Joan Fallon

New release : The City of Dreams Bk Two: The Pirate

16/10/2019

It's hard to believe that we are now in the middle of October, when here in Málaga there are still people lying on the beach soaking up the sunshine and swimming in a tranquil sea. Having lived by this particular stretch of the Mediterranean now for over twenty years, I knew that one day I would have to write about it, and the perfect opportunity came when I was thinking of the plot for Book Two in the City of Dreams trilogy.

You may remember that this historical series is set in the city of Málaga where, in the 11th century, the Mediterranean (or Middle Sea as it was known at the time) came right up to the fortified walls of the alcazaba. Those of you who have visited the area may recall how all along this coast there are Moorish watch towers, built as much to look out for pirates as any other enemy. Pirates were the scourge of the area, making lightning raids along the coast, sometimes for food and valuables, sometimes taking people to sell as slaves in north Africa. They left a trail of death and destruction behind them. Pirate ships were light and fast; each had a shallow draught so that they could get close to the shore and travel up rivers and estuaries with ease. Their main targets were the merchant ships that traded all along the Mediterranean coast. These ships were heavily laden, slow and often poorly defended. The lighter pirate vessels could easily outrun them. They also attacked fishermen and took their catch. Nothing was too small or insignificant for them.

So how could I write a trilogy about medieval Málaga without including the sea, and how could I talk about the sea without mentioning pirates?

In book two, the ambitious pirate captain, al-Awar, makes a lightning raid on the shipyard in Málaga and kidnaps Bakr, a master shipbuilder, and two of his workmen. Before anyone can do anything about it, they have disappeared. No-one has any idea why the pirates have taken them or where they have gone, but everyone agrees that only one of two fates await them: death or slavery. When Bakr’s wife receives the news, she is heartbroken but refuses to listen to those who say there is little hope of ever finding her husband alive. Instead she is determined to discover where the pirates have taken him. With the entire Mediterranean to hide in, finding the kidnapped men seems to be an impossible task, but she refuses to give up and motivates her family and friends to search for him.
At the heart of this novel is the tender love story of Aisha and Bakr’s deep feelings for each other. It is the thought of her that helps to keep him alive while he is in captivity with little prospect of ever seeing his home and family again, and it is her love for him that gives her the strength to never give up hope of bringing him home.

This fast moving and exciting historical novel takes the reader into the medieval world of the merchants and seafarers who sail along the western coast of the Mediterranean, and the pirates who terrorise them.

The Pirate is currently available as an ebook from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. On 26th November it will become available in paperback from both Amazon, on-line bookshops and (if you have one in your area) high street book shops.

If you haven't read Book One, The Apothecary, I recommend you read that one first as it will enhance your enjoyment of The Pirate.

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MOORISH SPAIN AND THE MEDITERRANEAN DIET

17/6/2019

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We’ve all heard of the Mediterranean Diet, but what exactly is it and what has it got to do with Moorish Spain? In a society concerned with increasing obesity in people of all ages, and the subsequent health issues that follow, more and more attention has turned to the need for improving our life styles, particularly our diet. Probably one of the most popular, and certainly the easiest of the numerous diets on offer, is the Mediterranean Diet, so called because it is the traditional combination of foodstuffs that the people living in Mediterranean countries have followed for centuries. But how many people today realise that this healthy and wholesome way of eating owes a lot to Moorish influence in the Middle Ages?
This recommended diet consists of a great number of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and pulses, together with fresh fish and seafood, all items that we can see on the supermarket shelves today no matter where we live. But did you know that much of this diet we owe to the Muslims who occupied Spain from the 8th until 15th centuries. The Christians may have expelled the last of the Moors in 1492 but they didn’t get rid of the legacy that they left in terms of cuisine, which has over the centuries spread across all of Europe.

Many vegetables and fruits that we now consider to be native to Spain were in fact introduced by the Moors, most of which they in turn brought from India, Africa, Persia and the Spice Islands. The climate of the Mediterranean was perfect for growing these crops, and masters of irrigation that they were, the Moors soon cultivated the land and planted large areas of wheat and rice. They also grew spinach, eggplants, artichokes, chard, radishes, celery, carrots and even asparagus, which up until then had been discarded as a weed.
The Moors introduced sugar to Europe for the first time by bringing sugarcane from the Nile valley. It grew particularly well along the Mediterranean coast and especially in the Málaga area of al-Andalus. Such was the liking for sweet foods that it became very popular in cakes, for making candied fruit and to sweeten fruit drinks, to preserve whole fruits and to make jams. One of the desserts that was as much in favour then as it is today, was churros, made from a doughnut type batter and deep-fried in oil, although in those days they preferred to cook it in boiling honey.

