Khalifah: A Novel of Conquest and Personal Triumph

Rating:
Summary: A very special book!
Review: I just finished reading this super book on my vacation to Hawaii. I found I couldn't put it down. The action is non-stop and the characters are very believable and captivating. Khalifah is a first rate work that is right a the top of the list of books, fiction or non-fiction, I've read in the past year!

Rating:
Summary: Believable and absorbing
Review: John Elray's portrayal of the rise of the Muslim empire in his 7th century fictionalized history is a gripping tale which presents those events of so long ago in a manner which is believable and absorbing. The characters are real (literally and figuratively) and his attention to detail places the reader in the midst of the action. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Historical fiction at its best
Review: Khalifah is a fast moving, fictionalized account of the actual historical events which took place in the middle-east between 632 and 660 AD, the period when Arabia brought this region under its control. John Elray employs many plot twists throughout the book to keep the reader guessing how the hero, Muawiya, will ever each his ultimate destiny. I found the book interesting, compelling, and entertaining,and would recommend anyone seeking an easy-to-read, informative account of Islam and its history/culture to read this novel.

Rating:
Summary: Novel of Islam's origins?
Review: Khalifah purports to be an historical novel about the rise of the first Caliphs (supreme rulers) to power at the dawn of Islam some 1350 years ago, a highly strange and exotic setting to Western readers. While I may have learned something of Muslim beliefs and customs, Elray's focus is on the bloody wars and eventual rise of Mu'awiya, the somewhat cautious and sensitive (rather than sympathetic) hero, who spends much of his time being inconspicuous in the face of great dangers between rival families and tribes. Elray is an enthusiast of early Islam, empire building, gore, and a bit of sex. Most of the men are depicted as unpleasant, touchy, and unsympathetic egoists, bloodthirsty, opportunistic, and quick to kill or rape. I think the author is earnest rather than attempting to exploit current fear of Islam. Elray's story is about the first Caliphs who attempted to unify Arabs and immediately expand their power based on Islamic faith. However, if what he depicts here is fairly accurate historically, then Islam may be one major religion that was propagated by war and conquest (forced conversion) from the instant of its creation (rather than secretively, by ideals, or an ideology later forced on people by emperors, kings, Crusaders, and the like). Is that right?

This book and its story may be very informative in an historical novelistic way, but Elray's writing is really amateurish. Is Aardwolfe Books a vanity press? The text has the aura of typescript about it. The book's subtitle instantly diminishes the major element of suspense, in a novel where Mu'awiya will triumph personally despite a lack of affect or charisma, or signs of early talent. (Why does Elray have him so often "twirl his beard"?) Elray's prose is terse and bland, his dialogue wooden, the grammar is occasionally fractured, and plot episodes skip about. Nothing comes to life, not the endless desert, the battles, the nomadic Bedouin, the Arab potentates and conspirators, and least of all the bit characters. Most of the men are depicted as unpleasant and unsympathetic characters, bloodthirsty and quick to kill or rape. There's not enough early background to put us in "the big picture" (who ARE these people so devoted to disfiguring each other?). The most interestingly presented character may be Mu'awiya's wife, both exploited and exploiter, clever lady in a society of oppression.

I wish this were a better combination of chronicle and writing. Nine of the early chapters have the same title, and chapters are just cuts from a stream of prose, lacking dramatic or suspenseful structure. There are a fair number of undefined and untranslated Arabic terms. Elray includes a guide to proper names, a core genealogy, and antique maps, but no glossary, historical note, or sources that might help us know where he takes liberties.

Rating:
Summary: Timely and Tantalizing
Review: The novel Khalifah, by John Elray, is a fast paced, account of the real-life historical events which took place in the Middle East during the first half of the seventh century AD, the period when Arabia wrestled control of this region from the Greeks and Persians. John Elray employs many plot twists throughout the book which keeps the reader guessing as to how the hero, Muawiya, will reach his ultimate destiny. I found the book interesting, compelling, and entertaining, and would recommend anyone seeking an easy-to-read, informative account of Islam and its history/culture to read this novel.

Rating:
Summary: An awe-inspiring work
Review: There's enough descriptive info on this page that I won't rehash what
this book is about. Let it suffice to say that I thought Khalifah was
informative (and from what I can gather from my own after-reading
research, fairly accurate) and entertaining.
I did find the first few chapters of the book somewhat 'preperatory',
but also found that I was drawn more into it as the novel progressed and thought that the book was actually very good.
The characters are interesting, the dialog strong, and the settings in particular are vivid.

Rating:
Summary: Novel of Islam's origins.
Review: To amplify on Bruce "tertius3" 's review "Novel of Islam's origins?" , Khalifah is a novel of Islam's origins - no question about that, but my take on the presentation was not so much that the author was an enthusiast of early Islam, empire building, and gore but rather that he presented a reasonably believable account of what those times were probably like. Overly gorey - probably not - just look at what's been going on over the past year in Iraq, in 'civilized times'. At its heart, though, Khalifah is a war story. Even so, I only recall one (not most) of the men who was bloodthirsty ... and quick to kill or rape, and he was the bad guy.

Based on my personal knowledge of that period, I think the portrayal is fairly accurate, and would have to say that Islam was initially propagated, on a macro scale, through conquest, but by ideology on the micro (person to person) scale. The early Caliphs granted the subjugated nations considerable religious freedom.

Elray's writing style didnt affect me one way or the other. I found Khalifah an easy, and interesting, read. When I read Dan's Brown's 2 current bestsellers I thought the writing was amateurish at first, but the stories overpowered any deficiency in the writing. This novel has no chapter titles but does have time tags which explains the reference to nine chapters with the same title. As is the case with most historical fiction, however, footnotes and source references that might help the reader know where author takes liberties are absent - so it's up to the reader to do his/her own follow-up to see where the truth lies (and this is not always guaranteed with purely historical accounts either).

All in all, I enjoyed Khalifah and have to agree with one of the two Spotlight reviewers (Palmer) who commended Elray for taking on this story and staying relatively faithful to history, citing any negatives with the book as a minor quibles.