Vulgar History - Author Interview： Jamila Ahmed (Every Rising Sun)

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00:01:00.000 Hello, and welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is

00:01:17.620 Anne Foster, and today I'm really excited to share with you this conversation I had

00:01:21.320 with author Jamila Ahmed. Her debut novel, Every Rising Sun, has just come out, and it

00:01:26.880 is a retelling of the story of Scheherazade, whose name might be familiar to you. We talk in

00:01:31.560 the interview about who she is in literature and what story you might know about her already.

00:01:36.780 In this book, it's a first-person story where Scheherazade is the main character. It's set

00:01:40.880 in 12th century Persia, and the story moves around to various other places in the medieval

00:01:47.440 Islamic world. It's a really fascinating combination of storytelling and also historical

00:01:53.120 fiction, and also Islamic history. And it's really fascinating. And I hope you enjoy this

00:01:57.580 conversation with Jamila Ahmed. So I'm joined today by Jamila Ahmed. And welcome so much,

00:02:05.680 Jamila. Thanks, Anne. Thank you for having me on Vulgar History.

00:02:09.920 So you're here as the author of Every Rising Sun, which is a retelling. Well, it's several things.

00:02:16.300 It's a historical fiction, but it's also a retelling of the story of Scheherazade. So I

00:02:21.760 I was hoping you could first, just to get everybody settled into a time and a place,

00:02:25.720 explain your inspiration.

00:02:27.460 What's the story of Scheherazade that you're familiar with?

00:02:31.340 Yeah.

00:02:31.660 So Scheherazade is the original storyteller of the Arabian Nights or 1001 Nights or Al-Fleila

00:02:38.740 Wa Leila, which is the Arabic title for the work.

00:02:41.800 And 1001 Nights are essentially a collection of various folktales from Persia, the Middle

00:02:50.720 East, some even that are inspired by Indian folktales, started kind of coalescing around

00:02:56.780 the Middle Ages, around like the 900s, 800s, so quite early on. And, you know, there are different

00:03:03.820 versions of the 1001 Nights. There's an Egyptian version, there's a Syrian version, there's also

00:03:09.340 the versions that came to Europe in the 1700s. And they all have different stories, right? Some

00:03:15.220 are shorter, some are longer. It's really interesting, kind of the development of the

00:03:18.980 Arabian Nights themselves. But what is the overarching thread of the Nights is the frame

00:03:25.360 narrative of the storyteller, Scheherazade. And that's in every single version of the Nights.

00:03:30.980 It's a frame story, right? And so the actual meat of the 1001 Nights is the internal folk tales that

00:03:38.280 are collected, but they are threaded through with the story of Scheherazade. In basically every

00:03:44.580 version of the knights, Scheherazade is a Persian noble woman. She is the daughter of the vizier. 0.79

00:03:52.220 And the kind of initiating incident of the knights, as well as in every rising sun,

00:03:57.520 is that there is a king. He is married to his wife. He finds his wife in flagrante with a slave,

00:04:05.700 a servant, and he loses it. He loses his gosh darn mind. And he kills his wife. And then he 0.99

00:04:15.460 starts marrying a virgin every night and killing her the next day. And at some point in this 1.00

00:04:22.140 process, Scheherazade, the daughter of the vizier, steps in and she's like, something's got to give.

00:04:27.000 Somebody has to stop this. It's going to be me. And so she marries the king. And as a way to

00:04:34.780 extend her own life, but also stop this process of weddings, beddings, and beheadings. She starts

00:04:41.660 a story on the night of their wedding. And then as the sun rises, cuts it off at a cliffhanger.

00:04:48.200 And then the king is very intrigued and lets her live another day to finish the story,

00:04:53.800 but she keeps doing this, right? So she keeps starting a story and then cutting it off at a

00:04:58.880 cliffhanger. And basically extends her life out for those 1,001 nights until, spoiler,

00:05:06.580 in the original Arabian Nights, not in my book per se, but in the original Arabian Nights,

00:05:11.120 he decides to spare her life, stop these killings, and they live happily ever after.

00:05:16.780 Do you remember when you first encountered this story, like her story?

00:05:22.400 I honestly, I can't remember exactly when I first encountered the story of Scheherazade

00:05:27.680 precisely. It's definitely, you know, she's a character that I feel like I've always known,

00:05:33.380 but I do remember being in elementary school and reading this illustrated edition of the

00:05:39.180 Knights for Children. And, you know, again, the real meat of the story of like the original Knights

00:05:45.280 is the folktales themselves. But what I loved the most was the story of the storyteller, right?

