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Ahmed Zaidan, head of the Pakistan bureau of Al Jazeera, first came to Pakistan as a student at the Islamic University and then went on to study mass communication in Peshawar. Currently based in Islamabad, Ahmed is a voracious reader. “I am very fond of reading. Every morning I have to read all the local and international newspapers. I begin with The Washington Times, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, The Herald Tribune, The Independent — Robert Fisk’s column, Le Monde, and Arabic and Pakistani newspapers. It takes me two and a half hours to finish this when I get into the office every day.”
“So early in the morning when I wake up for Fajr prayers, I read my books for my own pleasure. Right now I am reading the Arabic translation of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red. I know it must be better in Turkish, but I am also enjoying it thoroughly in Arabic.”
In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. The stories accumulate and become more detailed as the novel progresses, giving the reader not only a nontraditional murder mystery but insight into the mores and customs of the time. In addition, this is both an examination of the way figurative art is viewed within Islam and a love story that demonstrates the tricky mechanics of marriage laws.
“Usually I read books in Arabic and English. I also recently read Memories of Mahatma Gandhi. It was great. I should have read it before and the last book I read was Zahid Husain’s Frontline Pakistan. I loved the style of writing. I’ve been in Pakistan since 1983. first I came here as a student at the Islamic university, then I studied mass communication in Peshawar. Today I am the bureau chief of al jazeera.”
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