10th century Baghdad was the culinary centre of the age, where foods from Syria, Persia, India and Central Asia mingled. Much as today, food became not just a necessity, but a fashion which was soon picked up by the elite Muslim families. Oddly enough it was one man in particular who shaped our current way of eating. His name was Abu al-Hasan and he was born in Baghdad in 789 AD. He was a court musician and became known as Ziryab (the Blackbird) because of the beautiful music he both played and sang. But Ziryab wasn’t just a musician, he was the man who brought new ideas about fashion and food to al-Andalus. When he was in his early thirties he arrived in al-Andalus and presented himself at the court of Abd al-Rahman II. From then on, things changed. Up until his arrival in Spain, eating was a very basic affair. Ziryab introduced a degree of sophistication into mealtimes. Tables were fitted with tooled leather coverings instead of being bare wood; there was a range of cutlery to use and crystal glasses. Instead of piling all the food onto a single plate, regardless of what it was, he suggested it should be served in a number of separate courses: soup to start, followed by fish or meat with vegetables, then cheese and fruit or nuts, just as we know it today. His ideas spread first from the royal courts to the nobility and then down to the common folk, then they spread out across Europe. In Córdoba they still prepare a dish called ziriabí made of roasted and salted broad beans, which is called after him. Another dish that he was known for, is Taqliyat Ziryab, made of meatballs and small pieces of dough fried in coriander oil. And in Zaragoza they still serve a dish of walnuts and honey that he made popular.

For the Moors, vegetables were important ingredients in any meal and were cooked just as we do today as part of the dish, rather than eaten raw or served as an accompaniment. Pulses, very high on the list of foods in the Mediterranean diet, were cooked in great quantities and added to spicy stews. Chickpeas, lentils and beans were a great source of protein and were more readily available and of course, cheaper than meat.
With the mild Mediterranean climate to help them, the Moors cultivated cherries, apples, pomegranates, bananas, figs, grapes, lemons and oranges. They used the grapes to make wine, vinegar to flavour their food, and dried them as raisins to add to their cooking. They also produced olive oil for cooking.
Flavouring was important to the Moors and they introduced many spices and herbs into al-Andalus: cinnamon, cardamon, coriander, cumin, mint, ginger, saffron, pepper, nutmeg and many others, all originating from India and Persia.
Nuts are also considered an important part of the Mediterranean diet and almonds and hazel nuts were often used in Moorish cuisine. Almonds, in particular grew in great abundance in al-Andalus and were used to make sweet pastries and marzipan, or ground into a smooth cream to make ajo blanco and Salmorejo. Both of these savoury soups we still enjoy today. The Moors also made a paste called almori from salt, honey, raisins, pine nuts, almonds, hazel nuts and flour, which they pounded together, moulded into a flat piece and then left to harden. They would break off a piece of this hard paste, soak it in water until it had softened and then add it to whichever dish they were cooking. Instant goodness and more healthy than our modern stock cubes.
Durum wheat, which is harder than other wheat and contains less moisture, is ideal for making various types of pasta because it can be rolled and shaped more easily. It was brought from central Asia by the Muslims and introduced into Sicily and al-Andalus as early as the 9th century and has the pasta it produced has featured in recipe books dating back to the 13th century.
According to the owner of one well-known restaurant in Córdoba, the preparation of sweet and sour stuffed dishes stretches back to Moorish Spain, as does the practice of adding dried fruit and nuts to meat dishes. He proudly admits that his chef still prepares traditional al-Andalus recipes that date back eight hundred years or more.

