Download the story of “the path”

THE STORY OF “THE PATH”
“THE PATH” Board game is a new board game for Muslim Children ages 6 and
above. It is a bit like Monopoly, but there is no money or dice in the game. The winner
of the game is the player that collects the most ‘Good Deeds’, and raises the most
Muslim Children. It is now the best selling “board game” in the Middle East. This
article tells the story of the inventor, an American who embraced Islam, and how the
game was finally created.
We have a famous saying: “Necessity is the mother of invention”. If we really want to
look at where any good idea came from, we don’t have to look any further than the need
that was there, before the idea came along. THE PATH Board Game, a game designed
specifically for Muslim Children, was also invented to fill a need.
The inventor of the game, Brother Omar Bill Lowrey, is an American who embraced
Islam in 1988, in the USA. Brother Omar grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, where board
games and card games were the only games to play inside the house. No computer games
had been invented yet, no Nintendo and no Playstation were available. He learned chess
from his father at age 9, and Bridge (Bridge is the most famous of all card games, played
by sophisticated and educated peoples from all Western countries) from his mother at age
13. He played Monopoly, Scrabble, Risk, Stratego and all the other well known board
games, including many that were not so well known.
When Omar embraced Islam in 1988, alhamdulillah, he already had 3 children from a
previous marriage. At that time, they had plenty of outdoor activities to keep them busy.
He took his children for BMX bicycle racing each weekend. He taught them how to hunt
and fish and swim. At first there wasn’t any real need for board games to play inside the
house.
Omar later realized that the American society was having a bad effect on his children.
They were learning a lot more than just English, Math and Science at school. They were
learning bad behavior and wrong concepts about life. Omar felt that the best thing to do
was to make Hijra from dar ul kufr, to dar ul Islam. The leave the Non-Muslim countries
and move to live in the Muslim countries. To put his children in Muslim schools, let them
learn Arabic, memorize the Quran and learn the good manners of the Muslim Children.
This path led him to live in many countries and many different situations. After short
periods of living in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan and Egypt, the end of that path was
finally settling down in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, close to Makkah and Madinah.
Omar married again, and at the time of writing this article, he now has 2 wives and 13
children, masha’Allah! According to Omar, this was one of the major factors driving the
invention of the game. Let us read what Omar himself says, when asked about the game:
“Before Islam, we used to celebrate Christmas and Birthdays. These holidays were all
about giving gifts. When we embraced Islam, I was determined to celebrate only the two
Eids, but make them big and special for my children. My goal for my eldest children, was
to make Eid ul Fitr so special, that they would forget all about earlier non-Muslim
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holidays that we had celebrated. When Eid ul Fitr comes in my house, I pull out all the
stops and everyone gets gifts. Good gifts and great toys. But it didn’t take me that many
years to realize that the only toys and games available in the market, are the exact same
toys and games that I played when I was a kid! Didn’t the Muslims make any toys
designed for their children? Well, I was disappointed to find out that the answer to that
question is a big NO!”
“Unfortunately, the Muslims go to the toy stores and the book stores and basically they
are forced to buy toys and games that were never invented or designed for their children.
The problem is that there are many Non-Muslim ideas, and even outright Haram things in
many of the games and toys that we find in the market. What choice do we have? We
either buy the toys and games available, or our children suffer and feel bad when they see
what their friends and relatives play with. Who is to blame for this situation?”
“When you stop and think about it, who has more children in this world? The Muslims,
that’s who! There is no single country in the world today, where non-Muslims have a
higher birth rate than the Muslims do! We are producing more children and raising bigger
families. And on top of all that, the Muslims care more about their children when it
comes to products that may effect their way of thinking, or change their moral values. So
why isn’t there more toys and games designed for Muslims???” Omar goes on to blame
the big toy companies and game companies….
“It seems to me that the big toy and game companies of the world have purposely ignored
the needs and wants of the Muslim market. Why should they bother to make special toys
for us, when we are buying their toys without so much as a complaint. One of the popular
games being marketed now in Muslim countries for the video console market, has the
player set to task that he/she must destroy the Masjid, before he/she can continue to
advance in the game. In almost 50% or more of all war/fighting video games in the
market, guess who the enemy is? Muslims or Arabs of course! There are no efforts by
any of these companies to remove things offensive or forbidden for Muslims. What ever
happened to the Western concept that “The customer is always right”? I realized fairly
quickly that we need a company to design and produce games especially for our Muslim
children.”
