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Description edit
Like "Brick Lane" and "The Kite Runner," Camilla Gibb’s widely praised new novel is a poignant and intensely atmospheric look beyond the stereotypes of Islam. After her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco. As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Lilly: Main character
- Yusuf: Husband of Amina
- Dr. Aziz: Add a description of this character.
- Ahmed
- Robin
- Hararis
- Gishta
- Sitta
- Amina
- Jami
- Munir
- Allah
- Hussein
- Mrs. Jahangir
- Mohammed Bruce Mahmoud
- Dr. Gupta
- Mengistu
- Muslim
- Tariq
- Munk
- Girma
- Bortucan
- Anwar
- Bilal Al Habash
- Selassie
- Idris
- Great Abdal
- Muhammed Bruce
- Arnim
Quotes edit
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“This is not the true meaning of jihad" he spoke into the starless dark. "Jihad is the holy war we have within ourselves. That is the meaning below the surface. Our internal struggle for purity...It has absolutely nothing to do with others. The only thing we can have control over is ourselves.”
Hussein -
“He must have envisioned a time when I would have to make my way in the wider world; the books he presented offered lessons about war and morality and disease and love and betrayal and, perhaps most important, survival. Under the sea, at the centre of the earth, on another planet, alone on a desert island, as a person hunted, in war, as a giant among little people, in the future, in a world upside down, a world through a looking glass, a world gone mad. A world like the one we live in. A world like the one we left. (248)”
Lilly
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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jihad is as Hussein taught me, one’s personal struggle to be a good Muslim, not a fight against those who are not Muslim, as our imam has started preaching.
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“Jihad is the holy war we have within ourselves. That is the meaning below the surface. Our internal struggle for purity,”
Highlighted by 7 Kindle customers -
I was not always a Muslim, but once I was led into the absorption of prayer and the mysteries of the Qur’an, something troubled in me became still.
Highlighted by 6 Kindle customers -
“I think true discipline comes through exercising moderation. I see the rules as simply guidelines for those times when we lack the strength or wisdom to decide for ourselves.”
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But then, this is where we begin in every new world: first we read the manual. We practice the laws as they are laid out, and it is only when we become literate through living them that we find the contradictions, the subtext, the spaces in between.
Highlighted by 5 Kindle customers -
Islam teaches us that education is the means to enlightenment, and that discipline is the only way to get there.
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“It is the war of ascendance over our basal instincts. It has absolutely nothing to do with others. The only thing we can have control over is ourselves.”
Highlighted by 4 Kindle customers -
For the first time in my life, I was made aware of the angry possibilities of Islam.
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But that is the thing about miracles: it is perception that determines them as such, not facts.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers -
Amina has boundless empathy for everyone but her husband, it seems. How is it that disappointment arrives as soon as what you have desired for so long steps over the threshold? It’s like finding the end of your wedding train dragging behind in the mud.
Highlighted by 3 Kindle customers
First Sentence edit
On a wet night in Thatcher's Britain, a miracle was delivered onto the pockmarked pavement behind a decrepit building once known as Lambeth Hospital.
Authors & Contributors edit
- Camilla Gibb (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Country: Canada
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: Add the page count.
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Country: Canada
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: Add the ISBN.
Page Count: Add the page count.
Awards edit
- Giller Prize (Finalist, 2005, Shortlist)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 813.6
Subjects edit
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