If you are interested you can read more about these Andalusian recipes online at http://italophiles.com/andalusian_cookbook.pdf

Here is a short extract from one of my historical novels, The Shining City, where they are preparing the evening meal for the Festival of Eid:
Evening was drawing in and the pale sun was hanging low in the sky. Soon it would sink below the horizon leaving the sky an inky black. They had built a bonfire outside in the street, alongside those of their neighbours. Everyone was turning out now, the women carrying the food in earthenware containers, the men stoking the fires and tending to the meat. Some were roasting whole animals over the charcoal, others had chopped their goat into pieces and were cooking it slowly in the embers of the fire. The air was rich with the smells of cardamon, cinnamon and paprika. Fatima had been all day preparing the goat that he and Ibrahim had slaughtered earlier. It was a good animal, young and tender. He had butchered it into pieces and his wife had marinated it with salt, pepper, dried coriander, cumin, saffron and oil. He had bought the finest saffron specially for the feast. Fatima had put the meat into their largest earthenware pot with layers of aubergine, chopped almonds, meat balls and lavender. Now it would simmer on the fire until it was done and then she would thicken it with whipped eggs and crown it with egg yolks. Qasim’s mouth watered as he thought about it. It was a recipe Fatima’s mother had made every Eid. Now Fatima did it for her family.

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The Apothecary: why I came to write it.

9/4/2019

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At long last the first novel in the new historical series The City of Dreams is published. As usual the cover designer I use has come up with a stunning cover, which although more understated that previously—she says it is the current fashion--gives a good sense of what you will find inside.

I have lived in Málaga, on and off, for more than thirty years now, and love the city, which seems to get more interesting and more beautiful every year. It certainly is a very different place from when I first came here in 1988. In the al-Andalus series I have written at length about Moorish Spain, and Córdoba in particular, and felt that it was now time to discover what it must have been like to have lived in Málaga almost a thousand years ago, when it too was ruled by the Moors.

The Apothecary is the story of Makoud, a middle-aged man, who arrives in Málaga with his family, looking to make a new life for themselves. It is the year 1035 AD and Málaga is no longer ruled by the Omayyad dynasty who had held the country together for the last two hundred and seventy-five years. The Golden Age of Moorish Spain is over; Córdoba is no longer the cultural capital of the western world, and the country which had been a strong, united state is now in disarray. Al-Andalus had split into a number of warring princedoms, which were referred to as 'taifas.' Málaga was one such taifa, but with a difference; it was ruled by a caliph and not an emir. When Yahya I inherited the title of caliph from his father Ali ibn Hammud, he found he was no longer welcome in Córdoba, so he moved his court to Málaga and declared the city to be an independent taifa. However he soon found himself at war with his neighbours, in particular the taifa of Seville.

So this is the turbulent city where Makoud and his family find themselves. At first life is good. Makoud opens his own apothecary shop and his sons find work. But when the caliph dies and rumours suggest that he has been poisoned, Makoud becomes worried that he may have sold the poison to the assassin. His eldest son decides to investigate the caliph's death and soon finds himself caught up in a web of intrigue, lies and murder.

The Apothecary is available as an ebook and in paperback from Amazon and other bookstores.

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SPECIAL OFFER

25/1/2019

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The Only Blue Door is currently on SPECIAL OFFER at a giveaway price of £0.99. A great read for teenagers and young adults as well as their parents. Offer ends on 30th January 2019.

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RESEARCH OR DETECTION? Maybe a bit of both.

