A Sultan in Palermo

A twelfth-century geographer al-Idrisi had been told by his father of the twelve calligrapherswho transcribed Arabic translations of al-Homa’s poetry, working under conditions of suchsecrecy 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, alongwith the information that the complete manuscripts were in secret compartments in thelibrary 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, thedisunity of the Arabs or the threat that laughter poses to those in power, these digressionsonly add to the richness of the novel’s texture. A marvellously paced and boisterously toldnovel of intrigue, love, insurrection and manipulation

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. He has also authored five novels in his Islam Quintet series and written scripts for the stage and screen. Ali is an editor of the New Left Review and lives in London.

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