Throne of the Crescent Moon, by American-born Muslim author Saladin Ahmed, is a fast moving, fluffy, and fun fantasy novel set in a secondary world inspired by Islamic folktales and the Arabian Nights. It has received widespread acclaim, being nominated in 2012 for the Nebula and in 2013 for the Hugo, and winning the Locus award for Best New Novel.
I absolutely loved the author’s secondary world, the Crescent Moon Kingdoms. It is close enough to history for references to be recognizable, but pleasantly mixed up enough so that one cannot and should not draw any direct comparisons. The book is set in the great metropolis of Dhamsawaat, which is inspired by Baghdad in some ways, Cairo in other ways, with a bit of Damascus thrown in as well. References are made to other regions inside and outside the Kingdoms, which have clear but similarly mixed links to other major parts of the real Islamic world — the West African kingdoms of Mali, the cities of Central Asia, and of course Islamic Spain. It allows the author to add his own original flourishes, and the occasional nod to modern sensibilities, in a natural way. It is fun to see invocations performed with a charm and a powder and the name of the most merciful. It is intriguing to see the morality of the righteous, and the difficulties of squaring that righteousness with the realities of the world, investigated from a somewhat different starting point. It is intersting to imagine the fantastic take the author might have on Timbuktu at its height, or the glory of Samarkand.
I loved the characters in this story, both because they are interesting in and of themselves and because several of them are not the sort of folks who tend to star in fantasy adventures. The book revolves around Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, last of the venerable order of Ghul hunters, whose moonlight pale kaftan can never be stained. He is no youth learning his trade and coming into his powers — the good Doctor is close to 60, and a comfortable retirement is foremost on his mind. Machinations of the plot compel him to ask his old adventuring buddies for assistance one last time, the alchemist savant Litaz and her prematurely aged husband Dawoud, Magus extraordinaire. These are middle-aged heroes, desperate to give up the monster-hunting trade and enjoy the few years left to them, yet unable to stand aside until someone else is ready to do the work. This book introduces a glimmer of hope on that front in the form of the two younger characters that round out the party. The Doctor’s assistant, Raseed bas Raseed, is a young, devout, and painfully un-worldly young Dervish — which in this story is something between a Paladin and a Shaolin Monk. In the course of this book they run upon the angel-touched Zamia, a young woman who is the sole survivor of a desert nomad tribe, and whom the divine powers have granted the ability to transform into a mighty lion.
Secondary world fantasy that is “based on” real-world history and culture can be problematic. I am always a bit suspicious of Western authors who decide to do an “ethnic Fantasy” novel, and I tend to avoid entirely anything written by an American but set in historical or fantasy Japan. I studied Japanese history in grad school, and I’ve lived in Japan for 12 years, and can tell the difference between the dabbler and the real thing, and there are far too many of the former and far too few of the latter. I am sure the readers of this series will have their own examples of books that have tried to make use of non-Western mythologies, folklores, or settings and ended up simplistic, patronizing, or Orientalist — please share in the comments.
The author addresses this issue in an interview with author Blake Charlton in 2010.
Are there any Muslim-inspired fantasies that you think do it right? Any that go wrong?
I’m a little wary of labeling things right and wrong, since it implies that I’m in a position to pass moral judgment. Certainly my choices might differ from another Muslim or Arab fantasy reader’s choices. What do I personally like or dislike? Dune (which I’d call ‘science fantasy’) still holds up for me, even with its noble savage stereotypes of the Fremen. And, even though he indulged in similar stereotypes, I’ll always have a soft spot for Robert Jordan’s desert tribesmen, the Aiel. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never read Guy Gavriel Kay’s Lions of Al-Rassan, though I’ve heard good things about it from people I trust. Getting more into the SF side of things, I absolutely LOVE George Alec Effinger’s Middle East cyberpunk novel When Gravity Fails. I’ll pass on getting into specific writers who I think handle Islam or pseudo-Islam problematically. But I will say that painting an entire culture as dominated by one set of traits – fanaticism, honor, etc. – is almost always bad writing. Every culture has its mixes – rogues and zealots, pranksters and idiots, saints and addicts and lunatics. If your fictional culture has only one or two ‘types’ in it, this is a problem, especially if the invented world’s ‘mainstream’ culture has a range of ‘types’ in it. But this is a problem throughout fantasy lit. Dwarves are all dour. Easterlings all love Sauron. More and more fantasy writers are complicating this sort of characterization, and I think that’s a good thing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this particular take on the myths and tales and cultures and geography of the Middle East, and I look forward to future promised volumes. Yes, this is supposedly the first in a series, but one has to imagine that the second volume will bear little relationship to the first — crisis averted, the Doctor finds his own path to a jolly and gluttinous retirement.