3/1/2019

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You may be forgiven for thinking that writers of historical fiction do all their research pouring over detailed history books but there are many other sources that can be useful as well: paintings, sculptures, artefacts, ruined buildings, museums, oral accounts for more recent history, and of course the extensive and all-embracing resources of Google. But despite all that, novelists can still find themselves stuck.
When I decided to write historical fiction set in Moorish Spain in the tenth and eleventh centuries, I didn’t realise that there was so little recorded information about the period—the medieval era is aptly called the Dark Ages—so I found myself presented with a challenge. How to create an accurate and believable account of the time with so few resources to hand. This is where I had to resort to detection and logic. Until the Industrial Revolution—called a revolution for a very good reason—the pace of life was slow and change was gradual. It’s easy to forget that we live in a world that during a single generation has changed out of all recognition. I’m not talking about wars and revolutions but about social change. I can remember a life where only a few people had televisions and telephones, where we corresponded by letter instead of email, WhatsApp and Facetime, where you walked round to your friend’s house or took a bus instead of going by car, where you bought a stamp and posted a letter, where the High Street was a social meeting place as well as somewhere to do your shopping. But when you look further back into history you will see that many aspects of life remained unchanged for generation after generation.
The Moors were in Spain for seven hundred years and it’s true that during that time there were many changes, but mostly at the start of the conquest when a new way of life was introduced. Nevertheless, the arrival of the Moors didn’t mean that the existing population gave up all their old ways; traditions and local customs don’t alter that easily. And the Moors were not a zealous people. Although they conquered Spain, they realised they were vastly outnumbered by the locals, so they didn’t insist on mass conversion to Islam and their ways. They were happy to create a society where Jews, Christians and Muslims could live together in harmony. This convivencia lasted for many generations before the interference of religious zealots both Christian and Muslim, began to unravel the social concord.
So how is this a help to the historical novelist? Let me give you a few examples. In my latest novel, ‘The Apothecary,’ which is set on the shores of the Mediterranean, I introduce some new characters: pirates. Now pirates roamed the Middle Sea, as it was called, for centuries; they are mentioned by the Greeks and the Romans as early as the thirteenth century BC and were terrorising shipping until 19th century AD. There have been some very interesting books written about them, but I could find very little specifics about pirates during the eleventh century. The question is, did the life of the pirates change very much in all those hundreds of years? I doubt it. There would have been improved weaponry and faster ships but the life of a pirate was much the same; they were outside the law, they robbed, they fought and they killed. So when I found a gap in my research about pirate life, I looked to both earlier and later accounts; the continuity was remarkable so I believed it was reasonable to make certain assumptions for my own pirates based on what went on before and later.
For example, what did they do for entertainment (when they weren’t raping and pillaging that is)? Storytelling, music and singing are ancient pastimes that were found all over the world and lingered on into the 19th century. But what instruments would a rough and ready pirate favour? It turns out that an instrument I had always associated with northern Europe, was brought to Spain by the Moors and was likely to have been played by all levels of society. It was the organistrum, or as it was later called in England, the hurdy-gurdy or the barrel organ. There are many accounts and paintings of the instrument in the northern parts of Europe but, again, nothing in Muslim Spain—Islam forbade the painting or sculpture of the human form in case it led to idol worship. But then I noticed one of the carvings above the Portico de la Gloria, the main entrance to the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. There were two men seated side by side playing an organistrum, one of them playing the keys and the other turning the crank handle to vibrate the strings. Proof that in 1180 AD the instrument was being used in Spain. Just the sort of music the pirates would have enjoyed listening to either round the camp fire or on board ship.

Here is a further example of how useful it can be to widen the scope of your search for historical data. One of the main characters in my new book is a young Berber soldier. I knew that wrestling was a favourite pastime with the soldiers, both as a way of training and sport and wanted to include it in my book. But what sort of wrestling? Google as usual came to the rescue in a roundabout way. It is quite possible that the form of wrestling practised by the soldiers in eleventh century Moorish Spain was Canarian Wrestling. This sport was first identified in the fifteenth century as the traditional wrestling form of the Guanches, the original settlers of Tenerife, who were said to have brought it with them from North Africa. Recent gene research has revealed a close connection between the Berbers of North Africa and the Guanches. So it’s logically possible that my Berber soldier would have been familiar with Canarian wrestling four hundred years earlier.
The historical novelist often has to rely on hints and clues to create background to their stories where they can’t find concrete evidence. In a way they are like detectives, sifting the evidence and analysing the data to see if it supports their hypothesis. So although I don’t feature any detectives as a main character in my novels, you can see that the main sleuth in a Joan Fallon novel is the author herself.

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NOVEMBER UPDATE: Joint monthly newsletter

18/11/2018

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The alcazaba in Malaga

Work on my latest series of historical novels is progressing well. I have had a change of heart about the name of the series, which I now think will be called City of Dreams. The city in question is Málaga (or Malaqah as it was called in the 11th century) and in its way it was a city of dreams; like many other cities in the world then and since, people flocked to it looking for a better life. After years of civil war, the Umayyad dynasty had crumbled and al-Andalus had fragmented into a number of small independent city states called taifas. The taifa of Malaqah was one of those. The first book in the series, The Apothecary, is with my editor now, and I hope to have it published early in the new year. More on that later.

As I mentioned some months ago, this year I have joined forces with three other writers of historical fiction to do a few joint promotions and the reason we feel that this is to our mutual advantage is because we all write about the same historical period: Muslim Spain. There are a lot of benefits to this exchange of ideas. We are two men and two women; two of us are British and live in Spain all or part of the year, one is an American professor (although not of history) and the other is from Barbados. More importantly we all bring differing strengths to the table - David is a best-selling author of crime fiction and can teach us a lot about marketing, John's knowledge of the period is extensive and Lisa is a whiz kid at social media and has set up our first news letter. I'm sure I contribute in some small way, but I'll leave that for them to comment.
As for the newsletter, as this is the first, hopefully of many, we have all tried to put into words why it is we write about Muslim Spain and not Saxon Britain, or the American Civil War, for example.

