The War to Save the Worlds

by Samira Ahmed

  I smile and ask my mom if I can have a turn at the telescope. I look through the eyepiece. This telescope is so much stronger and the view is so much brighter and clearer than in my telescope at home. I adjust the focus knob. Wow. There it is. The rarest of events: a super blue blood moon. The moon is huge and nearly completely reddish-orange, meaning it’s blocking almost all the sun’s light. It’s beautiful. But when I was last here—uh, minutes ago?—a piece of the moon was floating in the sky and I thought the world was ending. Then we found out it sort of was ending. But we stopped it with a little help from new friends.

  I zoom in a little closer. There’s a circular crack along the bottom quarter of the moon, and it looks almost like a light is shining through it. “What’s that?” I ask, letting my mom take a look. “The circle of light surrounding that shadowy spot.”

  When she stands back up, my brother checks it out through the telescope. “That new?”

  My parents give us these quizzical looks. “Are you pulling our legs, right now?” my dad asks.

  When they see our blank faces, my mom responds. “It’s the Amir A. Hamza Sea. You two were named after it. Supposedly an ancient ancestor on my mom’s side? You know this story.”

  Hamza and I exchange glances. Holy time loops. I want to shout, but I contain myself. I can tell Hamza is about to burst, too. I clear my throat. “Right. Duh. I guess it looked different with the whole redness-of-the-moon thing tonight,” I try to cover, because who would forget what they’re named after? And, if the sea has always been there in this timeline, then does that mean we were meant to save Qaf? So basically… we saved Qaf already and that’s how we instinctively knew we could save it again? Wait. What? Time travel plus fate are very, very confusing.

  “Your dad and I always thought it was so spectacular, like the fissure has its own inner light,” Ummi says.

  The moon has lots of “seas.” They’re not filled with water or anything, but that’s what astronomers called the large dark spots that they think were formed by volcanic eruptions on the moon. Or, when, say, a terrifying dev was waging a war to break the moon apart.

  “And you know what I always say when your mom says that: The wound is where the light enters you,” my dad adds.

  “Rumi!” My brother and I shout in unison.

  My dad nods, a proud smile on his face. “Now who’s hungry?”

  Hamza’s hand shoots up. Of course.

  We walk down and find ourselves back on the street where we first met Abdul Rahman and Maqbool, traffic noises all around us again, planes like shooting stars in the night sky. Hamz and my parents are debating between pizza and Italian beef. Hamza turns his head and sees me standing on the sidewalk looking toward the dumpster we hid behind.

  He leaves my parents, who are unlocking the car, and walks up to me. “I miss him, too,” he says, and puts an arm around my shoulders.

  I wrap my arm around his, too, and nod. Then we quickly step back because we don’t want our parents catching us in a weird sibling-affection moment. “It’s strange, isn’t it? Time and destiny and fear and all that stuff. Like, we were just over there, scared out of our brains. And now here we are back to our regular life, after saving the entire world.”

  “Well, I wasn’t that scared,” my brother says.

  I glance sideways at him and grin. “Yeah, sure. Like I was the only one who was afraid I’d pee my pants when I saw the fangs on that first ghul. Anyway, I’m glad you were there with me, even if you are an annoying little brother.”

  “And I’m glad you were there with me, even if you are a bossy older sister.” He smiles and then raises his fist to my mouth like a microphone. “Amira, you saved the world from being overrun by slobbery, toothy, green, blue, and purple devs and ghuls, some of which had very smelly, hairy feet. So what are you going to do next?”

  I pause. I think about all the possibilities. About everything I’ve seen and done. About how wild it all was. Slowly, I turn my lips up in a smile. “I’m going to take my karate test again and kick some nine-year-old’s butt!”

  “Yes!” Hamza fist-pumps his microphone hand. “Totally here for kicking little kid butt!”

  My parents call to us. We turn, laughing, toward the car, but I stop, turn back. There’s an alley across the street, and I swear… I squint, take a step forward. I think a whiff of black smoke slithered and slipped into the alley like it was moving with a purpose. And for the briefest flash in the middle of that black smoke, I thought I saw a pair of bright yellow eyes. I shake my head. When I blink, it’s gone. Just my imagination. Just an alley. On a quiet side street. In the city of Chicago. On the night of a super blue blood moon.

  “Sis, what is it?” Hamza asks, tugging at my elbow.

  I shake my head. “It was nothing. At all.”

  “Good. Let’s go. Ummi gave in; we’re getting Italian beef. Gonna get mine dipped with sweet and spicy peppers, and then I’m going to devour a slice of chocolate cake the size of my head.”

  I watch as Hamza hurries to the car, high-fiving my dad. My mom smiles and says something that makes Hamza laugh, their voices mingling with the sounds of the city. I grin. A part of Qaf feels almost like a dream already. Something fuzzy that doesn’t seem quite real. But the scroll in my pocket, the tablet in Hamza’s backpack, those things are evidence that it was.

  Maybe we weren’t exactly the real Chosen Ones; maybe choosing us was all a mistake of bad eyesight. Maybe I am an ordinary kid without any powers who got lucky fighting a demon. Or maybe it wasn’t luck at all. Maybe it was Big League Chew, a stretchy cummerbund, random facts about oobleck, and two kids who really, really wanted to get home in time for dessert.

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  Author’s Note

  Hi, friends!