Thus came “Delaware Games”. Omar setup the first company, Delaware Games, in the
state of Delaware, in the USA. “Delaware is the 1st State of the 50 United States and it
has business laws setup to protect the business from gratuitous law suits.” Some people
ask why not name the company “Islamic Games” or “Muslim Games” or something like
that? Omar says, “We don’t make Islamic games. We make games that are suitable for
Muslim children. An Islamic game would be like some kind of quiz game which teaches
the Quran or Hadith or something like that. What we need are games that first and
foremost are fun to play, but at the same time they don’t have anything bad inside. Then
we should look to give the game a look and style that Muslims will feel comfortable and
proud about. We need a game company that Muslim parents can trust, but is has a good,
modern name. Delaware Games is easy to remember, has a nice sound to it and we hope
that Muslim parents will remember in the future.”
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Then Omar set about the process of designing the first game: “I used to play all our
board games with my children, and I took note of what worked and what didn’t work in a
board game. What the children liked and what they didn’t like. Starting from there, the
first game just slowly evolved from and idea to an actual prototype. We tried many
different things, and we changed so many things along the way.” THE PATH went
through 3 prototypes, all of which were played again and again to see what worked, and
what didn’t. “Most people don’t know that the original game had ‘play money’ inside.
Players would receive money based on their career choice, and then would have to pay
for their Car, House and Marriage. What we found was, that since it was not the object of
the game to collect the most money, the money was just getting in the children’s way and
becoming an obstacle. They were having trouble counting all the amounts out to purchase
cars and houses! In the end, we just removed the money altogether in the 2nd prototype.”
Other changes were made, and families were sought to try the game out inside their
homes. “We searched for Muslim families from all different nationalities, and all
different levels of society. Our goal was to come up with a game, which all Muslim
children would enjoy, regardless of where they are on the financial levels of society or
where they are in their level of practicing Islam. We wanted a game that was very
professional looking and playable, so that any family could see that this game is as good,
or better than the classic Western games like Monopoly. But at the same time, we
wanted to make sure that there is nothing Haram or bad in the game, so even families
with strict Islamic practices could benefit from the game.”
We asked Omar Bill to explain the final version of the game, how it is played, etc. This
was his reply: “The game is really easy to play. It doesn’t require the children playing to
have any special knowledge about Islam. Any child can play and enjoy the game, from
about 5 or 6 years and above. Basically, THE PATH is a game about our life. In this life,
we all go to school, get some type of career, drive some type of car, get married sooner or
later, have children, get a home, do good deeds, visit other countries and go for shopping
trips. In the game, every child will get a different career. There are 24 careers in the game
which range from Doctor all the way down to Plumber. Just like in real life, if you start
with one career choice that is not good, you can change careers later in life. In the game
there are many opportunities to upgrade your career, your cars or your house. What
makes the game really fun is that it plays differently each time! There are 32 different
cars, 24 different houses, 56 different Good Deeds to collect, 50 different countries to
visit, 50 different shopping tiles to shop for and 70 different Muslim names to name your
children. Children move around the board using a spinner – NOT dice. On each space
they land, they get to collect a new tile, or trade in and old one they don’t want. At the
end of the game, just like in real life, the most important thing is not what kind of car you
drive, or how big your house is, but how many good deeds you did and how many
Muslim children did you raise properly. So the game is really fun to play, and keeps the
children happy, while at the same time it reminds them of what do they really want to get
out of this life. There is a winner in every game, but there is no real loser in every game.
Basically every child is happy at the end of the game and they always want to play
again!”
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When the final prototype had been tested and all the artwork had been completed, it was
time to manufacture the game and get it into the Muslim market. Omar continues:
“When I researched modern board games, and looked to see where they were made, I was
not that surprised to find that the highest quality board games are now made in China. I
immediately realized that the company I setup in the USA was now basically useless. The
manufacturers are in China and the Market is in the Muslim countries, what good was it
to have our company in the USA? I immediately closed the American company, but kept
the name for our trademark: DELAWARE GAMES. It has a nice ring to it…. I opened a
new company in Hong Kong, DELAWARE GROUP. Now I could make the best quality
games in China and send them to any Muslim country in the world!”