00:05:52.200 And so, you know, Scheherazade is, it's kind of funny, kind of from like the Knights themselves,

00:05:57.020 because she's a Sasanian noblewoman,

00:05:58.860 which is a pre-Islamic Persian empire.

00:06:00.760 But the stories themselves are very much rooted

00:06:03.100 in the Islamic world.

00:06:05.500 And so she is ostensibly in this like fictional pastiche, 0.54

00:06:10.440 a Muslim character.

00:06:11.500 And so I'm also Muslim.

00:06:13.020 And so having this very strong, dynamic,

00:06:15.640 like really interesting, heroic, right?

00:06:17.600 This very heroic Muslim woman

00:06:19.440 be the authorial voice in this narrative

00:06:22.400 was I felt very kind of inspired by that.

00:06:25.960 And I wanted more of that girl's story.

00:06:30.000 And there are a few retellings that focus Scheherazade that are floating around, but

00:06:34.340 I didn't feel like any of them really grappled with the history of the era in the same way

00:06:41.120 that I wanted.

00:06:42.080 And that's kind of what really drew me to start writing this book, which I started when

00:06:46.020 I was 17.

00:06:46.740 So it was very much born out of my own childhood interests, which I started writing as technically

00:06:52.360 a child.

00:06:53.580 So you just mentioned the history of it all. So can you explain the time and the place that

00:06:58.840 your book is set in? Because assume, assume that I, which I basically is true, know very little

00:07:05.600 about early medieval Islamic countries. Yeah. So the book is set, it's actually,

00:07:13.700 it takes place. It's not a thousand and one nights, it's about a year or so.

00:07:18.480 So it's very specifically set between 1191 and 1192. And it spans quite a bit of the Islamic

00:07:27.360 world at the time in terms of the actual physical narrative that's ongoing. So we start the story

00:07:32.520 off in Persia. And at the time, Persia is ruled by the Seljuk Empire. And the Seljuk Empire,

00:07:39.100 you know, is this Turkic empire. So Central Asian folks that kind of came down in the 900s to

00:07:46.100 Persia and, you know, basically established their dominance. But it also was quite an extensive

00:07:51.420 empire. At one point, you know, they ruled over the Abbasid empire. They ruled all the way up to

00:07:57.740 the Anatolian empire in Turkey. And so there was a Seljuk empire in Turkey. There was a Seljuk

00:08:02.260 empire in Persia. There were Seljuks in Syria. They were sort of all over, but I'm very specifically 0.93

00:08:07.280 focusing on the Seljuk empire in Persia. And in the late 1100s, the Seljuk empire is in its flop

00:08:15.560 era in Persia, right? They kind of peaked in the late 1000s, essentially. And then they've been in

00:08:22.300 this decline over the last, let's say, 50 years. There's been a number of incursions from various

00:08:29.780 invading forces, Orhus, Turks, Khwarezmids, the Abbasid Empire, at this point, the Abbasid

00:08:36.180 Caliphate. They're rising in power as well. And this is played out in the narrative as well,

00:08:42.420 of the book, but they sort of have beef with the Seljuk empire. And so they're funding a lot of

00:08:47.340 these incursing new forces that are chipping away at the Seljuk empire. The Seljuk empire is a bit

00:08:53.260 fragmented. In Persia, there's one kind of suzerain overlord sultan, but the provinces

00:09:00.720 are ruled by different Maliks. It's sort of becoming every Malik for themselves, which makes 1.00

00:09:06.000 it very easy for these incursing powers to come in and just chew away at the Seljuk Turks in Persia. 0.97

00:09:14.920 But it's also an interesting time period in that it is this very blended culture, right? So

00:09:19.080 the Seljuk Turks have their own Turkic culture, which then mixes in with this very strong Persian

00:09:25.820 tradition of literature and poetry and language. And it's sort of this very unique blend for that

00:09:33.820 era, just from a cultural standpoint as well. So that's like kind of where the book starts.

00:09:39.320 And then there's a section where they go, where they're in Baghdad and the Abbasid Empire,

00:09:44.760 which is, you know, they're doing well for themselves at this point. And it's like this

00:09:48.920 really, and what I really wanted to focus on there was just that kind of highlighting the

00:09:52.380 glories of that empire and how just, you know, just the wealth and the culture in that space.

