Title: The Birthday
Artist: Participant G (Girl, aged 11)
Year: 2025
Transcribed story
Title: The Birthday
Sofina wanted to go to the zawiya that Friday. A big spiritual workshop was coming up. She loved to listen to that Sufi stories told at the workshop, and a special storyteller was coming. Even though she was only 16, she was deeply rooted in her faith, as her parents had brought her up in a very religious way. However, her friends were planning a big surprise birthday celebration for their friend, Siana, who is having her Sweet 16 that Friday.
Siana was not really interested in her Sufi roots like Sofina was, and she would be hurt if she found out Sofina hadn't come. This was a hard decision and as Sofina was so considerate, she decided she would go to the birthday, but spent all her weekend in deep devotion and worship.
On Saturday she woke up at 6:00 AM and left zawiya. This is what she did, instead of just two days there, she spent doing lots of prayers and over 1000 duas.
She strived to be even more compassionate and spent her lifetime deep in worship.
Curatorial Note:
This piece was created by Participant G, a 11-year-old girl based in the UK, during an individual Story Design Workshop conducted as part of the Sufi Storytelling Project at the University of Edinburgh.
The young storyteller described what she wished to narrate:
Participant G: “Well, there was two things. It wasn't really like religion or this birthday party. It was more like, do I do this for my friend? Do I do this for myself? So, then she picked actually would do both, but she would delay the thing for herself and miss the bigger one.”
Researcher: “Have you or whether you see connections with the concept of imaginal?”
Participant G: “I think they're both linked to that topic like, thinking before others before yourself and, like yes.”
Themes:
Environment, Islam, Spirituality, Worship, Compassion
Citation:
Participant G. (2025) The Birthday. In: Digital Museum of Sufi Stories and Art by Children and Families (curated by H.E. Üzümcü). University of Edinburgh. DataShare Repository. https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/8179.
Copyright & Licence Statement:
© 2025 Participant G. This work is published in anonymised form with the consent of the participant and her caregiver as part of the Digital Museum of Sufi Stories and Art by Children and Families, University of Edinburgh. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. You may share and adapt this work for non-commercial purposes, provided appropriate attribution is given.
Return to the homepage.
