Why Alizayd al-Qahtani from The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty Means So Much To Me – Part 2

Do I need to tell any of you why Ali means so much to me? He has wormed his way into my heart and made himself at home. I have never loved a character as much as I love him and honestly I will never truly be able to express it properly no matter how many essays I write.

I know I have previously written an essay which you can read here but you know what here is another one because I have now read The Empire of Gold and the extra scenes Shannon included on her website and I now have a lot more to say.

Alizayd grows so much throughout the trilogy. From a young age he is motivated to help the poor and oppressed because one of the core beliefs in Islam is social justice. He may not always do it in the best way but that is what makes him fight against even his own family to do what is right. It’s one of the things I love most about him. Every time he fought for justice my heart swelled with love for him. In The City of Brass he is more idealistic but by the time we see him in The Empire of Gold, he has grown wiser and while still idealistic he is also more realistic in what he can achieve and what can be accomplished and it was incredible to see how he told Nahri that this may be something that they don’t even get to see the fruits of but they still need to build a city that is just to all.

One of my favourite scenes is his very first chapter where we see him wake up to find himself in the apothecary and realise all that he has lost and that he cannot help anyone at that moment. The despair he feels was so raw and it left me a mess. This was one of the lowest points for him and in his moment of need and despair he turned to Allah to ask Him for help and guidance. He sat in prayer all day in prostration to Allah turning to the only one who can help him with everything he is feeling. This is a scene that means so much to me. A scene where I truly related and saw myself and how I felt in some of my most difficult times in life. Shannon wrote it beautifully and it left me in tears to see this in a fantasy book. The type of rep I had been too scared to even hope to see in books.

When he is in Egypt we see him completely fall in love with being able to experience the human world like he’s always wanted to and that wonder and excitement was contagious. I really loved seeing him nerd out and completely lose it over toy chickens because when we see characters who are devout, they are often shown in their stereotypes of broody, strict and not really having a personality beyond being the haram police and so to see him be fully fleshed and complex and that he is your average guy even though he is doing his best to practice his religion. It humanised him and even though we shouldn’t have to bear the burden of that it was truly wonderful to see how much he loved seeing everything and his giddy excitement.

Another of my favourite scenes in The Empire of Gold is when he is in Ta Nytry and Hatset tells him to establish himself as king there instead of going to fight Manizheh. He tells them that this isn’t the answer. They need to help those trapped in Daevabad and that him being king isn’t right. There needs to be a democracy where everyone’s voice is heard. That Islam stands for justice and we need to stand up for what is right and be a witness to this. They cannot stand by and watch people being murdered and enslaved.

In this book we see him and Nahri also having to navigate their growing feelings for each other and I know that people have mixed feelings but I personally really loved seeing him try to navigate this as it felt real. Muslims aren’t perfect and so to see a “perfect” Muslim character wouldn’t really work in this trilogy. We see him battle his desires and his conviction to his faith and what we are all taught when it comes to relationships. That a relationship outside of marriage isn’t allowed. This was something that he tries his best to adhere to, we see him literally fight himself when he starts thinking about Nahri and reminding himself that he cannot do anything.

We see him kiss Nahri in a moment of utter despair and longing and neither of them knowing whether they will survive after this. And then he realises that he cannot do this and stops himself and it felt so realistic. We have feelings, we have emotions and you know what we will make mistakes, we will slip and I actually liked seeing that he slipped but that he stops himself and draws a line saying to Nahri that this cannot happen again. And we see that he doesn’t cross that line again. I feel like a lot people can relate to this moment and how easy it can be to give in to those feelings even for a moment.

He spends a lot of this book learning about his own family history and coming to terms with realising that those he looked up to may not be as incredible as he thought they were and that there is a lot in this world he still does not know and it made him a better person and leader. He doesn’t make as many rash decisions like he used to and thinks about the consequences and how it can affect others. I just loved seeing him grow into an incredible leader and pillar of the community.