00:09:58.080 And so the Abbasid Empire is, Abbasid Caliphate is one piece of it.

00:10:03.520 And then the third kind of historical piece, set piece of the novel is the third crusade.

00:10:08.960 And so that's taking place in Palestine.

00:10:11.260 Parts of it kind of connect into Syria a bit, but we're set in Palestine for the book.

00:10:15.760 And it is, it's a crusade with some names that people are familiar with probably.

00:10:20.180 So there's Sultan Saladin, there is Richard the Lionheart, and they're kind of going at

00:10:26.080 it over dominance of the Holy Land. 0.68

00:10:28.080 But I tell that story not from the crusader perspective, but from the perspective of the Muslims, right? How it feels to be defending your homeland against these invaders who perceive you as barbarians and also have this religious incentive to basically destroy you and your home. And so these are kind of the three major historical points that the book maps onto.

00:10:52.200 too. And I just see in your biography here, just that I found online, that you've studied

00:10:58.760 medieval Islamic history. So this is stuff that you know very well, sounds like, clearly.

00:11:04.200 Yeah, I mean, you know, I think there's, it's a very rich era. So I would not

00:11:07.980 posit myself as an expert, right? It was, I, this is a college major. And, you know,

00:11:15.700 but it was very much kind of governed by my interest in medieval Islamic history that

00:11:21.220 predated my college studies, right? Like I think the book, which I started writing as a senior in

00:11:25.780 high school sort of drew me into this piece of history as well. And so a lot of what I studied

00:11:32.860 in college ended up blending into the book, even if I didn't directly study, like take classes on

00:11:39.960 Seljuk Persia, which is sort of a niche time period, right? It isn't as if it's one of those

00:11:44.100 big historical eras that there's been a lot of academic work in. Although one of the cool things

00:11:49.180 out working on this book for so long, like over a decade, was that in the time period that I

00:11:53.940 started working on it and the time period I ended it, there actually had been like a lot of really

00:11:58.460 strong Seljuk scholarship occurring, Seljuk Persian scholarship in particular, which I was

00:12:03.060 then able to like adapt into the book to try and like, you know, iron out some historical

00:12:07.940 details to really bring it to life. The way that you've put together this story of Scheherazade

00:12:13.820 in this very specific time and place is really, it's really interesting. And it really grounds

00:12:19.940 the story in a way where I was like reading it. And then I was just kind of like flipping back

00:12:24.200 and forth, just reading, I don't know, just finding some brief articles for myself to be

00:12:27.800 like, where is this? What is this? And like, wait, what is the story of Scheherazade? Just

00:12:30.540 trying to figure out what you were pulling from real history and what was kind of your own

00:12:35.860 invention. It was like you weave a magical spell, not unlike Scheherazade in this book where I was

00:12:42.160 carried along and I was so, so much enjoying it. And I think you have in the character of

00:12:47.780 Sheherazade, the way you described the story at the beginning of this interview, that she is such

00:12:52.940 a force, such a heroic character, like she chooses to marry this king. And I don't know if I had

00:12:59.040 appreciated that when I've kind of vaguely knew her story before. So how did you go about turning

00:13:04.620 her into the heroine of this book? I mean, I think you've already got a lot of really great,

00:13:08.940 strong material there to begin with. Yeah. I mean, I think for me, right, that was always

00:13:14.380 the most fascinating part. Like what is the psychology of a person who would throw themselves

00:13:19.100 into the lion's mouth like that? And she's a young woman, right? She's like a teenager,

00:13:24.280 both in my novel, but also, you know, in the original night, she's an unmarried woman in 0.73

00:13:29.680 like the middle ages, right? She's not going to be, they married early back then. That was always

00:13:34.440 really fascinating for me. And, but I wanted a character that felt real, like kind of like a

00:13:38.620 real teenager, but also somebody who was smart and was learning. And that's a big part of her

00:13:45.360 arc for me is that she starts this book out with certain preconceived notions about the role of

00:13:50.320 women maybe, or who gets sympathy, whose story gets told. And that grows over time. She also,

00:13:58.260 I think, makes a lot of mistakes or makes decisions. I would say here's what she does. 0.73

00:14:02.960 She makes decisions based off of imperfect information that she has leading to imperfect 1.00

00:14:07.520 results. And then she has to scramble to resolve those issues too. But I think for her, she's 1.00

00:14:13.460 always trying her best. She has a strong moral compass about wanting to do right by people,

00:14:20.160 do right by the people she loves. And that for me was the thread of the character that I was

00:14:26.480 consistently trying to pull out. But she's also learning about herself in this process. She's

00:14:31.480 learning what does it mean to love somebody? What does it mean to be loved? What does it mean

00:14:35.360 to not love just people, but love like an empire, right? Love a culture. What does it mean to

00:14:43.440 really put yourself out there in this broader world as a young woman and be taken seriously?

