Murjana: A Novel of Medieval Baghdad

by Ghada Karmi

A tale of love and passion in medieval Baghdad.

It is spring of the year 830. Baghdad, the capital of a vast Islamic empire, is one of the world’s most glorious cities. Its ruler is an intellectual, a forward-thinking caliph who champions reason and the pursuit of knowledge against the forces of ignorance and superstition. The Caliph’s court has become a dazzling academy of poets, musicians, philosophers, and theologians—a picture of a vibrant, self confident, pleasure-loving society.

Yet, it bears the fateful seeds of future strife. The Sunni-Shia divide, religious fanaticism, and the stirrings of Islamist extremism all started then. These themes emerge as the story of a passionate love that ends in murder unfolds.

The book opens with the Caliph at death’s door, struck down by a mysterious illness. His condition worsens as physicians desperately search for a cure. Only Abu Mansour al-Tabrizi, Baghdad’s most famous doctor, is able to diagnose the cause. The Caliph’s malady is a love-sickness akin to madness for a beautiful, young woman named Murjana. It is an affliction with only one remedy: marriage.

But Murjana is from a Shia family, and such a union could pose danger to a Sunni caliph and a Sunni society. From the start, forces are at play which threaten the caliph's happiness.

And yet the controversial marriage of Murjana and the Caliph goes ahead and captures Baghdad under its spell. The story of their love becomes an ode to the power of passion to erase boundaries. But enmity and vengeance stalk them, and only when tragedy strikes does division and conflict reveal their futility.

Genres: Historical Fiction

372 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2024

About the author

Dr Ghada Karmi was born in Palestine and then had to flee with her family when it became Israel. She grew up in Britain and now she's a doctor, author, academic, and well-know international commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Ghada still vividly remembers a huge bombing just behind her house in Jerusalem. "It was absolutely dreadful. I was bewildered, I was scared - I could see my parents were scared, which is very scary for a child because you think your parents know it all and they look after you. I knew, from that moment on, things had changed for us. I didn't know how, but things weren't going to be the same again."

After fleeing their family home, her family eventually settled in London. "My mother was very angry about the loss of the homeland. She didn't speak English, she didn't want to come that far afield, she just wasn't prepared. I'm afraid she never adapted, she stayed very Arab. I think it's a very great tragedy, one of the many, is people like my mother, who could not accept her exile, and was never really happy in Britain - and never found happiness again, in fact."

Unlike her mother, Ghada settled in fairly quickly. "I was a child. I made friends, I became very much part of the English way of life. I married an Englishman! I felt not just integrated, but assimilated."

Her idea for a one-state solution in the Middle East hasn't got much support as yet. "This is still a minority view. There is a constituency for it, on both sides, and also by the way among non-Jews and non-Palestinians, but the good news is - this constituency is growing. A few years back nobody was talking about the one-state solution. Today, three or four years on, we are hearing more and more voices raised in support. That, to me, shows that the trend is growing."

Reviews

[Wasen · Rating 2 out of 5]

So this novel is not particularly badly written, but there is something about it that makes reading it a little hard to get into. It took too long to get into, and it's not that there is an immense amount of descriptors or deep details of the characters. But it just never really gets there (don't ask me what's there, avid readers will know what I mean).

The story follows a few characters; the protagonist Murjana, The Caliph and the doctor, and some other side quest characters. We do get a little more about Murjana but just superficial background, there is not enough about her motivation, her character or her view of the world, there really isn't much to make you invested in the characters in general. You can tell from the start where this story is going. An older "king" falls for a beautiful young woman and of course he has to have her, they are from different backgrounds, religious sects and class, shock horror what a scandal. More like predictable, and of course, he gets what he wants. Murjana as a character is portrayed as basically a voiceless, clueless airhead who just gets dragged in different directions by all the men in her life. Probably as close to reality as it can possibly get but come on, as an author where is your liberty to make something of this fictional character, I am not saying alter the context but we don't even get a deep look into the turmoil the story tries to portray. Where is the unique artistic fingerprint to make the story your own. Anyway, the whole plan to kill the king is foiled and that's it a predictable ending but that's not the issue, it's how it falls into this story that's the issue. I do believe those obsessed with romance stories might get this whole novel better than I did.

But here's where we differ: I read this for the cultural and historical context, which is what drew me to the novel. I also read it, knowing who Ghada Karmi is and if you should know anything about her, she is a writer, a writer I say. So I am disappointed. Firstly, because her research background is on medieval medicine, I had expected much more substance to the story and more of a focus on the doctor in the story but that storyline was dead in the water before it had a chance to breathe. The epilogue was a brilliant read if you want to skip to that to understand the context and get a very brief history lesson. Alas, maybe there is a chance for someone else to utilise the research that's gone into this novel and come up with something closer to my expectations.

[Nimra · Rating 4 out of 5]

A richly drawn portrait of Abbasid Baghdad and totally delightful in that endeavor.

