Introduction

"SIKANDER is the sweeping tale of the son of a Pakistani middle-class family.

It's 1986. Seventeen-year-old Sikander, dreams of studying and living in America, but in a blind rage after a family quarrel, he leaves his Peshawar, Pakistan home. Encountering mujahideen warriors, he joins them in their fight against the occupying Soviets in neighboring Afghanistan. American assistance is stepped up with advanced weapons, like the Stinger missile, and the mujahideen begin prevailing against the Soviets. After just two years following Sikander s arrival, a Soviet withdrawal begins and Sikander returns as a war-wise hero, settling down to build a normal life in Pakistan. Discovering romance, Sikander, becomes a happily married successful entrepreneur in Pakistan, when he finds his life abruptly thrown into turmoil as he s caught up in aftermath of 9/11. He must draw on the lessons from his mujahideen past as he takes on a perilous journey reaching as far as America, changing his life forever. SIKANDER takes us from the pricey suburbs of Peshawar to the primitive war-torn landscape of Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, to the placid serenity of Scotland, through the camps of Guantanamo, and finally, corporate America. It is a 21 year journey through freedom and captivity, love and loss, wealth and poverty, dignity and humiliation, and transgression and redemption. A rare glimpse of a non-radical mainstream Muslim s experience of the West, SIKANDER is a journey of growth and self-discovery, and will touch the humanity of its readers.

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Excerpt

Preface

Whether we like it or not we live in a complex and dangerous world in which cultures often brush against each other. Diasporas (used generically here) and migrations fuel such effects and the assumptions grounded in one culture frequently fall apart when naïvely applied to another. I’m a product of a diaspora. I was born in Pakistan. I moved to England at the age of four, spending the next thirty-two years growing up and receiving an education there. In 1988 I moved to the United States. From my earliest years, I’ve found myself thrust into an outsider’s perspective of never quite belonging to the place where I’ve lived.

SIKANDER is a human story. It follows a young man’s coming of age and subsequent growth through adversity. He finds himself more than once having to deal with loss, which brings him to the recognition of the ultimate and relative value of his own humanity and his relationships with people.

Sikander is a citizen of the species. He belongs nowhere in particular and everywhere in general. In spirit, he transcends cultures while being a product of his native culture. Sikander’s religion is a matter-of-fact aspect of daily life, informing decisions from the mundane to the seismic. Being a part of his daily existence, his religion is neither hanging in a closet only to be worn on Fridays, nor is it is a manic permanent resident of his frontal lobes.

SIKANDER immerses the reader into the “ordinary” nature of most of the world’s routinely lived Islam, which is far removed from the misconceptions sadly prevalent in much of the non-Muslim world. The story does not, however, intend an apologist perspective. Neither does it suggest that we have a simple “east-versus-west” narrative to consider. It simply takes us into the ordinary lives of everyday Muslims while allowing us to be aware of the textured, varied, and nuanced hues of such life from rural Afghanistan to urban Pakistan and, to a lesser degree, for diaspora Muslims in the USA. All of this is still within the mainstream camp, without venturing into radical or heretical renditions of the religion, which also obviously exist.

Sikander’s personal growth as a man involves working through some of these cultural differences in the practice of mainstream Islam and the conflicts between it and the “fringes” of the religion without making him be a religious fanatic of any stripe while doing so.

An additional theme has been to examine the veneer-like quality of what we call civilization. Seen frontally, it projects depth and substance and seeming durability. We use words like “institution” to help us consolidate such sensibilities into our collective psyche. But turned on its side it reveals its true lack of depth and fragility. After all, civilization has only existed for a few millennia, which is but the blink of an eye against the vast ocean of time that has shaped homo sapiens, the animal that lies beneath. We should not be surprised to see how readily any human being is capable of descent into unfettered inhumanity, under the sanction of higher authority. It also reminds us why we have governments, laws and rules and why “minor” losses of liberty, while alluring in their promise of safeguarding physical security, can so often lead ultimately to disaster, and in a very real sense, increase the risks to physical security.