00:14:49.640 What does it take to be taken seriously? And so there's all these kinds of different character

00:14:53.580 dynamics of Scheherazade that I'm trying to develop into a hopefully satisfying conclusion

00:15:01.660 at the end. And also let's talk about the story, the stories within the story, because what

00:15:09.200 Scheherazade is known for in, in the thousand one nights, and then also in your book as well,

00:15:14.060 as she is a naturally gifted storyteller. So your book contains the stories or many of the stories

00:15:20.320 that she tells. How did you, how did you decide what the stories were going to be that she was

00:15:25.160 going to tell? Yeah. So the stories are inspired by the nights, but they're all original. Like

00:15:31.100 None of them, I'm not readapting or retelling internal folktales that already exist.

00:15:36.720 These are very much kind of created for the book, but they also, I think, are inspired

00:15:41.680 in a lot of ways by the stories within the knights. 0.94

00:15:45.300 And so, for example, there's one story where they have to burn these different colored

00:15:49.040 fish to try and get some kind of message across.

00:15:52.640 And that was in one of the knight stories that I read.

00:15:55.260 And I thought that was so weird and so funny and I wanted to incorporate it.

00:15:57.800 So like little details like that are incorporated throughout to give it that feeling of time and place and authenticity. But the stories themselves are all, you know, made up by me and by my Shahrazad. And then in terms of like where it all kind of ended up, like I am not a big planner when it comes to stories.

00:16:20.300 the book itself kind of just was just like step by step by step there wasn't this like kind of

00:16:26.900 overarching plan like I kind of knew the destination and I knew where it began and

00:16:31.180 then the middle was just whatever happens and kind of similar with these stories as well these

00:16:37.520 internal stories and I actually originally so the stories that are told are it's like one

00:16:44.620 overarching narrative it is in a bunch of smaller narratives and I'd originally wanted like a bunch

00:16:49.760 of distinct folktales the way that it is in the original Nights. But then I ended up just creating

00:16:54.500 this longer story within a story. Although again, within that internal story, there's a bunch of

00:17:01.060 other little stories as well to get that kind of pastiche of folktales across. But it sort of just

00:17:06.840 happened. It's also, I think, you have to also keep in mind, what is Scheherazade trying to do

00:17:11.540 with these stories? She is trying to remind, to bring back her murderous kind of woman-hating 0.99

00:17:17.900 husband, to this fact of, listen, women are people. We're not all horrible. We make mistakes.

00:17:23.660 But like men, we are fully fledged people. And you shouldn't have a vendetta against all of them

00:17:28.580 based off of being harmed by one woman. And so there's that piece of it. There's also this piece

00:17:32.700 of Scheherazade working through a lot of her own issues in these narratives as well.

00:17:39.040 And it's just such a challenge to you as a writer. I'm just imagining writing the story,

00:17:44.200 grounding it in the history, and then also putting the story within the story.

00:17:46.880 but then making those stories sort of resonate with what's going on it's I don't know congratulations

00:17:52.260 honestly that you put that together thank you thank you very much it's a lot you're describing

00:17:59.540 that I'm like oh my gosh yeah just reading it you know I'm just like I was along for the ride but

00:18:04.480 when you're describing kind of how you put it together I'm like oh my gosh yeah so much work

00:18:07.580 would have gone into making this very readable story can you talk about Scheherazade's sister

00:18:12.520 and that character. And now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.

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00:20:42.320 Yeah, so her sister's named Duniazad, and she is similarly, she's in the original Nights,

00:20:48.060 and she is like Scheherazad's best friend, I think, is what always comes across to me.

00:20:53.780 She is in there with her in the bedroom, prompting her stories, being a support.

00:21:00.780 And I loved that dynamic so much.

00:21:03.400 The dynamic between these two sisters who really adore each other.