When it comes to quality, anyone who has seen THE PATH is really impressed with the
quality of everything from the box, to the playing board, to the 300+ playing pieces used
in the game. “The problem today, if a Muslim makes something for the other Muslims,
usually he brings them the cheapest piece of junk on the planet, so he can make the
highest profit margin. I realized right from the beginning, that my goal was not just to
produce the best board game for Muslim children in the world, but also to produce the
highest quality board game. I wanted to make something the Muslims could be proud of!
Something that Muslims could play with their children and say, “Yes! A game made by
Muslims, for Muslims, and nobody has anything better than us!” After all, if we Muslims
care more for our children than anyone else, then shouldn’t we care more about quality
and safety than anyone else?”
Omar had a prototype made in China, then made a special trip there to straighten out all
the quality issues. “When I met with the Chinese, I told them the game had to be the best
quality board game ever made. I told them it had to last at least 5 years for any family and
to make it tough, because Muslim kids are tough on their toys! Everything I did in China
was related to quality and safety. I didn’t care what the cost was, I wanted the best game
ever made and I wanted it to make the Muslims proud of ourselves! Our game has better
quality and more “in the box” then any of the ‘original’ board games already in the
market. Since then I have been asked many times that am I not afraid that someone will
copy the game and bring cheap imitations into the market? I always reply that no, I am
not afraid. We made the best quality for a reason, and don’t think that the Muslims are so
ignorant about quality! Even our children can tell the difference between original and
knockoffs. Who would want to embarrass their own children and buy them a cheap
imitation just to save a few riyals? There is a basic rule for all products: As long as you
don’t charge too much for the original, there will never be a market for an imitation.”
Omar then decided that the best market to launch the game would be the Saudi Arabian
market. “The Saudi market is a great test for our game. You have all different levels of
society and education, combined with a constant influx of foreign nationals coming in for
Hajj and Umra. Board games may not be well known in Saudi society, but we will find
out how in a short time if the game is acceptable or not.” Omar needed a distributor
inside Saudi Arabia. “I met with of the big toy distributors, but they didn’t want to take a
chance on the game. They all seemed to think that such a game would require huge
amounts of money spent on advertising, or the game would never sell. Everyone was
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impressed with the quality and the concepts of the game, but no one was willing to
commit themselves. Finally, a friend of mine, from the Abdul Jawad family agreed to
distribute the game here.” When asked about sales, Omar says: “I think they (Fouzan
Abdul Jawad Est.) have done a great job so far making the game available to the public
and to the pilgrims here for Hajj and Umra. We now have another distributor in Kuwait
and soon we will ship to UAE and Oman, insha’Allah. The game has been doing great,
masha’Allah, even with no advertising it is selling and making its way into the society,
step by step.”
What now, we asked Omar Bill: “Well, one thing that has become quite apparent is that
we need a lot more than one game. We need hundreds of good games to keep our
children entertained. We live in a society where children, especially girls, are often stuck
at home with nothing to do. The weather is very hot, and it is not easy to get out so much.
If we don’t come up with more games, children will just watch TV and play video games,
which I think all of us can agree is not very beneficial for our children. I encourage all
Muslims to invent new games, make them and get them into the market. There is enough
room for everyone in the market, and the more games we have available that are designed
for our children, the better! If someone has a really good idea, and they want us to
publish it, we are willing to help out. Anyone can contact us through our website at
www.delawaregrouphk.com We have 5 new games under development right now,
which we hope to launch by next year. But it is not nearly enough. We need more ideas,
more games and more support.” We asked Sheikh Omar what he will do if he succeeds
in this endeavor, what is next? “My big dream is to someday make video games
designed for Muslim children. Board games are great, and one of the advantages of board
games is that you sit together as a family and interact with each other, just like when we
sit down and eat together as a family. But technology is moving faster everyday; we can’t
just sit and ignore it. Sooner or later we must produce the latest technology in video
games for our children, and show the world that Muslims can make things for
themselves!”
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