Elizabeth Bootman's Blog, page 2

Our Sidekick Yusuf

In our Sulayman and the Green Lamp novel Yusuf is modelled very much from his namesake the Prophet Yusuf who was bullied and despised by his big brothers for his charm and beauty.  Yusuf is challenged by the sibling rivalry dynamic with our hero Sulayman and must struggle to emerge from his brother’s shadow into his own unique person.  In a way it is Yusuf who suffers the most from the tragedies in our first novel and our empathy for him must become Sulayman’s empathy in order for Sulayman to progress and pass his test.  A story like Sulayman and the Green Lamp can help us to see that while we are struggling and fighting external battles in our own experience that it is the small tiny voice inside us that knows the real war is with ourselves.

Yusuf’s dynamic with Sulayman shows us the nafs (the ego) of our hero and gives him his first foil.  If Sulayman cannot overcome this first and most important monster within himself he will not succeed in slaying a greater dragon.  Those of us who have more than one child see their rivalries all too clearly.  We see which child is endowed with more strength than wisdom and more will than sense.  Yusuf gives that contrast to Sulayman because Yusuf is a calm and introspective soul.  He sees, he thinks and he contemplates because he is not as brave and bold in the ways his brother is.

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Yusuf and Sulayman must work together in our story to succeed in much the same way all parents want their children to cooperate and help each other through life.  All parents know that one day they will be gone and so we implore our children to care for each other and to catch them when they fall.  When young and willful they see each other as rivals, but if they mature they see each other as allies.  It is a parent’s hope and prayer that when this alliance forms it will be strong enough to withstand the mortality of their parents and that there will be someone left to accompany them in the struggles of their life.  These deep and unspoken motivations colour our childhoods as our parents and grandparents try to prepare us to meet our future.

If you would like to know more about the Yusuf character in our story please see the prequel stories to Sulayman and the Green Lamp: The Tree of Light  or The Secret Blessing, both are partly fictional and partly historical and give a hint of the story at the Al Chemya school to come.

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Sulayman: The Hero of Sulayman and the Green Lamp

You may have seen our hero Sulayman in our previous books The Tree of Light  or The Secret Blessing.

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Our hero began his preparation for the Al Chemya school by learning from his Grandfather and playing with his brother, our sidekick Yusuf.  In our new novel Sulayman and the Green Lamp the boys are beginning their studies at Al Chemya, a famous Sufi school from the Golden Age of Islam.    What I am hoping to achieve with the Sulayman character is a model of the self evolving organism.  This is a philosophical concept that we as individuals needn’t wait millions of years to develop our higher capacities but that we may, through spiritual training, evolve within ourselves instead of awaiting the glacial flow of organic evolution.

In Sulayman I also wanted to avoid a flat character, or a character that is merely a sort of observer of the story instead of a driver of the story.  An example of a flat character would be Sherlock Holmes for instance, utterly brilliant but also utterly predictable.  It is my hope that Sulayman will at times surprise us, and himself, though his quests.  In our first novel Sulayman is beginning his studies at the Al Chemya school and he is struggling with some common base emotions like jealousy and anger.  He has very good reasons to experience these emotions but as the purpose of spiritual training is to master the nafs (the ego).  Sulayman must develop and become more than what he was in order to succeed in his quest.

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When I considered what a Muslim hero would look like it did seem like he would be a very physical sort, with a sword and bow.  These are elements of the story arc, but perhaps not in our first book.  I also wanted to emphasize that it is the internal, rather than the external struggle that is important.  As we all progress through life we see that there are people around us who never progressed past childhood in their behaviour and expression.  Infantile character challenges are normal to children but not normal in adults, however common they may be.  Among the other elements that Sulayman interacts with in the story each is at their own stage of development and our hero marks the line between the guided and the misguided in his relations towards the auxiliary characters.

If you would like to read about the preschool education of our hero Sulayman before he begins his studies at Al Chemya please see: The Tree of Light v.1 , The Tree of Light v.2 or The Secret Blessing

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Al Chemya School of Knowledge and Spirituality

In our story the Al Chemya School is an ideal amalgamation of the most famous universities of the Muslim world which include but are not limited to Al Azhar in Cairo, The Qarawiyyin in Fez and the Bayt al Hiqma in Baghdad from the Golden Age of Islam.  I will be writing specific articles on the ways in which these schools have influenced the fictional Al Chemya School but in this article I want to explain a little bit about the building itself.

