Detail of Surroundings and Relationships

Shadows of a Pomegranate Tree has been my favorite book up until we started Leo Africanus. Shadows really piqued my interest with the soap opera style family dynamic, while still offering a decent historical plot. Leo Africanus, on the other hand, really caught my attention in another way - by the very descriptive details of Hasan's surroundings. First, Amin Maalouf gives a description through the eyes of Hasan's relatives of the family structure, as well as the community the within Granada. As discussed in class, I was real confused about the polygamous relationship Muhammed had with his wives. On first reading it, I was wondering if Maalouf was taking an orientalist approach to this topic because of the relationship between Muhammed and Salma. After our discussion, and going back into the text, it is apparent that while Muhammed divorces Salma for ultimately trying to assist his depression, his relationship with her was not out-of-the-ordinary, and is historically accurate. Previous to this discussion, Polygamy did not make any sense to me. I became one step close to understanding the "other" today, thus expanding my global citizenship, as Maalouf would appreciate. 

To comment further on Hasan's surroundings, I found it interesting how many other issues the Jews and Muslims faced. Disease, for example, was described on page 91 in my text: "At first, those who were afflicted by it were isolated in special houses...The whole town became an enormous infected area, and no medicine proved effective against it." Who is to blame for this? As Maalouf discussed in the Youtube video, all cultures have different views on other cultures/countries. In this case, all countries infected began to blame other countries for disease. We get a real sense of the spaces the exiled were confined to. Not only were they struggling to survive religious persecution, they were also trying to survive disease. 

Still, Hasan loved his new city. He was able to see a new beginning for himself and his family in Fez. Social class seemed to be erased, and Hasan was able to appreciate the city for its beauty aside from the political business surrounding it. "All around them, hanging up and stretched out, was the washin of the rich and the poor billowing in the breeze, like the salt of the same boat" (p84). This beautify imagery ties the oppressed religions together in a way that is soothing to Hasan. While they are exiled, they are all experiencing the same uprooting.