Zuhayr: The Moorish Don Quixote

            In Chapter nine I was intrigued by the similarities between Shades of the Pomegranate Tree and The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha by Miguel Cervantes.  When Zuhayr embarks on his journey to Gharnata, he exhibits similar heroic and Romantic qualities to Don Quixote when he travels as a knight errant. The two texts begin to converge when Zuhayr says his final farewells to Yazid and the Al-Hudayl household (Ali 147).

             Zuhayr makes references to nature throughout his final farewell speech that produces powerful imagery for the reader, illustrating the environment that surrounds his family’s mansion. He describes the landscape as it evolves through the seasons in Romantic terms when he says, “in the heat of the summer when the gentle sound of a single drop of water soothes the mind and cools the senses”, and “the heady mountain air filtered through the pines and the majesty of the palms as they dance to the breezes from heaven” (Ali 148). Dramatically, he ends his speech and gallops triumphantly through the gates while his family watches in tears.

            The most direct connection I found between the two novels was Zuhayr’s self-reflection following his speech. He, like Don Quixote, was “brought up on a thousand and one tales of chivalry and knighthood”, and “…the romance of a last battle, of riding out into the unknown, taking the enemy by surprise and, who knows, perhaps even winning a victory” are all the same essential motives for Don Quixote’s career in knighthood. The inspiration that led to Don Quixote’s misadventures also “inspired [Zuhayr’s] impulsive behavior” (Ali 148). Unlike Don Quixote of La Mancha however, he claims that his impulses are not solely driven by fantasy or “dreams of glory” (Ali 148).

            Later, when he is speaking to Ibn Basit, he receives the same criticism that Don Quixote received by those who witnessed his actions. It was evident to the reader that Don Quixote was incredibly well-versed in history and the tenets of chivalry, but his ambition blinded him from accurately perceiving his reality. Ibn Basit tries to awaken Zuhayr by saying that “Chivalry is a thing of the past – that is if it ever really existed and was not a chronicler’s invention” (Ali 161-162). The narrative style of Don Quixote itself is a fictional chronicle, supposedly chronicling the life of a chivalrous knight errant during a time when chivalry and knight errantry were already extinct. I believe that Tariq Ali is alluding to Don Quixote in this passage as a reminder to the reader that the Muslim resistance to the Inquisition was in itself a fantasy, and there was little hope for the Al-Hudayl family to sustain their lifestyle.