The Night of the Mi'raj by Zoe Ferraris

I have had this book on my wish list for nearly a year now and then voila I was given it as a Christmas present. Excitedly, I managed to read it in one sitting especially that I had just finished reading another book about Saudi Arabia called The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia.

The story is about a sixteen-year-old girl, Nouf ash-Shrawi, who is found dead in the desert of Saudi Arabia. The daughter of a wealthy Jeddah family, there are questions whether she ran away or was abducted and left to die in the desert. To answer these questions, Othman, the eldest son of the ash-Shrawi family enlists the help of his life-long friend and desert guide, Nayir.

A devout and strict Muslim, we find that Nayir struggles with issues of his own. Being a strictly religious man he is faced with qualms upon having to work closely with Othman's fiancee, the lab technician Katya Hijazi. A big problem for him as he has never even had a chance to talk to a woman. Also, he had known Nouf when she was an innocent child taking her on excursions in the desert but is now faced to consider her initially as victim and then later as a woman pregnant out of wedlock planning to take her fate into her own hands.

This is an attempt at a crime novel although the plot is not so intricate and you will guess a lot of where it is going way before the end although I must admit that I did not see the ending coming and it took me totally by surprise. And I think that is why I liked the book. A gripping novel and although at times slow paced but the descriptions of the desert and the use of the Koranic verses are a window into an exotic culture that is fascinating if not terrifying and claustrophobic.

This is not a novel about Saudi Arabia. Little is learned about the country itself and a lot of the stereotypes that have become associated with the country are all there; what was fascinating though that both The Consequences of Love and The Night of the Mi'raj had pink shoes in them. The two events are unrelated but connected to a total stereotyping pertaining to the attitude of men in Saudi assuming that all women must like pink.

This is an enjoyable and gripping read and the fact that the author herself lived in a strict Saudi community for a while gives it a degree of authenticity if not sadly complete accuracy at times which leaves one with a sense that there is little that is revealed of a country veiled in complexity.

Note: The follow-up book is called City of Veils was published this year and I will be reviewing that soon.

The Consequences of Love by Sulaiman Addonia

It has been said that for love to start all it takes is a look or a word. In this book it all starts with a note dropped hastily into an Eritrean boy's lap as he whiles away the horribly long hours of summer in the city of Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

Nasir finds himself an immigrant at the tender age of ten fleeing from war in Eritrea. His uncle who takes him and his brother under his wing shows clear signs of having become religious while living in Saudi Arabia and even goes as far as banning the two brothers from ever mentioning their mother calling her an apostate. Nasir unlike his brother is against all forms of organized religion and watches with sadness and anger as the religious police swarm the malls and arrest people who they think are not religious enough.

Initially truly happy to be as far as possible from his war-torn village yet also longing for his mother, he is fascinated with Jeddah's lights and skyscrapers but as he grows up we find that he becomes lonely and withdrawn because he is a sensitive boy who believes in love and wants to find a woman one day who he can truly fall in love with. A dream that seems impossible for someone in his situation living in Saudi Arabia. That is until unexpectedly a note falls into his lap from a woman declaring her love for him and Nasir's whole world is turned upside down.

In the novel, Saudi Arabia is in Naser's view a never-ending black-and-white movie reel refering to the men in their white 'thobes' and the black-clad women who follow behind them. That all changes when the love affair starts with the woman in the pink shoes and life is full of colour and hope. But Naser lives in a country where love between unmarried couples could mean a lashing or even a beheading in Punishment Square. A country where 'beautiful' men like Nasir are in their 'kafeel's' grip to do with them as they please and where the rape of men by influential Saudi men seems a normal daily exercise.

This is a very gripping story once it gets going. There are moments that not only make you feel angry but disgusted at what so-called religious men do in the name of God. The wahhabism rule of Saudi Arabia dominates throughout the novel and even as good things happen in the story the shadow of doom lurks in wait.

I did enjoy the story and it did give me a glimpse into the everyday life from an immigrants' point of view. A rare case at best as most writings in Saudi are produced by Saudis themselves. Unfortunately this book will not linger with me for its depth or violence but maybe as a love story with possibly a happy ending one day. I shall leave that for you to decide if you ever read the book.

To learn more about Sulaiman Addonia click here.