This is a historic novel, imagining the life of 15th-16th century explorer Leo Africanus, who despite his moniker wasn’t from African. He was Hasan al-Wazzan, a Moorish refugee from Granada after the fall of Al-Andalus in 1492. His family resettled in Fes, Morocco and he went on to explore Africa in Timbuktu, Cairo and later also Rome, Italy. The book is written in diary form almost, with every chapter telling the story of a year (“the year of Astaghfirullah” or “the year of the Raging Lions”). Maalouf was fascinated with Leo Africanus as he inhabited and mastered several cultural spheres throughout his life. When he was captured by mercenaries he became the captive of Christians in Rome, where he met the Pope and eventually taught Arabic to priests. He also converted to Christianity himself, according to historical record. The writing is a bit tedious at times, but it was interesting to imagine the world of 500 years ago, in to me quite unknown parts of the world. Maalouf must have made quite a lot of it up as he went along, because the original manuscript of Leo Africanus only tells of his travels to Africa. It was interesting to learn of various proverbs and ways of thinking that might have been current in the Maghreb of the time. A taste of the magribian mindset, if you will. There is a book called “The Arab Mind” by Raphael Patai that I in my younger days tried to check out from a law school library but I think it was unavailable or lost; there was at least something that finally prevented me from getting to it.
The fact that it is a historical novel is a problem for me. Because, when it comes to historical novels, I’m not usually on board for the ride. They feel too speculative, too large a risk for present to butt in. So I’ve done my best to avoid historical fiction. But I do like history and speculation. Having read this book still leaves me on the fence when it comes to historical fiction. On the one hand, this book allowed me to enter a 15th century Muslim world, for which I am grateful. But on the other hand, I have no way to judge the degree to which it has any standards of historical fidelity, if there ever was such a term. However, that might ultimately be true of all historical work. But to me there is an added dimension when it is portrayed in fictive form. Luckily, this is not the only feature of the book: it also gave me an interesting parable about the three Abrahamic faiths. In the novel there is mention of the three being as fish, landliving animal (can’t remember which) and bird. So they inhabit different realms. A fish can only live on land for a while, and a bird will only survive underwater for a short period of time before it must return to its original habitat. This is said when Africanus explains his re-conversion back to Islam. It reminded me of the stories of Naguib Mahfouz about the “children of ghebelawi” where street urchins represent the three faiths. There was also an Egyptian play in the 1950s called Hassan, Morqus and Cohen (later remade into a film in 2008 where they dropped Cohen and only called it Hassan wa Morqos). There is also in Indian cinema the movie Aamer Anthony and Akbar (1977) where the three faiths are Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. In a way I think Maalouf (a Lebanese Christian in exile in France) also wanted to add to this subgenre of story about different faiths meeting and merging. It was his first novel after the ambitious nonfiction work Les croisades vus par les Arabes (the Crusades seen from Arab Eyes) in 1981.
Kinship of all Species 