Another book review

THE HAJ

 

By

 

Leon Uris

 

 

Everyone would know the name of Leon Uris because of his book Exodus which was made into a film. The Haj is another great book that follows the life of Ishmael, an Arab boy born in Palestine in 1936. His father, Ibrahim, was the Muktar of Tabah.

Ishmael was raised by his grandmother, mother and the women of the family, but when his grandmother died he was just eight years old and his father sent his mother away. It was time for him to move into the room with the men. He had to deal with the trauma of being parted from his mother along with the taunts from other children that his father was going to take another wife.

In tears, he spoke to his father about what was happening and was immediately rebuffed and literally pushed aside. His father’s word was law, you did not question him.

Ishmael had three older brothers so he was well down in the pecking order. His future, unlike the first born, who was to inherit his father’s title, was to be the designated goat herder. This did not sit well with him as he had a thirst for knowledge, to learn to read and write.

He was able to convince his father to allow him to attend a small class where he began to learn, began to put two and two together. He counted the properties that paid a tax to his father and found that his uncle, who handled the gathering of the taxes, was short changing his father. The response from his father was rather mundane as if he knew all along that his brother was cheating him.

After the First World War there was an exodus of Jews from Europe. Britain, for whatever reason opposed this immigration. Britain propped up the leader of Jordan, a self-centred ambitious and dangerous man. Inevitably, the Arabs and Jews fought a war, a war that saw many Arabs flee Palestine under the pretext that the Jews would slay them. And when the Arabs were defeated the refugees were caught in no-man’s land. Ishmael and his family were trapped in the Westbank after being betrayed by their uncle and the other Arab leaders.

Ismael’s life, his journey is irrevocably intertwined in the birth of Israel as a nation. This book is great eye opener into the intricacies of betrayal and selfish ambitions in the Middle East.