Book Of Saladin: Amazon.ca: Tariq Ali: Books

From Amazon

Tariq Ali has been a British national treasure for almost five decades. Revolutionary, writer, broadcaster, filmmaker, polemicist--fighter in the street--and general all-round trouble-maker (in the nicest possible sense), he's been them all, and usually at the same time. Since 1990 Ali has also worked in fiction, firstly with Redemption, and now with a planned quartet of historical novels, of which The Book of Saladin is the second. (The first was the award-winning Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree.)

Ali's passion for life, and his humor, are found all over this latest work, which is set in the 12th century--with eerily prescient echoes of modern times. It shows us the conflict between Christian and Islamic civilizations set to a sometimes bawdy, sometimes brutal background where all of life is in flux. As in his previous novel, Ali shows the depth and breadth of his learning and humanity on every page. Like his central character, Saladin, or Salah-al-Din (the Kurdish liberator of Jerusalem), he has been a fighter of many causes, a maker of alliances, who has made an impact on the world around him. Unlike his hero, Tariq Ali has never been a Sultan, or a warrior, except a class one, of course. But between them--Ali and his warrior king--readers can discover much of both history and contemporary life in the melting pot of world religion. --Robin Hunt, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

A very different novel from Fear of Mirrors reviewed above, Ali's earthy, lusty saga about the fall of Jerusalem to Muslim forces in 1187 rewrites Eurocentric history by focusing on the historical figure Salah al-Din (better known as Saladin), the Kurdish upstart who used his position as sultan of Egypt and Syria to retake the Holy City from Crusaders. Through Saladin's confidences told to a fictive character?Isaac ibn Yahub, his Jewish scribe, who narrates the story?we not only learn of the sultan's marital woes (his favorite wife is having a lesbian affair with another concubine), we also view the Crusades from a non-Christian point of view. In this fiercely lyrical second installment of a projected tetralogy (following Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree), Ali exposes deep wounds between Christian, Muslim and Jewish civilizations that have yet to heal. A digressive arabesque weaving tales of political intrigue, gay and straight love, betrayal, cross-dressing, rape, assassination and crimes of passion, his tale ripples with implicit parallels to our age: Saladin prepares for "the mother of all battles"; his army wages a holy war to liberate Palestine; the Muslim nations are bitterly divided into mutually hostile factions. Some may feel Ali takes liberties too freely, as when Ibn Yahub walks in on his adulterous wife having sex with Maimonides, the celebrated Jewish philosopher; yet, throughout, the main characters sustain a fruitful dialogue on life after death, history, the oppression of women and the nature of spiritual and romantic love.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

3 star

1 star

4.4 out of 5 stars

Write a customer review

Most helpful customer reviews

A good sleep aid Jan 13 2003

By Carole Barkley

Format:Paperback

It took me a long time to read this book, as I kept falling asleep after a few pages. Despite the dramatic historical events, the narrative itself is quite flat. The author tries to counteract this with a liberal sprinkling of sexual exploits...many of them homosexual. This recurring theme became as tedious as the rest of the narrative. I found myself losing track of characters and having to constantly search for earlier references to try to figure out who they were. Perhaps the rather pedantic writing of the narrator was a deliberate literary device. The book has a lot of archaic-sounding phrases and reads like it was translated from another language...all of which was probably intentional. Deficiencies of style, plot construction, and focus have been noted by other reviewers. For some people, the political merit seems to outweigh the literary failings, but this wasn't the case for me.

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

More from Tariq , Please Feb 20 2002

By Gerard Fagan

Absolutely first class work of faction.
Part of a planned quartet on cultural/religious collisions.
Looking forward to acquiring and reading the other 3, soon as....

A superb historical fiction Feb 12 2001

By M. A. ZAIDI

Tariq Ali's "The Book of Saladin" is a rich and teeming chronicle set in the twelfth-century Cairo, Damascus and Jerusalem. The Book of Saladin is a fictional memoir of Saladin, the Kurdish liberator he Muslim leader during the Crusades, was one of the best known figures of the Middle Ages. The West accepted him as a worthy opponent; Islam was indebted to him for the recovery of Jerusalem. Ali brilliantly weaves a fiction tale around the historical figure Saladin.

Saladin grants permission to Ibn Yakub, his jewish scribe to walk to his wife and retainers so that he may portray a complete picture of his memories. A series of interconnected stories follow, tale brimming over with warmth, earthly humour and passions in which ideals clash with realities and dreams are confounded by desires. At the heart of the novel is an affecting love affair between the Sultans favorite wife, Jamila and the beautiful Halima.

The novel charts the course of Saladin as Sultan of Egypt and Syria and follows him as he prepares in alliance with his Jewish and Christian subjects to take Jerusalem back from the Crusaders.