Later in the book he also leads prayer and again finds solace and comfort in praying and turning to Allah for help. We see how he stays there talking to everyone and making sure everyone is heard and tries to help as many as he can while he is in Ta Nytry. It shows how much he has grown instead of doing what he thinks is the right way to help the people he listens to them and what they want.

The scene when he goes to meet Tiamat and the other marid and he realises he may die here but he won’t go down without a fight and will do whatever he can to protect all those he loves. I feel like this was such a pivotal moment for him. When he realises the price of being able to save his loved ones and Daevabad is to give up the thing that he loves, his jinn magic, his fire magic, and he will even lose the one connection he shared with his father, his grey eyes, I truly felt for him and it shows what a huge sacrifice it is for him to have to give this all up. But he does it, he does it because his love for Daevabad and his family and friends is more than how much he cherishes his magic. He knows that this may make him an outsider to his own people but he still does it. It made me love him even more.

It’s safe to say that I have never loved a character more than I love Alizayd and honestly I have no idea how to move on from these books because of him. His character arc was incredible and I loved seeing all the small details from him being a total nerd, completely hopeless when trying to talk to girls and how he hold on to his faith throughout everything. His activism in fighting for social justice and his strong moral character and just doing whatever it took to save his people even sacrificing his jinn magic made me fall in love with him again and again.

It also helps that he is…well formed and endearing. I will leave you with one of my favourite Alizayd quotes:

Our faith prioritises justice. It tells us to stand for justice no matter what. We are to be a community that calls for what is right, that stands as a witness.

Please everyone go read this incredible trilogy!

Inspirational Women Throughout History – Fatima Al Fihri

This post is about Fatima al Fihri who built the world’s first university.

Fatima Al Fihri was born in Tunisia and then migrated with her family to Morocco. She came from a wealthy family and when her father passed away he left her a big fortune. Not much is known about her early life but her and her sister were well educated and deeply religious. She used the money her father left her to invest in and build a mosque and educational institute for her community.

Initially it was a smaller place of education with a courtyard, prayer hall, libraries and classrooms. At first the courses which were offered were religious studies and Quranic studies. When she thought about making a place for a higher level of learning she expanded on the institute. People would come from all over the world to study and it was expanded and built upon until it was made into a university.

The university was named the University of al-Qarawiyyin, named after Fatima’s birthplace, Qayrawan in Tunisia. It was established in 859 and was the first degree granting institute in the world. There was a wide range of areas of study available to study from, astronomy, maths to sciences, medicine, languages and more. Even Fatima studied there too. Notable scholars from all over the world studied there and it was considered a place of a major intellectual centre in the medieval times.

The university is still running now and there are also other places which are part of the university which you can visit too including the library which is one of the world’s oldest libraries! There are over 4000 manuscripts there and you can even see Fatima’s diploma on display there on a wooden board!

She has such an amazing lasting legacy that a woman was the first to build and establish a university where everyone was welcome to come and study at. As a result of her building this higher education institute it paved way for other places to be built including University of Oxford and helped advance opportunities for higher learning all over Europe.

You can read the previous posts in this series here:

Khadijah al Khuwaylid

Nusaybah bint Ka’ab

Boys Will Be Boys by Clementine Ford – ARC Review

Thank you to One World Publications for sending me ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved Fight Like a Girl so when One World Publications surprised me with by sending me an ARC of Boys Will Be Boys I was so excited to read it! And it did not disappoint!

You can read my review of Fight Like a Girl here

Rating: 4.5/5

What the book is about:

Fearless feminist Clementine Ford’s incendiary first book, Fight Like A Girl, is taking the world by storm, galvanizing women to demand and fight for real equality and not merely the illusion of it.

Now Boys Will Be Boys examines what needs to change for that equality to become a reality. It answers the question most asked of Clementine: “How do I raise my son to respect women and give them equal space in the world? How do I make sure he’s a supporter and not a perpetrator?”

