Abu Musa's Women Neighbors

Abu Musa’s Women Neighbors is an unforgettable novel. Abu Musa is a Sufi saint whose Maqam can still be found in Salé, a suburb of Rabat, Morocco. Ahmed Toufiq has recreated the circumstances of his life, with love and care for the history and culture he depicts. Just as the silent protagonist steps out of the story in the last paragraph only to live on in the physical site of his burial as in the spiritual life of the city, Toufiq’s moving text is animated by the echo of lives and events that endure in memory, narrated as if from the perspective of another world. Sidi Musa’s sanctuary stands today overlooking the ocean, a site of healing in the midst of a poor urban sprawl; the retelling of this 14th Century tale spills out into the present and summons us.

Moroccan novelist and historian Ahmed Toufiq worked as a professor of history in the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences in Rabat (1970 – 1989). In 1995 he became director of the National Library of Morocco. His many novels, including Jarat Abi Musa and Al Sayl, are well-known in the Islamic world.

Roger Allen (translator) is a professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and is the author of an Introduction to Arabic Literature (2000) and The Arabic Novel (1994).