Doll wears hijab, recites Quran verses

French businesswoman and mother Samira Amarir struggled to find toys which could help impart her Islamic faith to her young daughter, so she invented her own.

French businesswoman and mother Samira Amarir struggled to find toys which could help impart her Islamic faith to her young daughter, so she invented her own.

Now the “Jenna” doll, which she designed from scratch to recite four chapters from the Quran, has entered mass production and is on sale in Persian Gulf Arab countries.

“When my daughter Jenna turned two years old, I was looking for a toy or a tool,” Amarir said, according to Reuters.

“The idea was to come up with a toy that would enable her to learn the Quran fast and easily while she plays.”

Jenna, with a name derived from the Arabic word for heaven, comes dressed in a lengthy “abaya” robe with a matching purple headscarf.

Designing the doll using online modelling software, Amarir decided to give it a dark skin tone.

“For me it was important that the doll would show something my daughter can recognize herself in, or recognize her mother at least,” she said.

The four chapters that Jenna recites are short and designed to be easy for a child to memorize. Within days of beginning to play with the doll, she began reciting the verses.