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Ghada Karmi will discuss her new novel Murjana, about a caliph’s infatuation with a young woman at the Abbasid court in ninth-century Baghdad. 

Abstract

A sensual and historically evocative thriller, Murjana engages with contemporary trends and debates in Islamic arts and sciences, from architecture to medicine to theology. Additional insights will come from historian Hugh Kennedy, reflecting on the legacy of caliph al-Maʾmun on whom the novel’s chief protagonist is based.

Speakers

Ghada Karmi is a doctor of medicine by training and a specialist in the history of medieval Islamic medicine.  Her background enabled her to draw on authentic sources when researching the novel. She has held a number of academic posts in Middle East history and politics, most recently at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter, UK. She has published six books to date, including two memoirs of life in Palestine.

Hugh Kennedy (FBA) is Professor of Arabic at SOAS University of London, where he teaches Islamic history. His numerous publications include The Caliphate: A Pelican Introduction (2016) and The Court of the Caliphs: When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World (2005).

This event will be chaired by Marlé Hammond, Reader in Arabic Popular Literature and Culture at SOAS University of London.

Image: Ghada Kharmi