If you'd like to read the complete newsletter you can find it on our Facebook page al-Andalus Authors or you can sign up to receive your own monthly copy.

Why Moorish Spain?
As I currently live in Andalusia, it seems only logical that I’m drawn to write about the area of Spain where the Moors ruled for over seven hundred years, but the truth is that I have been fascinated with Spain’s Moorish inheritance since long before I moved there. As a teenager I read a travel book by Alexandre Dumas entitled Adventures in Spain and was particularly fascinated by his account of Granada and the Alhambra. The details of the book are long forgotten but since then Spain has always been a land of colour, passion and vibrancy for me.
However the reason for leaving Britain and moving to Andalusia was much more mundane. Something of my interest in Spain must have rubbed off on my daughter because no sooner had she finished college when she announced she was going to live and work in Málaga. Within a few years, my husband and I had decided to join her in her new country and have never regretted it.
As I began to explore my new home I began to realise that there was even more to this country’s past than I had realised and I became particularly interested in its Moorish history. Everywhere I looked there was evidence of its Moorish ancestry, from the architecture and pottery to the food eaten - local dishes that hadn’t changed in centuries. Place names, irrigation systems, gardens and fountains, the language itself, all reminded me that this Christian country once had a very different past.
In the year 2000 I picked up a leaflet about an exhibition of Umayyad art that was to be held in a place called Madinat al Zahra, just outside Cordoba. It was just a couple of hours away so we decided to go, although at that time I had no idea who the Umayyads were. As I have subsequently discovered, the Umayyads had been the rulers of Muslim Spain for three hundred years.
The exhibition was excellent but I was more impressed by the site they had chosen for it: Madinat al Zahra. This was a palace/city built by Abd al Rahman III just after he proclaimed himself Caliph of al-Andalus. It was reputed to have been the most wonderful city in the western world and covered the entire hillside; 25,000 men worked on constructing it. Abd al Rahman III himself had 400 rooms in the palace. It was filled with marble and gold, exquisite engravings and silk hangings, a palace fit for a caliph. It was said that 800 loaves of bread were used each day just to feed the fish in the fountains and lakes. There are a number of theories as to why Rahman III built Madinat al Zahra at a time when Cordoba was considered the most splendid city in western Europe. Why did he need another city? Some say he built it for a concubine called al-Zahra, and named it after her. Others said it was because he felt demoralised after being defeated by the Asturian king. But recent research says it is much more likely that it was built to reinforce his position as Caliph and to promote his independence from both the old caliph in Baghdad and the new upstart Fatimids in North Africa. Rahman III had converted al-Andalus from a collection of individual tribes into a centralised Arab state, proclaimed himself Caliph, the supreme ruler, and he wanted to make sure everyone knew who was the boss. One way to do that was to build a wonderful new city.
But what was much more fascinating to me was the length of time that the city was in existence. Work was started on it in the year 936 and only 70 years later it was already abandoned, and falling into decay. For the next thousand years it was looted, its beautiful buildings broken down and used as building materials. There are pillars from the site in cities such as Malaga, Seville and in many homes in Cordoba; looting old sites for building materials was very common. Not until 1911 was Madinat al Zahra rediscovered by archaeologists and work begun on protecting and excavating the site.
This was the city that inspired me to write the first novel in the al-Andalus series, The Shining City. It took many months of research to get started but the more I read about Moorish Spain the more interested I became in what life was like at the time and how their culture and learning has been passed on, influencing the lives of not only the Spanish but also the rest of Europe.

If you want to learn more about medieval Spain, there's no more enjoyable way than to read well- researched historical novels. But then I would say that.

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Tasty book reviews from Expand The Table

22/8/2018

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After my novel The Only Blue Door received an IndieBRAG award I received a message from Susan Weintrob whose regular blog is a mixture of food recipes and book reviews, asking if I'd like her to do a review of it.
Naturally I said 'yes please'—after all good reviews are an author's lifeblood. Susan reviews high-quality Indie books and then invents a recipe that is inspired by the story. Cool idea.
If you'd like to read what she had to say about The Only Blue Door and to find out which dish she was inspired to concoct, here's the link to her blog
https://www.expandthetable.net/foodie-lit

You can buy copies of The Only Blue Door on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and other on-line bookshops.