In SIKANDER I also wanted to weave the thread of an individual life through the fabric of world events that shape it. When today we hear about casualties and soldiers’ tragic deaths in conflicts such as the post-9/11 Afghanistan war or Iraq, the human interest focus is upon the lives and families of the fallen. We want to know what defined them as people, how they grew up, their military career, family and so on. All these things quite properly help us to look into their essential humanity and feel empathy for such a tragic loss. SIKANDER has been squarely aimed at doing something similar but from the viewpoint of the equally ordinary people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose lives have been touched by conflict and its fallout, but whose deaths are sadly often just statistics, too numerous to warrant individual attention. The story attempts to remind us to re-examine how this rendering of “otherness” upon such lives causes us to fail to see their no-less-essential humanity.

I would also like to clarify that the story’s setting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the USA is secondary to its core focus being that of an examination of human nature and behavior across the boundaries between cultures. For a sense of realism, much effort went into researching historical events and the geography of the regions involved. This does not make the book a work of reference about either the events or the geography. The purpose of the research was to provide as realistic a context for the narrative as possible. But at the end of the day, it’s a work of fiction. As for a source on the nature of Afghan and Pakistani culture, I would like to believe that the included glossary is both accurate and substantive and would strongly recommend the interested reader study its contents.

As a convenience, the fourth edition incorporates all maps into the body of the text and breaks out ethnic words from the narrative and provides a concise meaning at the bottom of any page in which such a word occurs. This is done for the first five occurrences of the word, after which further reference for meaning must be obtained from the Glossary. The fifth occurrence of a word’s elaboration is always captured in bold footnote text, signifying it as the last such elaboration before the Glossary proper.

This fourth edition has been rewritten to render the original edition’s telling of the story in fewer words and to improve readability without compromising either the literary style or the scope and reach of the narrative.

A word about spelling and pronunciations. SIKANDER is written so that pronunciations made by non-native speakers are spelled accordingly. A good illustration is “Qunduz” versus “Kunduz.” Please take the time to examine the glossary, which provides not only meanings and context but also some guidance on pronunciations

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Discussion Questions

1. The novel, SIKANDER has been described as a “Bildungsroman.” Sikander is clearly an idealistic youth who becomes a realistic (but not cynical) adult. Far from being linear and gradual, his progression into this frame-of-mind takes place at discrete, defining moments in his life. Can you name some of these moments, and in particular how they shape his feelings about life and death?

2. SIKANDER’s author uses a classical western style to convey the narrative yet avoids creating characters with which typically non-Muslim westerners can readily identify. How does this juxtaposition of non-Muslim style and Muslim point-of-view work for the reader?

3. Mahler is a decent human being for whom prejudices already sown by anxiety of the unknown, turn into loathing of Muslims after experiencing loss on 9/11. With such hatred and the available means to inflict punishment he falls victim to the temptation. Guilt never materializes because authority has sanctioned or perhaps even demanded such behavior.

Describe what you think this says about one’s own humanity as a moral compass; what the role of authority is in defining moral boundaries; the mechanisms by which prejudices seek and find comforting reinforcement, ultimately hardening into cherished truths; the importance of such truths to our perceptions of ourselves and of the world around us; the difficulty of dislodging prejudices even when the weight of evidence is compelling.

4. The leading female character, Rabia, undergoes her own transformation from Afghan village girl to upper-middle class wife of an entrepreneur in America. How does her transformation contrast with Sikander’s?

5. On a scale of 1=aloof observer to 5=immersed participant how do you feel as the reader?

6. Taking the portrayal of Islam in the narrative as accurate, which of your beliefs about Islam have been confirmed and which have been revised?

7. The practice of Islam is as varied as the cultures within which it is practiced. What differences were you able to pick up between Islam in Afghanistan and Islam in Pakistan, and between Islam in that region and your own sense of how it might be practiced in America?

8. How has the novel affected your perceptions of America’s role in the Afghanistan war and the outlook for the future? How would you define "success" in that war now?

Weblinks

»	Official web site for Sikander
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