00:21:06.320 But also, I wanted to create a very lifelike sister relationship, right? 0.99

00:21:10.100 And so Dunya is Scheherazade's number one cheerleader, but also, I think, calls her on her shit a lot. 0.74

00:21:17.740 and they have this like really like they both think like the other is like the best person in 0.98

00:21:23.800 the world but also maybe sometimes the most annoying person in the world right which i think

00:21:27.180 is very true to a sibling dynamic but i also wanted her to have her own not just be sheherazad's

00:21:33.180 shadow but also have her own kind of arc and her own struggles and so you know she experiences her

00:21:39.760 own loss and then the ending of the book very much hinges on dunya's actions uh but in some

00:21:45.980 ways she's also following in her sister's footsteps. And then how did you go about

00:21:50.400 developing the character of Scheherazade's husband? Yeah. So Shariar was kind of a very

00:21:56.600 fun character to write and I wanted to give him nuance. So he is, you know, he is the one who's

00:22:02.200 out here killing all these women because one woman cheated on him. Right. And that's not a 0.96

00:22:07.100 very likable character at bottom. You're like this man low key sucks. But I also, I think to 1.00

00:22:13.800 create a book where you're sort of interested in the character they just can't be 100% evil and so

00:22:18.860 I have this beginning where like you know he is really sweet with like Scheherazade and you can

00:22:22.900 tell that he like likes her as a person and there's like some flashbacks as well where you can see

00:22:27.820 that he was when they first like came to the palace he was incredibly kind when they were

00:22:32.120 children after they lost their mother he was incredibly kind to her so he has this like

00:22:36.280 kernel of kindness and it and it flashes in and out throughout the book but he's also like a very

00:22:42.040 hurt man. And I think unfortunately, a lot of, I think it's very true to life that like when men

00:22:46.380 are hurt, particularly by women, they turn to violence and that's not great. But at the same

00:22:51.540 time, like, I think I'm, you know, I'm politically, I'm, you know, somewhat of like a prison

00:22:57.200 abolitionist. I do believe in redemption and I don't want this idea that a character is completely

00:23:02.380 irredeemable. And so there has to be this like kind of core of humanity that is in Shariar to

00:23:10.020 make that make sense. But then they do have this great... Shahriyar and Shahrzad do have this great

00:23:15.660 dynamic, which I think over time does develop into genuine respect. And I think as Shahriyar

00:23:22.700 feels this respect developing and this care for this person, he'll rubber band away from her a

00:23:30.440 little bit or react to that because he's not ready for the emotional intimacy that that kind

00:23:36.440 of thing for sages. Right. And so he was a very complex character and I wanted to have this like

00:23:41.200 kind of complex dynamic between Scheherazade and him where Scheherazade at one point, like at like

00:23:47.420 in one way feels a great deal of disgust at his actions that discuss kind of grows over time as

00:23:52.980 well. But then also, you know, she has this childhood crush on him and there it's hard for

00:23:57.720 her to shake that feeling of like a first love for him as well. And so she's kind of juggling both of

00:24:02.400 these really big emotions with this very kind of emotionally volatile man.

00:24:08.300 Another main character in the book is Scheherazade's father. Can you talk about how you

00:24:12.240 developed that character? Well, I mean, to me, as somebody, I'm aware of the Thousand One Nights,

00:24:18.860 but thinking about things like Aladdin and whatever, the role of the vizier is one that I'm

00:24:25.420 aware of would have existed in these sorts of courts, and that's her father's role. So what

00:24:30.360 were you what were you thinking when you're developing that character yeah so you know he

00:24:34.160 is the vizier and he that again that's like something from the original knights the daughter

00:24:37.060 of the vizier shahrazad and so i um kind of had that in mind and then you know vizier is basically

00:24:43.820 a counselor like number one advisor to the king right he is the king's right hand man and so

00:24:50.200 that's what i wanted for that was her dad's role and i really just wanted a father who's like

00:24:55.140 trying to do right as a counselor but also by his own daughters and who genuinely like he's like a

00:25:01.340 hashtag girl dad right he loves his daughters adores them and also has a great deal of love

00:25:07.960 for shariar like kind of sees him as a son and then is very just like disgusted by what his what

00:25:13.060 like shariar is doing and kind but is also sort of at like cannot figure out how to manage this

00:25:18.280 situation and so shahrazad goes to her father and is like put me up as his next wife

00:25:25.480 And then her dad is not happy about it,

00:25:28.920 but also I think sees her point to some extent

00:25:31.860 and has faith in her that she can do this.

00:25:34.500 And so I think against,

00:25:36.420 in some ways against his better judgment,

00:25:38.480 agrees to take this path.

