we didn't have the words. So we decided to make them.

It was an ordinary night. Our daughter pointed at the Qur'an on the shelf and asked what one of the Surahs meant — not the translation, but the heart of it. We reached for book after book. One was a wall of dense translation; another had turned the words into bright cartoons. We tried to explain it ourselves, lost the thread, and gently closed the book.

The long middle

Forty-seven drafts, read aloud at the same small pillow.

We started writing — not as scholars, but as parents trying to hold something sacred in language a child could carry. Every line was tested at bedtime. If she drifted, the line was wrong. If she asked a question, the line was working.

What we believe

Three quiet convictions behind every page.

Reverence, never rigidity. Faithful in spirit, gentle in voice. A doorway in, never a replacement.
Stillness over spectacle. No flashing colour, no quizzes. Room to pause; silence does what spectacle can't.
Craft as a form of love. Hand-painted spreads, Smyth-sewn bindings, paper chosen by touch.
How it grew

From one pillow to nine thousand homes

2021 · The question
A question at bedtime

Our daughter asks what a Surah means. We can't find a book that answers her gently. The idea is born that night.

2022 · The drafts
Writing at the kitchen table

Forty-seven drafts of the first volume, each read aloud and rewritten. We find our illustrator and our voice.

2023 · The first reader
She asks to read it again

The turning point. A four-year-old leans in instead of drifting away — and we decide to share it.

2024 · The first edition
The Meccan Edition ships

Printed in small batches on FSC paper. The first parcels leave our studio in Leicester, wrapped by hand.

Today · The journey
Volume II, and a whole library

The Medinan Edition, fourteen titles, and the same promise: one Surah, one quiet spread, made with reverence.

The hands behind it

Still just a family, still the same kitchen table.

We're Yusuf and Amina. We're not a publishing house — we're two parents who couldn't find the book we needed, so we made it. When you write to us, it's us who reads it. When you open a parcel, it left our hands.

Begin your own story

Read one Surah tonight. That's how ours began.

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