In the City of Gold and Silver recounts the story of Begum Hazrat Mahal, the Queen of Awadh in India, an orphan who became the fourth wife of an Indian king. Kenize Mourad, In the City of Gold and Silver After the British conquer Mysore and kill Tipu Sultan, the novel takes its primary character, a talented woodcarver called Abbas, to France and then England, using a mechanical tiger as a vessel through which to explore colonization, invention, and theft. Loot starts in eighteenth century India, in the court of Tipu Sultan. Yet, most Western leaders refuse to see Palestinians (whether Muslim or not) as people worth demanding peace and justice for. We have surpassed one hundred days of this genocide. Israel is slaughtering the people of Palestine whom the Prime Minister of Israel dubs with old colonial canards like “the children of darkness” while Western governments vacillate between cheerleading and the occasional impotent handwringing. We have seen over and over again that the global dehumanization, and indeed, demonization, of Muslims, and the willful misunderstanding of Islam and its history, can result in real world atrocities. In other words, good literature can humanize its subjects and opens the reader’s eye and heart. At an entertainment level, Islamic history is fascinating-covering diverse cultures from Africa, Europe, and Asia and brimming with rich drama.īut more importantly, one of the great pleasures and values of reading is that it can expand the reader’s horizons, challenge their preconceived notions, and teach about a people, culture, or religion they might not have known about before. While Western presses churn out (often very good!) books about the Tudors or Ancient Greece, fiction that explores Islamic history is almost nonexistent. Even as a teenager, I felt the absence of novels recounting Islamic history. At that time, the United States was waging unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and anti-Muslim bigotry coursed through all levels of American society. I started writing my novel, Every Rising Sun-a retelling of the story of Scheherazade from the 1001 Nights set during the Golden Age of Islam and spanning from medieval Persia to Palestine-when I was seventeen years old.
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