00:25:40.400 But, you know, he is like at all times

00:25:42.460 like a very like supportive, loving father.

00:25:44.820 In a lot of ways, he's inspired by my own dad.

00:25:47.520 And, you know, for me, it was also important

00:25:48.820 just like kind of from a perspective

00:25:50.500 of writing about Muslim characters

00:25:52.900 to have a father who is happy to have daughters, right?

00:25:58.100 Cherishes his daughters, respects his daughters,

00:26:00.120 isn't out here like, oh, I want sons,

00:26:01.880 like kind of pushing back against like certain stereotypes

00:26:03.900 about what Muslim men are like.

00:26:06.760 And that he is this very like sensitive soul

00:26:08.860 in a lot of ways is kind of moves more quietly,

00:26:12.060 I think, than folks might expect.

00:26:16.200 I think that that comes across.

00:26:18.180 It's, I just really want to let the listeners know

00:26:20.720 who haven't read your book yet,

00:26:21.860 that all the characters are just really, really well-developed and really well-rounded.

00:26:25.660 And it's an era and time in history that I had not read a book about before.

00:26:30.660 But just I think the characters are also kind of relatable and understandable.

00:26:33.960 Like it just draws you in.

00:26:36.000 Yeah.

00:26:36.400 I mean, what I really wanted, right?

00:26:38.380 Like at bottom, like there's all this history that goes into it,

00:26:41.480 but it's just like a hella dramatic narrative, right?

00:26:44.340 Like I love a dramatic story.

00:26:47.000 And so, you know, there's all this stuff that's kind of setting place in the time.

00:26:50.560 but really i think at bottom it's just like a bunch of interesting people doing weird stuff

00:26:55.700 and just causing all kinds of shenanigans and drama and that was always like the first byword

00:27:01.220 for me in this book so did you find you mentioned a couple times that you started writing this when

00:27:06.020 you were a teenager you're now an adult person like how your understanding of the characters

00:27:11.200 or how the story developed like as you matured yourself did you see that journey in the characters

00:27:17.560 Yeah, I think, like, the, I think, you know, Scheherazade, when she starts the book, holds

00:27:21.400 maybe slightly, like, unsympathetic retrograde views about certain things.

00:27:25.720 You know, in particular, she does not have a lot of sympathy for Shariar's adulterous

00:27:30.600 wife. 1.00

00:27:31.480 And she's like, yeah, she's like a bad woman. 1.00

00:27:33.360 She did a bad thing, and she deserves a bad ending.

00:27:35.520 And that was kind of my view, too, when I was 17, right?

00:27:38.020 Like, when I, you know, first read The Knights, I was like, this is a natural conclusion for

00:27:41.500 this woman's arc.

00:27:42.360 And then through the course of the book, Scheherazade is put in these positions where she is not able to act perfectly, right? And where she feels herself constricted by her role in some ways and by the expectations of that. And she starts seeing like, okay, I can actually understand why somebody made a series of terrible decisions that led to this fate. And maybe they do deserve more empathy and sympathy than I had originally given them.

00:28:07.840 And for me, that was also part of my own growth from childhood to adulthood, right?

00:28:12.200 Like stepping away from being very sheltered and kind of going into a world where I'm making

00:28:16.480 my own mistakes and feeling like, you know what, I can see why people do things that

00:28:22.140 are not great and maybe they deserve more grace than is provided to them.

00:28:27.680 There's a part towards the end of the book where I think Scheherazade, it's mentioned

00:28:31.060 that she's 20 years old at that point, I think.

00:28:33.840 And I was like, oh my gosh, like it felt like so much has happened.

00:28:36.900 And I'm like, but that's just been a year.

00:28:38.560 Yeah, she's still an extremely young person.

00:28:41.260 But just so I don't know.

00:28:42.520 I was imagining by that point, she was like 25 or something.

00:28:46.060 But yeah.

00:28:47.320 She starts the book when she's 19.

00:28:49.580 And then actually, I aged her up a little bit with my own age.

00:28:51.980 I think initially, I made her 17, which was my age at the time.

00:28:55.300 And then I felt like, you know what, she is making a lot.

00:29:00.580 She's making mistakes, but also is operating a little bit more maturely.