Ford demolishes the age-old assumption that superiority and aggression are natural realms for boys, and demonstrates how toxic masculinity creates a disturbingly limited and potentially dangerous idea of what it is to be a man. Crucially, Boys Will Be Boys reveals how the patriarchy we live in is as harmful to boys and men as it is to women and girls, and asks what we have to do to reverse that damage. The world needs to — this book shows the way.

This book made me laugh and cry and rage and everything in between. It’s a book that explains the injustices and the toxic structural issues in society that prevent most people from truly gaining equality and justice. It’s a book that took me a long time to get through and not because I didn’t like it but because it is an incredibly difficult read because of how personal it felt to me.

I have grown up in a society that told me because I am a woman I am less and that added to the obstacles put in place because I am brown and Muslim and wear a hijab, made me rage and cry for all the things that I could barely put into words myself. Clementine wrote all the things I felt and gave voice to those feelings. The second half of the book took me months to read because I had to keep putting it down after every few pages.

However it’s a book that I think everyone NEEDS to read. From discussing rape culture to how boys are taught from a young age that, ‘that’s just boys being boys’ and how the victim is blamed and men are protected from being held to account, to how toxic masculinity not only is an issue for women but for men too.

One of things I really loved reading about was how toxic masculinity can have such a negative effect on so many boys as well as girls. There is a very rigid view of what makes a man, ‘a man’ and that means that any boy that does not fit that description is shamed for it.

I know this from experience of having to constantly stand up for my young cousin (he’s 11) because he expresses his emotions, he likes reading and art instead of sports and is a total nerd (very proud of this fact lol) but is constantly told by those who should be his role models that he needs to ‘be a real man’ and that ‘boys don’t cry’ and it makes me so mad because of how much it affects him. So reading about how it affects men was really great because it helped me to explain better just how it affects him to his parents and explain to him that there is nothing wrong with him.

This book has helped with my confidence in standing up with these issues that I am so passionate about and that to bring about real change in society we all need to learn about what obstacles have been put in place to allow only a small minority to hold all the power and then we can really make structural changes.

No Big Deal by Bethany Rutter – ARC Review

I picked this ARC up at Northern YA Literature Festival and I’m so glad I did because I really loved this book!

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Meet Emily Daly, a stylish, cute, intelligent and hilarious seventeen-year-old about to start her last year at school. Emily is also fat. She likes herself and her body. When she meets Joe at a house party, he instantly becomes The Crush of Her Life. Everything changes. At first he seems perfect. But as they spend more time together, doubts start to creep in.

With her mum trying new fad diets every week, and increasing pressure to change, Emily faces a constant battle to stay strong, be her true self and not change for anyone.

I am so glad books like this are being released which not only have a character where the character is not the typical perfectly skinny and flawless teenage girl but she is also happy within herself and what her body looks like. Can we please have more of these books please!

This book is about self-acceptance, about being comfortable in your own skin and loving yourself. It is about body positivity and I really loved it! It also deals with how others can create self-doubt and how others perception of you can be the thing that actually holds you back. It can cause low self-esteem and even result in them suffering from mental health issues.

“It’s not my body that’s holding me back. I think it’s more of a problem that people tell me my body should hold me back.”

I really loved the discussion around family and friends who may not even realise that telling someone they need to lose weight to look better is not okay, even if they say they are only saying this because they love that person. It still hurts regardless of “how they meant it” and can cause people to become distant from each other. Like in the book Emily has a difficult relationship with her mum because of how her mum always tries to get her diet, and even tricking her to attend weight loss meetings, saying she only does it because she loves her.

But it was also important to show how these doubts that make us feel less, that make girls feel like they aren’t pretty enough or skinny enough can affect them so much in adulthood too. Like Emily’s mum who constantly worries about her weight.

