Alif the Unseen

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Daniel Blackman Professor Curran World Religion, Section 17 17 March 2015 “Alif the Unseen” This novel refers to events that have taken place in the past five years. The story is told from a young man’s point of view and the events take place somewhere in the Persian Gulf. The main character in the book is Alif. Along the way he has encounters with his old friends and new ones. He comes in contact with religious beings such as jinn, angels, demons and holy men. He unravels a fairytale that leads the reader down a journey involving religion, mortality, politics and the role of women in religion. Religion plays a big part of this book considering the subject is another very old book written hundreds of years ago. “Alif the Unseen” starts off with the young man, Alif, staying in his room all of the time on his computer. He stays wrapped in his cocoon with his hacker friends online and does not leave his flat very much except to go on the roof to talk to his neighbor, Dina. From a very young age, Alif is taught to pray five times a day. Alif does not practice his claimed religion at the beginning of the book. One day Alif encountered someone while online named Intisar, a young girl from the Old Quarter. Alif bought her a phone so that they could talk and sneak around for months until he persuaded Intisar to come and stay with him while his parents were away. They fell in love and continued to sneak around to see each other. Dina is very religious, so much so that she is veiled and likes to tell Alif what he is doing wrong with Intisar. As thoughts roam though his head about Intisar, he then realizes that he has not heard from Intisar in a while and gets worried. She contacts him and asks if they can meet. Intisar tells him that her father has betrothed her to another man. Alif finds out that the man is none other than the Hand, his arch nemesis. The Hands

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