Sunday, February 14, 2010
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
RAFIQ
Everything in this story is true, and some of it really happened.
Jinn Theory is a 120,000 word contemporary novel of magical realism. Rafiq is the proprietor of an antique shop in a cross-roads metropolitan city where he entertains an odd mixture of neighbors on his small dead-end street. Rafiq assumes he has these people all figured out: The old baker whose family has now all abandoned him, the snobby sophisticate who parades in and proceeds to insult him and everything in his shop, the Sufi who is trying to save his soul, and then there are the fundamentalists at the end of the street who run the small mosque.
None of these people are as Rafiq’s smug perceptions would have him believe. When their lives start unraveling and encroaching upon his precious solitude, Rafiq discovers that his own life may not be all that he prides himself upon. When the strange coin appears where it should not be and other odd occurrences transform the atmosphere of his shop into one of uncertainty it is the unexpected arrival of an old friend in the middle of the night that sets things in motion and out of Rafiq’s control. And the two men Rafiq has dismissed as fundamentalists at the end of the street? Rafiq discovers that even they are far more human than he would ever have liked to believe. But what’s most disconcerting is the appearance of the Jinn who is at the heart of things, and for all his lifelong belief in the world of the spirit, Jinn is one thing Rafiq was not prepared to believe in.
Jinn Theory is a story of transformation and redemption that touches upon several of the troubled aspects of Islam today without ever taking a heavy hand or mounting the mimbar (pulpit.) My academic studies have focused on Islamic history, primarily the modern state of Iran, and the important mystical saints of the Middle Ages, as well as the works of the prominent political ideologues of the last century and how their ideas have shaped the narratives dominating the news today. I have brought this composite perspective to Jinn Theory while maintaining the primary focus on the personal spiritual growth of each unique character outside the rigid confines of simplistic interpretations of faith and practice.
Jinn Theory is a 120,000 word contemporary novel of magical realism. Rafiq is the proprietor of an antique shop in a cross-roads metropolitan city where he entertains an odd mixture of neighbors on his small dead-end street. Rafiq assumes he has these people all figured out: The old baker whose family has now all abandoned him, the snobby sophisticate who parades in and proceeds to insult him and everything in his shop, the Sufi who is trying to save his soul, and then there are the fundamentalists at the end of the street who run the small mosque.
None of these people are as Rafiq’s smug perceptions would have him believe. When their lives start unraveling and encroaching upon his precious solitude, Rafiq discovers that his own life may not be all that he prides himself upon. When the strange coin appears where it should not be and other odd occurrences transform the atmosphere of his shop into one of uncertainty it is the unexpected arrival of an old friend in the middle of the night that sets things in motion and out of Rafiq’s control. And the two men Rafiq has dismissed as fundamentalists at the end of the street? Rafiq discovers that even they are far more human than he would ever have liked to believe. But what’s most disconcerting is the appearance of the Jinn who is at the heart of things, and for all his lifelong belief in the world of the spirit, Jinn is one thing Rafiq was not prepared to believe in.
Jinn Theory is a story of transformation and redemption that touches upon several of the troubled aspects of Islam today without ever taking a heavy hand or mounting the mimbar (pulpit.) My academic studies have focused on Islamic history, primarily the modern state of Iran, and the important mystical saints of the Middle Ages, as well as the works of the prominent political ideologues of the last century and how their ideas have shaped the narratives dominating the news today. I have brought this composite perspective to Jinn Theory while maintaining the primary focus on the personal spiritual growth of each unique character outside the rigid confines of simplistic interpretations of faith and practice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