I just wish that the novel had been a bit more focused in terms of pacing, plot, and POVs (seriously too many unnecessary POVs). It could have been very tight and tense but instead meandered (is it a love story? A thriller? A murder mystery? — I think there was a lost opportunity here in not morre completely leaning into the political thriller it should have obviously been). And some of the characters were a little flat (Marjana - she’s sexy!; the Caliph - he’s horny and fickle!).

But if you’re looking for a clearly well-researched novel that drops you in a real-feeling medieval Baghdad, this book is excellent.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was generally an interesting novel about the Sunni Caliph of Baghdad, at the peak of the Abbasid Dynasty, who falls in love with a young girl from a relatively poor Shiite family. He falls ill with his longing for her, almost to the point of death, but on his doctor's advice, he marries the girl and is completely recovered and enchanted. There are all sorts of political ramifications with the Sunni-Shiite rift starting to widen significantly, and the intellectual and conservative interpretations of Sunni Islam starting to become noticeable during this Caliph's reign. Lots of people are not happy about the marriage.

The doctor's character is extremely well researched as the author is a doctor and has special knowledge of medieval practices in the region. There is some sort of mystery in the beginning, but by the time we came back to it at the end, I'd completely forgotten about it, which gave the novel a bit of a disjointed feeling. If you go with the flow and remind yourself of the first chapter, it is enjoyable. I felt like the author was more interested in passing on her knowledge of the time period than the storyline, so the story suffered a bit. Still worth a read if you have an interest in the era.

[Marsin Alshamary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Transporting and enchanting! There are plenty of historical details that are missed if you don’t know the history of the Abbasid Mamun-Amin conflict. My only criticism of the book is that the pacing was a bit off and the genre suddenly changed at the end. One of my favorite books this year!

[Maria Morfin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an extremely enjoyable novel, full of drama and well written romanticism.
The historical research is very well done, so it allows a glimpse into what Bagdad in the 9th century may have been like, and it's fascinating.
I very much recommend it.

[Laavanya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Had a hard time finishing. Could not get into the story at all and quit half way through. Disappointed.

[Nadia Halder · Rating 1 out of 5]

uncomfortable read, weird pedo-y relationship. hated it.

[Ariel]

I have such complicated thoughts on Murjana. It was gifted to me and so felt like something sort of picked out of the ether, not at all on my radar. As it's so newly published, I desperately wanted to talk about this book but could not find anyone who had read this yet -- so, I put this here, a little nervous as my review seems to be the very first.

First -- this book really compelled me. Deeply. I couldn't put it down! It felt like a soap opera in the best way. Fallible caliphs, religious schisms, and, best of all, the inner lives of women, seeking choice, safety, and contentment in the ways they can. I loved the omniscient perspective, although it lended the prose to being a bit too generous in tell-not-show exposition.

The plot simultaneously ensnared me and frustrated, bored, and ultimately disappointed me. The medieval-doctor murder mystery came too little, too late by the end. I found myself very annoyed with the pacing -- this story needed a tighter editorial hand.

I also disliked the titular Murjana. Perhaps some internal misogyny I need to investigate on my part, but I was exhausted by the endless descriptions of her beauty, her unwitting seduction abilities, her effect on other men. Not because I felt it was unrealistic, but because I related much more to other women who were scorned in favor of her. I wanted -- again, perhaps a bit too personally -- for her to meet a sour end, if only to put an end to the Caliph's madness. I did not find her or her backstory at all compelling. It would be silly to dislike her because she was passive and lacked agency -- that's the point -- but make for an interesting character I wanted to read, it did not.

The mechanics of her death (the cake poison) felt limp. Predictable, I can forgive, but by the time we got there, the poison was sooo overly discussed (not even foreshadowed, just outright discussed) that I figured, hoped, that her death, or anyone's death, would be something more dramatic. Whatever the means, the simple fact of her death did feel thematically appropriate and fulfilling of her arc -- she made her own choice, finally.

And in the end? We depart with a message about the need for Muslims to stay united, else the enemies of Islam triumph. An odd end, thematically, because it did not feel at all aligned with the rest of the book. If this was brought up earlier -- if the enemies of Islam were at all a presence in this story -- that would make this parting message a little more organic.

In fact, I'd say this book struggles with identity. It ambles between being a tragic star-crossed romance, a medical detective thriller, a sweeping historical tale, an exploration of women's lot in medieval Baghdad, or an examination of religious extremism. Books can be more than one thing, certainly, but I don't feel this book committed to any of one of those, leaving its (mostly) fascinating characters a little blurry amidst their meandering, muddied narrative. Strategic cuts to help with pacing would've also helped focus this story.

Whatever my criticisms, Murjana is a fun story, an interesting setting, and it hooked me in, so I'll give it a 3.5 -- maybe even a 4.