Ibrahim al-Koni: The Puppet

The title character of The Puppet ’s sequel al-Fazza‘a —the scarecrow — already appears as an enigmatic jinni in The Puppet and then becomes a key player in the oasis community’s death in the final book in the trilogy. In The Puppet , this visitor from the Spirit World, despite an occasional muffled snicker, appears to try to help Aghulli, the noble if obtuse leader. Al-Koni’s satanic figures — like this scarecrow or like Seth in The Seven Veils of Seth —often resemble the Yoruba god Eshu, whose tricks and mischief provide spiritual guidance by giving people a jolt. Al-Koni’s “good demons” shock other characters, as in The Seven Veils of Seth , into resuming the questing, yearning life of the nomadic pastoralist, thus adding an extra fillip to the rags-to-riches cycle described by Ibn Khaldun: the return of a corrupt elite to a healthier nomadic life.

In Islamic West Africa, where societies retained elements — like masquerades — of their pre-Islamic culture for extended periods and where Sufism has been an important strand in the Islamic tapestry, spirituality is multifaceted and it is not surprising to see this diversity reflected in al-Koni’s fiction. The ancient goddess Tanit, whom the Tuareg worshipped before the introduction of Islam, figures in some novels, and inhabitants of the Spirit World, many of whom are jinn, maintain an uneasy truce with their Tuareg neighbors. Typically, al-Koni’s heroes feel a special bond with their ancient Saharan ancestors and the rock inscriptions they left behind. In novels like Anubis and The Seven Veils of Seth , al-Koni added ancient Egyptian ingredients to his hearty spiritual stew. In The Puppet the subplot about the young lovers continues a Sufi theme of the possible transformation of carnal into spiritual (mystical) love.

Al-Koni has written dozens of desert novels, some set in a mythic past before the arrival of Islam, others in the medieval Islamic age, and still others in contemporary times. For al-Koni, the tension between nomadism and settled life is not only found among Saharan peoples but affects all of us as we face hard choices like relocation for career advancement. If scientists model human medical conditions on laboratory creatures and other inquirers use one phenomenon as a metaphor for another, al-Koni might be said to model global issues on Saharan life. Al-Koni has often used the same Saharan model, but he has employed it as a metaphor for a wide spectrum of human concerns.

My desert is the metaphorical desert, the desert as synonym for the entirety of human existence. By which I mean that human existence is in every particular a desert as long as it remains a meaningless talisman. But on the day upon which this secular world takes on significance, on the day upon which the world bears down to tell us of its truth — on that day, and not before, shall we witness the separation of the world from the world-as-desert. And on that day, and not before, will I allow myself to rest from speaking about the desert in its function as symbol of existential alienation, what is known in religious discourse as ‘sin’. That is why it is obscurantist to see any connection between writing about the desert and living in the desert. 8

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1. Ibrahim al-Koni from an interview conducted by his friend and German translator Hartmut Fähndrich, as translated from German into English by Rafaël Newman. Posted online at: http://www.swissworld.org/en/switzerland/resources/why_switzerland/ibrahim_al_koni/.

2. See: P. F. de Moraes Farias, Arabic Medieval Inscriptions from the Republic of Mali: Epigraphy, Chronicles, and Songhay-Tuareg History (Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2003, for the British Academy) p. cxxvii.

3. Jeremy Keenan, The Lesser Gods of the Sahara (London & Portland: Frank Cass, 2004) with a bibliography pp. 266–273.

4. Covering the head and face has clear utilitarian advantages in a dusty desert, but Tuareg male veiling also has a mystique that is often discussed with awe by al-Koni’s characters. See: Chapter 3 (The Judgment), part 2 of The Puppet .

5. See: Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History , trans. Franz Rosenthal (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1958) vol. 1, pp. 353–355, for example, but ‘ asabiya is also discussed in later volumes of Kitab al-‘Ibar . The simplified version of his theory here leaves out details that do not apply to The Puppet .

6. See: Aristotle, Poetics (3.4.3) 52b10.

7. Plato, The Republic of Plato , trans. Francis MacDonald Cornford (New York & London: Oxford University Press, England 1941, American Edition 1945, 17th printing, 1960) p. 274, Chapter XXX(VIII.550).

8. http://www.swissworld.org/en/switzerland/resources/why_switzerland/ibrahim_al_koni/.