Islamic Fiction: The Strange Case of Zakariya al-Qazwini

Published in

The Maple Leaf Ummah

4 min readJan 21, 2015

I’ll be honest, yesterday was the first time I had ever heard of Zakariya al-Qazwini. He is not one of the ‘big names’ in Islamic science and literature, and yet his contributions are immense. Like many of those who are credited as some of the key figures during the (probably fictional) ‘Islamic Golden Age,’ Zakariya was steeped in the Greek sciences as well as Islamic theology, and he used his great knowledge to write some incredible works. His bibliography includes Marvels of Creatures and Strange Things Existing (Also called Wonders of Creation) as well as Monument of Places and History of God’s Bondsmen, and Awaj bin Afnaq. Basically, he wrote a bestiary, an atlas, and a fiction book in the 1200's, so why haven’t we heard more about him?

Well, poor Zakariya is missing a few of the key ingredients necessary for his name to be sold globally… at least at the moment.

Dead White Men

There are a few things necessary for Medieval Muslim scholars to have their names carried forward to this day, and they are demonstrated by the reverence (no matter how contrived) that Westerns have for names such as Rumi, Avicenna, Abulcasis, ibn-Haytham, al-Khwarizmi, Ghazali, and others. All of these men fall basically into the European criteria for the validation of thought in that they are essentially “dead white men.”

The problem that our brother Zakariya faces is not that he is alive, nor that he is a woman, but it can be summed up with the fact that he is not ‘white.’

Of course, this isn't to say that any of the other people mentioned are ‘white’ per-se, nor that Western academia never recognizes biologically female humans or living humans, but the expression is a figure of speech.

Basically, the problem is that Zakariya’s work does not fit into the fabricated model of the “Islamic Golden Age,” because he comes from the capital (Qazwin) of a dynasty largely placed outside this ‘Eldorado of the East.’ Furthermore, his beastiary and atlas, though wildly popular in greater Arabia and Persia, never influenced Western thought. Even further, his greatest work, one of the first fiction books on record, is part of a tradition of Arab fiction writing that was almost entirely lost to Europeans with the exception of a single book, Arabian Nights, which only gained popularity when it was successfully whitewashed in the early 1700's.

So alas, poor Zakariya is relegated to the mystical orient where he will fade into obscurity.

Not So Fast!

This is the dawn of a new age, an Islamic Platinum Visa Plus Age, (if you really need an expression for it) and it’s about time we started going old-school and reviving lost classics.

Zakariya al-Qazwini may have been a mountain of a man in his time, and his influences can be traced through many later scholars, his books even survived the invasion of the Mongols. But now there are nearly no publishers in Greater Arabia, and comparatively few in Persia too, the tradition of fantasy and sci-fi writing that began in the Middle East with Awaj bin Afnaq (who was an alien from another planet, by the way) did not influence European scholars and artists, but that’s not to say that its influence is over with.

Just like Zakariya did himself with the works of Socrates and Plato, we as Muslims living in the West can take advantage of the age we are in, the resources at our disposal, to revive this and many other ‘lost’ strains of Islamic history. We may be forgotten by those future writers of the Islamic Platinum Visa Plus Age, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t the ones who will bring it into being! Go forth into your fields and your interests, and show the world a renaissance they never expected!

I have included a few images from the Wonders of Creation below, as well as some sauce for your online endeavors. Leave a comment with any suggestions or questions you might have, or feel free to reply with your own Muslim scholar in need of revival.