The Qadi and the Fortune Teller

by Nabil Saleh

A leather-bound manuscript is found hidden in a wall of a house in the rubble of Beirut in the late 1970s. It is the diary of a Muslim judge in Ottoman Beirut during 1843—a critical time for the Ottoman Empire and the European powers. The judge is Sheikh 'Abdallah bin Ahmad bin Abu Bakar al-Jabburi to the world, but simply Abu Khalid—father of Khalid—to his family and friends. In a sequence of stories and vignettes the diary tells of his work as a judge, the cases he has to deal with amid the political conspiracies and diplomatic intrigues of the times and the impact they have on his relations with others. Merchants, officials, family, friends and enemies are threaded in and out of a rich tapestry of events and reflections. A dragoman of the British Consulate seeks his help; Abu Kasim, his lifelong friend, asks for the hand of his unwilling daughter 'Aisha; and a young gypsy girl reads his palm. Subsequent family and political misfortunes change the judge's quiet life and shatter his dream of a pair of red slippers, in a dramatic crescendo with consequences he is unable to control.

Genres: Fiction

160 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1996

About the author

Nabil A. Saleh, writes historical fiction, spy stories and Islamic law (banking, corporation, contracts etc)

All books are published under the name Nabil Saleh and not Nabil A. Saleh.

Reviews

[Aliyah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love novels as a medium for learning history, and this would seem like a book right up my alley. But sometimes my issue with historical fiction is how contrived some things can seem. In this book in particular it was the Qadi's sexism that stood out to me as contrived. It's not that I doubt that patriarchy could take those forms in that time and place, in 1840s Beirut. I just wonder about the choice to make him a hypocrite regarding the women in his life, and the reasoning behind that. His character also displayed so much cognitive dissonance in his relationship with and attitudes towards Christians. But I suppose he was an appropriate person to pin some of the social anxieties of the time onto, considering his learnedness and his position to be astute about the political issues. Some very beautifully written passages were weaved into the longer, content-driven ones, but I was really only struck by the prose every once in a while, and not overall. For the life of me, I can't figure out why either the fortune teller or the red shoes should feature so prominently in the title and the cover art when their respective appearances seem so minor in the larger work.

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an assigned reading for my class in Ottoman history and I was pleasantly surprised with how good this was! I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but the use of the Qadi's actual diary was great and it really highlighted a lot of what we are studying in 19th century Ottoman Empire right now. It was a fast but excellent read, almost like a secret view into an unknown world. I definitely recommend it!

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

A selection for my Middle Eastern Book Club