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A Choice

2/8/2018

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Welcome to my guest blogger this month, Lisa J Yarde, historical novelist, speaker and blogger.
This is the third in a series of blogs about what it must have been like to live in Moorish Spain. This time we learn about the life of a Christian slave who decided to change his religion and become a Muslim government minister. Well researched by Lisa for one of her historical novels and filled out by her fertile imagination it gives us an idea of why so many Christians in Moorish Spain changed their religion.

A Choice by Ridwan ibn Bannigash
The Life of a Christian Slave Turned Moorish Minister in 15th Century Spain

My name is Ridwan ibn Bannigash and I have been chief minister to two Sultans of the Nasrid Dynasty, based at Granada’s Alhambra Palace in Moorish Spain. My power over the lives of the kingdom's inhabitants is second to that of the monarchs alone. But I did not always hold such a lofty position at court. I did not always answer to that name.

I was born Pedro Venegas in Christian Córdoba. A common name among prior generations of my family. The señores de Luque, among the richest families of the region. But all of their wealth could not save me from the fate God had pre-destined. When I was eight years old, I became a slave of the Moors in their kingdom, Granada. As a young man, I adopted their religion and lived thereafter as s Muslim.

The penalty for an apostate, any Christian man or woman who had converted to Islam, was death. I knew the risks but also recognized the rewards for those who embraced the faith of their captors. I am but one among many who, since the Moors invaded the peninsula over 700 years ago, perceived the path to power lay with those we once called our enemies. Countless slaves before me have become the leaders of armies and governments, while Christian females married and gave birth to future Muslim rulers. Conversion meant an immediate end to slavery and much more, as you shall see. A prudent choice.

Afterward, everything changed. I had the privilege of marrying one of the most beautiful women of the Nasrid bloodline, my Maryam. She can trace her lineage from the Nasrid Dynasty's Sultan Muhammad VI, El Bermejo as his Spanish Christian contemporaries called him. Others named him a usurper, as if he had been the first or last of the Nasrid clan members to seize power in Moorish Spain. His daughter married Muhammad ibn al-Mawl, who had not only been a minister of the royal court. He was my master and my wife's father. Through our union, I became a close ally and confidante of her brother, Sultan Yusuf IV, who hails from the city of Almería. I shall tell you more of my service to him later.

Together, Maryam and I have raised fine children. Two sons, the eldest of whom is Abu'l-Qasim, who will surely become a minister of the royal court like me, and our daughters, one of whom is Maryam's namesake. When other matters have concluded, I shall arrange an auspicious marriage for her with the one of two sons of Sultan Yusuf IV. The ties that have bound my family to the Nasrid Dynasty must remain strong, for my heirs descend from royal Moorish blood and Christian nobility, who have also influenced the course of events in Granada. Despite the differences between the adherents of both religions, I have taught my children to relish their dual heritage. For as Christian Spain encroaches upon the territory of Muslim Spain, there may come a time when we will need to make prudent choices for our futures.

I shall put aside such concerns and tell you more of the past. In the year 1427, I joined the royal court as a loyal adherent of Sultan Muhammad VIII. Admittedly, an ill-favored ruler among the Nasrids, but certainly, not the most unfortunate of them. He had come to the throne in 1417 as a boy aged eight years old and after two years in power, he lost everything and spent the subsequent eight years in prison at Salobreña on the southern coast of the peninsula. With my support, he gained other allies who rebelled against his rival. A much older cousin of his. These Nasrids are quite cruel to each other. Once my master regained his freedom and the lordship of Granada at the age of 18, I became his chief minister. Such a youthful man needed guidance. In the service of minister Muhammad ibn al-Mawl, I had learned about the governance of Granada and gave the benefit of experience to the new Sultan.

However, the young do not possess the wisdom of their elders. Nor their pragmatism. I had cautioned my master the Sultan against allowing the escape of his rival and that man remained a persistent threat. One we could not ignore. When he returned with the backing of another powerful clan of Moorish Spain, those wretched status-seekers called Abencerrages, I recognized the end had come for my master. He went into exile again at Salobreña, where his enemies murdered him in April 1431. Dead at 22, leaving an infant son behind. An unfortunate end to a luckless man.

