From EI:
The imam who narrates Rasha al-Ameer’s “Judgment Day” is pulled in at least six different directions. The novel’s central character is claimed by a corrupt state, by Islamists, by the Quran, by poetry, by fame and by love. In a way, the eloquent TV-star imam is a Mutanabbi of our times.
Ameer’s novel, published in Arabic in 2002 and in English in the fall of 2011 (translated by Jonathan Wright), is constructed as the poetic memoirs of this unnamed imam. The imam is writing his life story as he is held in an Arab government’s “protective custody” after receiving death threats from Islamists. Throughout the imam’s memoirs, he writes of how state-sponsored mosques are being taken over by Islamists, and of his clashes with these Islamist forces.
The narrator of “Judgment Day” makes his stand firmly against the Islamists. He holds his position courtesy of a conservative Arab government (perhaps Syria) that placed him in this mosque in a more liberal country (perhaps the author’s native Lebanon). He is thus a government imam — or, at least, his eloquence is used by the government, just as Mutanabbi’s was sometimes used by the rulers of his day.
This battle alone is interesting and complex, and Ameer sympathetically portrays the state-sponsored imams who are struggling in vain to keep hold of their flocks. But the narrator’s situation puts him in a yet more complex position vis-a-vis both Islamists and the state.
The imam’s troubles — and blessings — multiply when he meets a young woman who wants his help in studying the poetry of Mutanabbi. The great Arabic poet is not just a literary device that encourages the two lovers to meet; his poetry is one of the central forces of the novel. At a recent book-launch event in London, Ameer spoke about the Quran and poetry as having a “rivalry.”
Thus, the corrupt state and strong-willed Islamists fight for the imam’s physical space just as Mutanabbi’s poetry and the language of the Quran war within him. Then another force develops: love. Keep reading.