The Koy-Krylgan-Kala complex of the Khwarazm oasis in Central Asia (Uzbekistan) is our inspiration for the architectural form of the Al Chemya citadel.  Koy-Krylgan-Kala is an obscure and mysterious structure that eludes archaeoastronomical analysis.  The complex geometry of the site is based upon the nine pointed star.  This star is the superficially understood underpinning of Central Asian Sufism having to do with the refinement of the human consciousness through spiritual training and balance around the points of the star.  Having said that the Koy-Krylgan-Kala complex is ancient.  The site is most likely a Zoroastrian temple but a solar orientation of any kind cannot be found making the purpose and origin of the peculiar structure or how the advanced geometry of the site came to be in such an ancient structure even more confusing to archaeologists.  I hope to share more information about this site in another post once I have prepared the artwork.

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In our story the floor plan of Koy-Krylgan-Kala is borrowed because of the significance of this complex geometry to Sufi philosophy and because our book series will later speculate on how the ancient Zoroastrian geometers received the design and why the site was constructed in the first place.

When I mediated on what and ideal Muslim school (or a Muslim Hogwarts) might be like I felt like the building itself had to be alive with a wisdom and spirit of its own.  The building could speak by moving things, like the tile patterns and the walls etc.  But I felt strongly that this animation should be subtle, and not obvious to all, at least not at first.  Over the course of the Sulayman series I would like to explore this idea further, and in book four when the school itself is in peril this animation would become more clear.  I hope to explore the concept of the Al Chemya school in subsequent posts but if this idea intrigues you or you have any references or suggestions on this post please leave me a message in the comments.  Writing is a process and one of the best parts is discussing your story and the elements that excite you with others is that more often than not the clever insights of the people around us can be incredibly valuable to the writing process.

Part of the overarching message of the Sulayman series is to give the highest forms of Islamic culture and science an historical context and to acknowledge that this high culture did not emerge from a vacuum but was part of a continuation of ancient and prophetic knowledge.  Stay tuned for more on the amazing culture, history and geometry of the ancient world and how it contributed to the Golden Age of Islam.

 

Why we need Sulayman and the Green Lamp

For several years before I began outlining for Sulayman and the Green Lamp parents were coming to my workshops, holiday parties and plays for children. They would tell me that they loved the Arabian Nights feel of our gatherings and how lovely it would be to have a children’s fiction series for the setting and stories we were celebrating.

I began to reflect on what these educated, progressive parents were speaking about, a fiction series that commented on their culture and our shared spiritual context. They would tell me that they wanted a Muslim Harry Potter. This sounded like a lovely idea and my sons had often asked me for the same thing when I wrote for them but it had been so long since I had written novel length fiction, although I did win a book award for young adult fiction in junior high.  My other books are short story books for children and reimagined history stories for young adults but Sulayman the Green Lamp is a more ambitious project and in the end I decided that I needed this series for my children as much as the other families that follow my work have expressed.

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I decided to test the genre by writing a series of histories where I would introduce my main characters and build their context while retelling the histories of the Prophets based on the stories of Hajjah Amina Adil (q). This was well received in my own Sufi community but not so well received by fundamentalist Muslims who did not appreciate any creative license in religious subject matter.  The spiritual Muslims continued to encourage me and say that “this was the genre they had been waiting for.”

Sulayman and the Green Lamp is a refreshing take on the Arabian Nights world and the reason we need it is that the identity and integrity of spiritual Muslims is under attack from both sides. Moderate Muslims are criticized by people who fear immigrants and moderate Muslims are also criticized by fundamentalists who want to control all aspects of our religion and more or less squash our spirituality. Spiritual Muslims are discouraged by extremists who do not want to celebrate Mawlid (our Christmas) and restrict other celebrations and creative endeavors. Those of us who ignore this pressure want more creative fiction for our children that touches on our identity, engages our spiritual dimension and celebrates the beautiful culture of the Muslim world. We want our children to identify with the beauty and to resist these other restrictive influences. I certainly hope that Sualyman and the Green Lamp is only the beginning of this genre and that similar fiction stories and series are created to share the beauty of many other cultures that are marginalized by fear and suppression.

If you would like a preview of the characters and style of the Sulayman and the Green Lamp series please see The Tree of Light Series and The Secret Blessing: The Dala’il al Kharyrat for Children.

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Timeline

Thank you for joining us here at Sulayman and the Green Lamp. We are still in the development stages of the novel and have just printed the 3rd draft!

Part of the process this week has been to make a timeline of the story to stay organized.

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There are still things that need to be added to the story so the timeline helps me to see the sequence of the story and where I need to go back and foreshadow certain elements and where I need to go back and add descriptions and conversations. So far the timeline has been very useful as I got through the first few chapters.

Thanks for following and please share your ideas for keeping your writing organized and your ideas for helping children explore creative writing.

The Journey Begins

Thanks checking out our new website!

If you are interested in following the story of Sulayman and the Green Lamp please subscribe.  We will have more posts soon about the process of this novel and the artwork.

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