His enemy had sought the support of the king of Castile Juan II, but I believed another candidate would suit his interests and, of course, the prospects for Granada. One month after the assassins came to Salobreña, I arrived at the court of Castile and formally submitted the offer of vassalage on behalf of my wife's brother Yusuf. If King Juan II would support his claim to rule Granada, I knew we could unseat the man who had murdered my former master. Our first chance for success came at the Battle of Higueruela on July 1, 1431. Our Moorish forces in conjunction with the knights of Castile from Calatrava defeated the murderer’s army. Some small measure of vengeance. Still, victory did not pave a smooth path to power for my wife's brother. Together, we eliminated areas of resistance, especially in Loja. Finally, on January 1, 1432, Yusuf IV took the throne of Granada. Although he had claimed the majority of support in the kingdom since the battle.

His has not been an easy reign. He is less inclined than my former master to recognize my wisdom. Have I erred again in my support of a man whom I thought could govern well? Surely not, but some mistakes can prove costlier than others. Barely three months after his ascension, rumors swirl about his adversary, who has dared approach King Juan II of Castile with a plea for neutrality in the conflict to come. The kings of Castile can be fickle, but I’ve done my best to ensure we maintain Christian support of my brother-in-law's rule. He is fearful, especially for the lives of his two young sons and a tender daughter. I am cautious. My girl may not marry this Sultan’s heir after all. If his murderous foe advances on the kingdom, I must choose again. I have endured slavery and chose freedom. I have witnessed the loss of power, but with careful planning, it is within my grasp again. I shall dictate my fate. Never again will cruel caprice rob me of the life I had imagined. I will do as I must. There is no other option except survival.

Sources:
Islamic Spain: 1250-1500 by L. P. Harvey
A History of Medieval Spain by Joseph F. O'Callaghan

Thank you Lisa for a glimpse into Moorish life, this time in the 15th century halls of power.

You can find out more about Lisa's novels on her webpage.

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What do you do when you believe you have lost everything?

24/7/2018

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My latest novel, Love Is All is at last available for purchase on Kindle. Those of you who prefer the comforting feel of a paperback will have to wait another month, sadly.

I don't know why I'm so easily seduced by what the 'experts' tell me, but I often am. Love Is All was ready months ago, proof read, cover designed, edited and ready to go, but then I decided to put it up for pre-order instead of selling it immediately. The reason given by the 'experts' is that when you have hundreds of pre-orders and they all hit the for sale button at the same time, it does wonderful things for your ranking on Amazon. And a high ranking means more sales. Great theory, or so I thought. And it probably works if you're Ken Follett or William Boyd. I should have considered what I do myself when I see that a book isn't available for immediate purchase—I move on to something else and maybe go back later, or maybe forget about it altogether. So my next new novel will go on sale immediately—unless someone persuades me differently.

I wrote the first draft of Love Is All over ten years ago. I can't really remember what gave me the idea for the story but I was reminded of it just last year. I was at the International Women's Day Conference in Marbella and one of the speakers at the dinner on the evening before the conference, spoke (through her partner and carer) about living with Locked In Syndrome. This attractive, confident, smiling woman was in a wheelchair and communicated by using an alphabet board. When her partner pointed to a letter she would signal if it was the one she wanted. To all intent and purposes she lived a very restricted life but that didn't prevent her from telling her own story and describing her personal struggle to live her life. She was an example to us all and she convinced me that a tragic story doesn't have to have a tragic ending. Meeting her inspired me to dust off my old manuscript and publish it. So here it is.

When Mark tells his wife that he has been having an affair with her oldest and dearest friend, he sets off a chain of events that reverberates throughout his whole family and changes the lives of those he loves forever.
Love Is All tells the story of a family still grieving after the death of the youngest son, five years previously. Teresa, Mark and their two grown-up sons are at last coming to terms with a life without him, when the harmony of their home is shattered by Mark’s confession. Distraught with grief and rage, Theresa runs out of the house and drives off into the night; she crashes her car and is seriously hurt.
Months later, when she eventually comes out of a coma, her family are devastated to hear that she has Locked-In Syndrome. She is effectively locked inside her own body and unable to communicate with anyone.
For Teresa it is a nightmare from which she cannot wake. When she realises the enormity of her plight she is unable to accept it and decides to seek refuge in an imaginary parallel world, a world where she is a desirable woman again. She refuses to acknowledge either the doctors or her family, but Ian, her younger son, will not let her go; he persists in every way he can to give her back the will to live.