00:29:06.140 So I like gave her two more years. I was like, you've earned the Shahrazad. You are the ability

00:29:10.440 to be 19. It's just the sort of thing where like, I don't know, I just lost track and I'd forgotten

00:29:17.460 how young she was, but you're right. Like everything you're saying about how her understanding

00:29:21.540 of things and how it develops, it's very much like a thing that I think a lot of people go

00:29:25.360 through between ages, I don't know, you know, 16 to 20 or something, but she's just doing it in this

00:29:30.400 extremely dramatic life or death sort of way. Yeah, exactly. And honestly, again, I think

00:29:37.140 initially when I planned the book, I planned for it to last three years. And then I got to a point

00:29:43.740 where I was like, I can actually get this arc done in one year. So it's 365 Arabian Nights,

00:29:48.600 my bad. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, the story has been retold so many times. I was just before

00:29:54.160 just preparing this interview, I was looking up kind of a bit about the history of the book and

00:29:57.300 like some versions of it, it's always called A Thousand and One Arabian Nights, but some of them

00:30:01.000 have like a hundred stories. Like it's not always, yeah, that many nights. Yeah, exactly.

00:30:06.880 How would you describe this book set in the time and place, the story it's telling coming out in

00:30:11.780 2023? Like you started it, you know, many things in the world were different at that time, but it's

00:30:18.020 coming out into the world now. Like what, what sort of connections do you see to today's world

00:30:22.220 with your story? When I started this book, it really was in the midst of the Iraq war and the

00:30:29.100 occupation in Iraq, occupation and war in Afghanistan. And a part of the underlying drive

00:30:37.120 of the book too, was to challenge a lot of preconceived notions about the Muslim world,

00:30:42.040 right? This idea that it's like violent and barbaric and oppressive to women. And I really

00:30:46.460 wanted to highlight like you know there is obviously this is this is the world today this

00:30:51.860 is the world a thousand years ago there is always violence occurring but it's not culturally specific

00:30:56.520 by any means but also specific to um the medieval islamic world and the islamic tradition it is very

00:31:02.700 rich in like literature and poetry and history and sophisticated in a way that you know is more

00:31:09.280 than comparable to european courts at the time right it is it's a very relatable world in a lot

00:31:14.620 of ways, but it's also unrelatable in the sense of how learned a lot of people were and how

00:31:19.140 sophisticated. And so I really wanted to kind of drive that through the richness of the Uvr at

00:31:23.620 the time. And so throughout the book, I'm talking about books Scheherazade is reading, books other

00:31:27.380 people are reading, poems, and just like philosophy. And there's like this great library

00:31:32.860 called the House of Wisdom, Bayt al-Hekma in Baghdad that they visit. And it's just this

00:31:37.800 like repository of, you know, works upon works, which actually was burned in 1250 in the Mongol

00:31:43.720 invasion, unfortunately, but, you know, there is just this like really rich world. And also

00:31:48.000 kind of like centering Baghdad as like a part of the book was again, like a response to like 0.73

00:31:53.800 the decimation devastation of the city and the whole country that occurred because of American

00:31:58.400 war. And, you know, I think it's easy in some ways to be like, oh, well, you know, if we bomb 0.58

00:32:03.840 these countries, it's fine. Cause there's nothing going on there, but like quite to the contrary,

00:32:08.180 like you're destroying thousands of years of history. Right. I mean, similarly, there's a

00:32:12.940 part, there's a story within a story that occurs in Mogadishu, which we, you know, Black Hawk downed

00:32:18.660 in the 1990s, right? So like, there's a lot of parts of the world that American European forces

00:32:24.720 have destroyed in the last like 50 years. And what has been destroyed isn't just like rocks and sand,

00:32:31.760 it is thousands of years of human culture. Thank you for phrasing that so well, because I was just

00:32:39.000 reading about this part of the world. And it's been something I've been learning a bit more about

00:32:42.220 lately, but just like my, you know, Western education, when you learn about the Crusades,

00:32:45.920 it's like Richard the Lionheart, but it's like, no, this is what was going on. And this is how

00:32:49.840 learned of these people were. And this is the culture that was going on. I think that's so

00:32:52.760 valuable and so important to, yeah, just to make it be like, no, this is this, these areas have

00:32:58.600 their own incredible history as well. It's not just like a place full of, you know, enemies to,

00:33:04.380 to fight. Right. And it's part of global heritage too, right? It's not, it's like,

00:33:09.700 It's specifically Persian, Arab, African culture, but it's also global culture, the same way European culture is part of global culture, right? 0.75

00:33:18.400 And then even with Richard the Lionheart, whom you mentioned, who's venerated this great chivalric ideal, but he's dead-ass a war criminal, right?

