A Sultan in Palermo

The fourth novel in Tariq Ali's 'Islam Quintet' charts the life and loves of the medieval cartographer Muhammed al-Idrisi. Torn between his close friendship with the sultan and his friends who are leaving the island or plotting a resistance to Norman rule, Idrisi finds temporary solace in the harem; but his conscience is troubled...
A Sultan in Palermo is a mythic novel in which pride, greed, and lust intermingle with resistance and greatness. Debunking myths about Oriental exoticism, it echoes a past that can still be heard today.

“"A marvelously paced and boisterously told novel of intrigue, love, insurrection and manipulation."-- The Guardian”

A richly woven tapestry that merits comparison with Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy. Kirkus Reviews
A twelfth-century geographer al-Idrisi had been told by his father of the twelve calligraphers
who transcribed Arabic translations of al-Homa's poetry, working under conditions of such
secrecy that if they were even to reveal the nature of their work, 'the executioner's scimitar,
in a lightning flash, would detach head from body'. But one of the calligraphers, undaunted,
copied out parts of both al-Homa's poems and sent them to his family in Damascus, along
with the information that the complete manuscripts were in secret compartments in the
library of Palermo. Generations later, al-Idrisi finds himself in the library at Palermo and,
of course, discovers the secret compartment. .Whether the subject is heretical poetry, the
disunity of the Arabs or the threat that laughter poses to those in power, these digressions
only add to the richness of the novel's texture. A marvellously paced and boisterously told
novel of intrigue, love, insurrection and manipulation. Guardian

TARIQ ALI is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics--including Pirates of the Caribbean, Bush in Babylon, The Clash of Fundamentalisms and The Obama Syndrome--as well as five novels in his Islam Quintet series and scripts for the stage and screen. He is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.

The fourth novel in Tariq Ali's 'Islam Quintet' charts the life and loves of the medieval cartographer Muhammed al-Idrisi. Torn between his close friendship with the sultan and his friends who are leaving the island or plotting a resistance to Norman rule, Idrisi finds temporary solace in the harem; but his conscience is troubled. A Sultan in Palermo is a mythic novel in which pride, greed, and lust intermingle with resistance and greatness. Debunking myths about Oriental exoticism, it echoes a past that can still be heard today.

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