Aamir Hussain is joining us today to talk about his novel, Under the Full and Crescent Moon. Here’s the publisher’s description:
In a battle of words and beliefs, a young woman must defend her city against zealotry during the Islamic Golden Age.
After his long-time scribe retires, Khadija’s father, the city’s leading jurist, offers his introverted daughter the opportunity to take on the role of his assistant. In accepting, Khadija is thrust into her community, the medieval hilltop city of Medina’tul-Agham, where she, as a motherless young woman, has spent little time. Led by Imam Fatima and guided by the Circle of Mothers, it is a matriarchy — the only one in the empire. Though forced to set aside her quiet life among the books and parchments of her family home, Khadija thrives, finding her power and place in the world with the support of her new friends and strong female mentors.
Yet Khadija’s idyllic new life is shattered when fanatical forces weaponize Sharia law to threaten the very fabric of the society. Using only the power of her parchment and quill, Khadija must win the support of the people and write fatwas to fight against injustice, or the peace and prosperity of her city will be nothing more than a footnote in the annals of history.
What’s Aamir’s favorite bit?
Under the Full and Crescent Moon is my first novel and is heavily plotted. It is a work of speculative fiction which imagines how a historical society might have come about if it was both matriarchal and Muslim. It tackles weighty matters like interfaith marriage, hijab, and Sharia.
Fitting all of these in required very careful planning as I did not want these ponderous topics to suffocate the heart of the story, which is the journey of a young woman, Khadija, as she grows up and comes into her own. Eventually taking the initiative to defend her community from malign outside forces. As she does this by issuing fatwas, by far the least favorite part of writing the novel was writing her fatwas as I am in no way qualified to do so.
My most favorite bit of writing the novel were the moments when the characters took matters into their own hands and improvised within the constraints of the story. By far the most gleeful culprits were the characters who were not a part of the outline and just appeared out of thin air as they were needed. This includes Bashar, a toady of the main antagonist, and Amal, one of Khadija’s closest friends. The following is a small snippet of conversation between the two which refers to Amal’s young daughter Zubaina:
“Sometimes I wonder,” Amal said in a conversational tone early the next morning in the comfort of her room in Imam Fatima’s apartments, “if I enjoy watching Zubaina grow up more, or you. It is really quite extraordinary.”
Khadija gave her friend an exasperated look. She had just finished pouring her heart out and did not appreciate the flippant response.
“No, I mean it.” Amal said, taking a sip of coffee. “Helping you is like my practice for Zubaina. God willing she grows up with you as a role model and I’ll be ready when she flowers into adulthood.”
“Are you saying that I’m not an adult?” Khadija groused.
“Yes, that is exactly what I am saying,” Amal replied with a small smile.
Khadija grew even more frustrated. Sometimes she wondered why she even bothered talking to Amal at all.
The most delightful improvisations came from Khadija herself. While the outline gave her a lot to do, for both good and ill, she filled in the gaps of her personality in surprising ways. My outline did not note how irritated she would get at her friends and neither did it specify that she hated the rain. Both of these came out in the writing
I hope readers find similar wonderful surprises in reading the story that I got from writing it.
LINKS:
BIO:
Aamir Hussain (He/Him) is many things, North American from Canada, South Asian from Pakistan. A Muslim of the Shia denomination. A Father, Husband, Brother, and Son.
He also enjoys thinking and rambling about religion, politics, technology, and table top roleplaying games. All of which are very tedious topics for his family and friends. So he chooses to subject his readers to them instead.