00:33:27.740 So there is this massacre at Acre that I mentioned in the book that happened historically, where, you know, basically him and Saladin are negotiating over the exchange of prisoners in Acre.

00:33:39.240 And they have not just, you know, soldiers, but they also have women and children who are in prison at the garrison in Acre, like Muslim women and children, Arab women, Arab children and women.

00:33:49.800 And, um, they're negotiating over this exchange of prisoners and, you know, Richard the Lionheart

00:33:57.480 is demanding, you know, we want our prisoners back.

00:33:59.820 We want this piece, the true cross back.

00:34:01.700 And we also want however many a hundred thousand dinars, um, in exchange.

00:34:06.360 And they have, they have the prisoners and give the prisoners, they can give the true 0.58

00:34:09.940 cross. 0.94

00:34:10.260 We don't have the money.

00:34:11.880 And so they're trying to negotiate him down and Richard the Lionheart, instead of negotiating 1.00

00:34:17.400 agreeing to negotiations, basically takes all the prisoners out into the field where the Muslim army 0.95

00:34:23.620 can see what's happening and executes all of them, right? For this failure to negotiate. 0.96

00:34:28.520 And that is a real historical thing that happened, which is genuinely awful. And so I wanted to

00:34:33.140 include that as sort of a pushback, just kind of, not even pushback, just like gray, just like gray

00:34:37.800 these narratives, right? That like your heroes are not necessarily heroes to other people. And

00:34:42.500 that's important to keep in mind. No, exactly. And I think that's what's so important about

00:34:46.320 books like yours to just sort of expand out their different cultures, other sides of kind of

00:34:52.600 stories that are well known in a certain way to see what was going on on the other side as well.

00:34:57.900 So when this episode of this podcast comes out, your book will have just come out that week. So

00:35:03.080 I mean, best of luck with all of that. Do you have any events or anything that are coming up? Like,

00:35:08.240 is there a way that people can keep up with what you're doing with this book?

00:35:10.800 yeah so um i'm on twitter so you can follow me jamila amad underscore on twitter and there was

00:35:19.720 an event that already my debut launch event happened center for fiction for every rising sun

00:35:23.720 but definitely if you're interested in this stuff read read the book read every rising sun

00:35:27.320 i think it's pretty okay is my personal review um and as things pop up i will definitely post

00:35:34.420 them on twitter and um you know i hope people like it is i think there's a lot happening here

00:35:40.220 but like I said, first and foremost, it's a story. It is a, it's meant it's about people

00:35:47.020 being people and everything else that follows, I think is good, but really I hope people just

00:35:52.020 enjoy the story for what it is. Well, thank you so much for taking the

00:35:55.340 time to speak with me today. Yeah. Thanks so much, Anne, for having me. This has been delightful.

00:36:03.060 So this book we're talking about, Every Rising Sun, written by Jamil Ahmed,

00:36:06.840 is available now everywhere, wherever you get your books from. And it's such a fascinating

00:36:11.420 re-imagining of a story that some of us might have already known from 1001 Tales, but it's just,

00:36:18.480 what if Scheherazade was a main character? It's such a great idea. And as Jamila explained,

00:36:22.500 it was really such a passion project for her. So you can pick up that book wherever you get

00:36:27.140 your books. There's a link in the show notes. If you want to pick up a copy from bookshop.org,

00:36:31.180 using that link in the show notes, sends a little bit of money to help support me and this podcast.

00:36:35.600 You can keep up with this podcast on Instagram and threads at Vulgar History Pod and also on

00:36:41.440 TikTok at Vulgar History. There's Vulgar History merch is available at vulgarhistory.com slash

00:36:46.500 store. And also if you want to get early ad-free access to all episodes of Vulgar History,

00:36:51.240 well, you can get that by joining our Patreon. If you go to patreon.com slash Anne Foster Writer

00:36:55.680 for at least $1 a month, you can get the early ad-free access. And if you support us with at

00:37:00.580 least five dollars or more a month then you get bonus episodes as well and also membership into

00:37:05.260 our super secret sexy discord community which is a new thing we're doing which has been really fun

00:37:10.760 anyway thank you so much for listening i really hope you all read jumila's book 0.98

00:37:14.960 and until next time keep your pants on and your tits out 0.95

00:37:18.260 vulgar history is hosted written and researched by ann foster and edited by christina lumagi 0.99

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Vulgar History - August 04, 2023

Author Interview： Jamila Ahmed (Every Rising Sun)

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