Love Is All is available from Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.com

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The Many Marvels of Medicine in 10th Century Islamic Spain

3/7/2018

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In the second of my blogs about what it was like to be living in al-Andalus, I have invited the author John D Cressler to participate with a blog about a famous surgeon, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi. In a time before the National Health Service and Medicare, if you became ill life could be pretty tough, but as you will see, not in medieval Islamic Spain.

A portrait of Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi in action

What comes to mind when you think of the practice of medicine in early medieval Europe, say during the late 10th century? You know, those dastardly Dark Ages! Leeches? Letting blood? Maggots run wild? Gruesome amputations using a dull, rusty blade? Biting a bullet for anesthesia? The smell of gangrene? Worse? Well, not in Islamic Spain – al-Andalus. Nope! Andalusi medicine was by far the most advanced in Europe, by a mile, and if you happened to be a knight wounded in battle, your odds of surviving that nasty sword-slash, or ugly pike-puncture of your chain mail, was far better if you were a Moor than a Christian. Why? Simple answer: Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (c. 936-1013). Known the west as Abulcasis (a corruption of the Arabic Abū al-Qāsim), al-Zahrawi was a surgeon, teacher, chemist, and royal physician to Caliph al-Hakim II. He is widely considered the father of modern surgery. Truth be told, we all owe him a debt of gratitude.

Al-Zahrawi's is best remembered for his 30-volume (30!) encyclopedia of medicine, known as the Kitab al-Tasrif (The Method of Medicine), which profoundly influenced the practice of medicine in Europe. Completed in the year 1000 CE, the breadth of coverage was truly remarkable, and included: the design and use of a wide array of surgical instruments and techniques, neurosurgery, orthopedics, ophthalmology, pharmacology, nutrition, dentistry, childbirth, pathology, and neurological diagnosis.
The Kitab al-Tasrif’s volume on surgery was translated into Latin and became the standard source of surgical practice for the rest of Europe for the next 500 years! Al-Zahrawi specialized in curing disease by cauterization, and he invented a remarkably diverse set of surgical instruments (see the figure below), including those needed for the inspection of the interior of the urethra (ouch!), as well as for removing foreign objects from the throat, the ear, and other sensitive orifices, and even for assisting in the safe delivery of breeched-babies. If you happen to visit Córdoba, an exhibit of his instruments can be found on the Calahorra Tower Museum across the Guadalquivir River from the Great Mosque. He routinely performed surgery for the treatment of head injuries, skull fractures, spinal injuries, subdural effusions, and headaches, and gave the first clinical description of an operative procedure for hydrocephalus by surgically draining excess intracranial fluid. Who knew?!

An illustration of surgical instruments from Kitab al-Tasrif (credit: Wellcome Library, London)

Al-Zahrawi’s medical encyclopedia was the culmination of his 50-year career of medical training, teaching and practice as a physician. He vigorously advocated for the importance of a positive doctor-patient relationship, and wrote affectionately of his many students, whom he referred to as “my children.” He established and staffed dozens of hospitals in 10th century Córdoba, and emphasized the importance of treating patients irrespective of their social status, their financial means, or their heritage. He trained his students to make close observations of individual cases in order to ensure the most accurate diagnosis and the best possible treatment plan.
Not always properly credited for his massive contributions to medicine (go figure!), al-Zahrawi's described what would later become known as “Kocher’s method” for treating a dislocated shoulder, and the “Walcher position” in obstetrics, still standard techniques in use today. He described how to ligature blood vessels (using a suture to shut off the flow of blood) almost 600 years before Ambroise Paré, and was the first to explain the hereditary nature of hemophilia.

This remarkable man figures prominently in my historical novel, Shadows in the Shining City, the second book in my Anthems of al-Andalus Series. In fact, the many marvels of Islamic medicine figures prominently in all three of my novels: Emeralds of the Alhambra, Shadows, and Fortune’s Lament!

On my next blog stop, I will introduce you to another important figure in the world of medieval Anadalusi medicine: Lisan al-Din ibn al-Khatib, another deeply influential physician and polymath from 14th century Granada. Teaser: Ibn al-Khatib almost single-handedly saved Granada from the ravages of the bubonic plague sowing destruction through Europe in 1373. You know, that pesky Black Death, the scourge that killed one-third of Europe and changed the course of history. Stay tuned!

John D Cressler

Thanks John for a very informative and entertaining post. You can read more about John D Cressler and his books on his webpage http://johndcressler.com

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