It was also interesting to see how something as simple as trying on clothes in the shops can be frustrating and stressful for someone who is fat and not many people will understand that stress, especially if they don’t experience something like this themselves.

Emily’s friendships were so wonderful to see, it felt real and relatable. She has a wonderful group of friends who support each other. Her best friend loses a lot of weight over the summer so Emily has to deal with a whole range of emotions from feeling jealous to feeling pressured to lose weight and also being happy for her. And it does cause some tension between them but I was glad to see that they worked through it.

As the story progressed and we see more of Emily’s and Joe’s relationship and how he treats her I was totally rooting for her to go with her gut instincts and I’m so glad she did. I love how the author showed that we shouldn’t be okay with anyone making us feel less than who we are or be with someone who is embarrassed about how we look. Though I do wish the author had spent more time on this part of the story

The ending is the only part I wish we got more of. The middle part of the story felt too long and the ending felt rushed and I would have loved to see more of Emily realising she deserves so much more.

Overall I really enjoyed this story and I hope to see more books that deal with body positivity being released.

I Will Not Be Erased: Our Stories About Growing Up As People Of Colour By Gal-dem – Book Review

Thank you to Walker Books YA for this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had heard about this book a while ago and then it was announced that two of the authors will be at YALC this year so I was already really interested in reading this book so when I was able to request it I couldn’t pass up the chance! And wow how much did I absolutely love this book!

Rating: 5/5

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Fourteen joyous, funny and life-affirming essays from gal-dem, the award-winning magazine created by young women and non-binary people of colour.

gal-dem, the award-winning online and print magazine, is created by women and non-binary people of colour. In this thought-provoking and moving collection of fourteen essays, gal-dem’s writers use raw material from their teenage years – diaries, poems and chat histories – to explore growing up. gal-dem have been described by the Guardian as “the agents of change we need”, and these essays tackle important subjects including race, gender, mental health and activism, making this essential reading for any young person.

This book is something I wish I had been able to read when I was a teenager. And I hope that lots of young people benefit from this book. This book showed me that how I felt was felt by others and that made me feel not so alone. It’s hard when you don’t quite fit in especially as a teen and I didn’t know how to express it but this book so wonderfully talks about so many things that I feel now and when I was younger. I know that others reading this will feel the same way.

It is full of experiences of people who we don’t normally get to see in public. I always see white women in books and media but their experiences are going to be very different from me, a Pakistani Muslim woman, so to be able to read stories written by Muslims and people of colour is important for so many of us. Everyone’s experience differs but coming from a similar culture means that even if it isn’t quite the same experience it is still very much relatable.

I felt like this book expressed parts of me and my life that not everyone will understand. From facing racism and discrimination because of the colour of my skin or the scarf on my head. To cultural and religious differences from what is considered “cultural norm”. One of the essays that really hit me hard was Sara Jafari’s essay, My Virginity and my Choice: Dating as a British Muslim. Although I hadn’t dated my now husband, a lot of what she said really resonated with me. I really loved how she spoke about a really sensitive topic, especially in the Muslim community and I wish this was discussed more so it wouldn’t be so taboo.

One of the things that she said had me laughing my head off:

“Edward Cullen is every Muslim girl’s fantasy: he’s hot, forbidden and wants to wait until marriage to have sex”

I really loved how they used diary entries, journals, messages and more from their teen years to write a letter to their younger selves. It made these essays honest, raw and heartfelt. And by speaking to their younger selves they also spoke directly to all the young people out there who feel like no one really understands what they are growing through. I also loved that they included artwork throughout the book with quotes, it was such a lovely touch.

Reading this book will help so many people see themselves but also those who have never had to experience these things can get a glimpse of what it is like to grow up and not have white skin or be straight. How having more than one culture can mean you do and see things differently and how that can make us seem like we don’t belong.

This book is empowering , inspiring and so relatable. I finally felt seen and heard by reading these essays. I highly recommend everyone to read this and I hope that others find it as beneficial as I did.