Desicritics.org
August 22, 2008 Friday 2:01 AM EST
Book review: The Stone Woman by Tariq Ali
by Vinod Joseph
Aug. 22, 2008 ( delivered by Newstex) — The Stone Woman is the third
book in Tariq Ali?s Islam Quintet. Set at the turn of the twentieth
century as the six hundred year old Ottoman Empire slowly flickers
out, the Stone Woman revolves around the family of Iskander Pasha, who
live in a remote palace ?
not too distant from Istanbul?. Iskander Pasha is a retired diplomat
who had once graced the French court and the salons of Paris and is
the descendent of Yusuf Pasha, a courtier at the Ottoman court.The
novel derives its name from an ancient rock in the palace garden,
roughly shaped like a veiled woman, probably once worshipped by pagans
as a goddess. Ali has each of his main characters make their way to
the Stone Woman and pour out their feelings and emotions. In that
sense, the Stone Woman is a collection of various personal tales of
the various members of the cast. Unlike the first two books in the
Islam Quintet, the Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree and the Book of
Saladin (, there is no single strand of storyline that runs from
beginning to the end.The Stone Woman gives its readers a feel of
Ottoman society as it existed then. Iskander Pasha?s family cannot be
classified as commoners, and just as in the case of the Shadows of the
Pomegranate Tree , aristocrats and their servants form the main
cast. Ali tells us of a dying empire where the Sultan and the mullahs
or the ?beards? are in control and where innovation is frowned
upon. Not just the printing press, but even clocks have been banned.
The muezzin?s call to prayer is the only means of knowing the
time. The reader is forced to wonder, can this be the same Ottoman
Empire which in 1453 captured Constantinople (or Istanbul) from the
Byzantines using the most advanced cannon of those times? The Ottomans
were definitely the masters of innovation then. Tolerant Sunnis, they
managed to run an inclusive empire where Arabs, Turks, Kurds,
Armenians, Bedouins, Greeks and Slavs were all invited to the party.In
the course of telling his tale, or rather collection of tales, Tariq
Ali makes references to various historical events. The increasing
animosity between the Kurds and the Armenians (which would later lead
to the massacre of 2 million Armenians during the First World War) is
brought out very well. To start with, it?s a simple case of the
Armenians having some of the best land and the Kurds coveting the
land. The inception of the Young Turks movement is also built into the
storyline. A young officer named Kemal Pasha makes a few cameo
appearances. The Young Turks have contempt for the decadent Ottomans.
They want to create a pure Turkish state where there will be no place
for Armenians or Greeks. Some of the minor stories are not really
relevant to this story, but they are interesting as well, such as the
rivalry and differences between the Ommayads and the Abbasids and the
reasons for the defeat of the Ottomans at Vienna in 1683.The main or
rather only the problem I have with this story is the same problem I
had with the Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree and the Book of Saladin
. In this story, Ali?s cast lead a life that would be called ?liberal?
by even modern-day standards. Iskander Pasha?s brother Mehmed and his
gay partner, a German Baron, have an open relationship. Iskander?s
third wife is Sara, a Jewish woman. Sara was in love with Suleman,
another Jew, but could not marry Suleman. After she was betrothed to
Iskander, she made sure she became pregnant with Suleman?s child
before marrying Iskander. Iskander eventually gets to know of this,
but does not really mind, because he is a man for whom ?blood
relations don?t matter in the least?. Iskander loves Sara?s daughter
Nilofer as much as any of his biological children. For the same
reason, when Iskander gets to know that woman he had an affair with in
France (during his diplomat days) had his child, he does not
particularly want to meet that child.Nilofer is allowed to marry
Dmitri, a Greek school teacher. Nilofer?s love for Dmitri cools after
a few years and she abandons him for her father?s palace. When Nilofer
is at the Palace, she has an affair with Selim, the family barber?s
son. At that time, Dmitri who is alone in Konya, is killed by Turkish
fanatics. Very soon, Nilofer marries Selim (who made an officer in the
army by her brother, a senior army officer) and they seem to be all
set to live happily ever after. One of Nilofer?s brothers marries a
Coptic Christian in Cairo and another brother marries a Shia
Muslim. Also, in the course of the story, when Iskander Pasha loses
his voice (please read this book to find out how and why) and later
regains it, he thanks August Comte and not Allah.I am not too sure if
families as liberal as the one described in this story ever lived in
the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the twentieth century. May be they
did. If they did, Ali would have done well to have told his readers
the source of his information.