  When I was a kid, there was a place in my backyard where four lilac trees grew together, their branches meeting at the top, so they formed something like a cave I could walk into. When they were in bloom and a breeze blew by, tiny pale purple leaves would rain down on me as I stared up into the slender boughs, and I’d pretend it was a portal to a magical world. I didn’t know it then, but those were the very earliest seeds of Amira & Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds. Those seedlings were nurtured by stories passed down from family and flourished when I first came across the incredible tales in the Hamzanama, or Dastan-e-Amir Hamza. In English, the title is often translated as The Adventures of Amir Hamza.

  My first language was Urdu, a language of the South Asian subcontinent and one that has an amazing tradition of oral storytelling. You know the bedtime stories the adults in your life sometimes tell you from memory? That’s oral storytelling—tales spun and passed down by word of mouth over the years, each storyteller adding their own flourish.

  That’s how the stories of Amir Hamza were first related, through oral tradition, and, yes, I mean tales, as in plural, because the Hamzanama is a collection of stories centered around the great warrior Amir Hamza. And the history of how these stories began and were collected is almost as legendary as the tales within the book. There is no single origin story of the Hamzanama, no “first” author. Historians say the main character, Amir Hamza, is named after the uncle of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), Hamza bin Abdul Muttalib, a warrior renowned for his bravery who died in the seventh century CE. Other historians trace the origins back to another Hamza, a Persian rebel who lived in the early ninth century. Still others claim different origins.

  Even though we can’t pinpoint the exact inspiration for Amir Hamza, we do know that the story first appeared in Persia and passed through the Arabian peninsula to South Asia and beyond. How does a story pass from one culture and country to another and in different languages? That’s the magic of oral storytelling! One person sh
ares it with another, and so on. Yes, portions and versions of the story were written down across the centuries, in Persian and Arabic and Turkish and Georgian. There were Malay versions and Javanese and Sudanese and Balinese. Some of these versions were 1,200 pages long! And, of course, the adventures of Amir Hamza came to India and were translated into Urdu, and that’s where this winding story comes back to me.

  In India, the rulers of the Mughal Empire, which lasted from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, often employed dastans, or court storytellers, who would narrate tales for the emperor. One emperor, Akbar, loved the various adventures of Amir Hamza so much that he commissioned a printed illustrated version of the epic for himself. It was twelve volumes long, with 1,400 paintings that captured different scenes. The scenes now show us how the stories of Amir Hamza were adapted and “modernized” to fit the times, incorporating clothes and weapons from the Mughal Empire, even though the epic was already hundreds of years old. Sadly, only two hundred of those paintings survived, and the only text from those volumes that we still have is what is printed on the backs of the paintings.

  But the story of Amir Hamza didn’t end with those lost volumes; different versions and translations continued to pop up and, of course, the oral storytellers—in my case, my great-great-grandmother, and so many elders like her—continued to tell bits of the legend to their grandchildren. Some bedtime stories my great-great-grandmother told my mom incorporated a mischievous peri—a fairy who loved mangoes—and shape-shifting trickster jinn. So a tiny part of my family history lives in the story you read. Of course, as a writer, I’ve taken artistic license in my description of the creatures of Qaf and of the devices that Amira and Hamza come across. Jinn, devs, ghuls, and peris are also in the stories of my childhood and exist across the Islamic world, in our history, culture and faith. Remember what I said about oral storytelling? Each storyteller puts a new spin, a piece of themselves, in the tales they tell.

  Amira & Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds is fiction, woven strands of stories that lit up my imagination as a child and an adult. Stories connect us, even when we’re apart. Even when circumstances have separated us. I hope a piece of Amira and Hamza’s adventure connects with you. You’re a part of the story now, too.

  Creatures of Qaf

  Just like the tales of Amir Hamza, the characteristics of the creatures in the Hamzanama are rooted in religious beliefs and influenced by a variety of cultural traditions and legends from across the globe, from Turkey to Zanzibar, from Iran to Indonesia. Stories of these creatures traveled across time and continents and became a part of my own family’s lore. What I’m sharing about these creatures is by no means definitive—not the one and only way to understand them—but I hope it gives you a springboard to explore the amazing stories of these creatures yourself. A quick note on spelling: The names below are transliterated from Persian, Urdu, and Arabic. These languages are not written with the letter characters we use in English. We take the sound of the letters and “translate” them into English letters, so sometimes you’ll see the words written differently because there is not one exact way to transliterate them, as it depends on how the speaker pronounces them.

  Jinn: (You might also see this word written as djinn.) According to Islamic tradition, God created humans from clay, angels from holy light, and jinn from smokeless fire. Some jinn are thought to be shape-shifters—they can take human or animal form. They have free will and can be good or evil. They are invisible to humans but can choose to make themselves visible. Characteristics of jinn vary from culture to culture. For example, some cultures say there are different types of jinn—associated with air, water, earth. Some scholars point out pre-Islamic origins of fire spirits that are similar to jinn.

  Peri: (Also written as pari.) Beautiful winged spirits with an origin in Persian mythology that spread across the Islamic world. Some believe that peri are a benevolent, if somewhat mischievous, form of jinn. In Urdu, my first language and the language of the Mughal court, the word peri is translated as “fairy.”

  Dev: (Also written as div.) A monstrous creature, often depicted with claws and long teeth and horns and sometimes with human bodies but animal heads and hooves. They are often at war with peris. The origin of the dev, an evil spirit, is said to have come from Zoroastrianism. Like peris, some cultural traditions say that devs are a category of jinn, a malicious fire spirit.

  Ghul: This is a word you might recognize—it’s the source of the English word ghoul. In fact, the idea of a ghoul was introduced in Europe with the publication of One Thousand and One Nights. With an origin in Middle Eastern folklore, ghuls are said by some to be able to shape-shift and love to live in desserts. They are demonlike, evil creatures that—yup, you guessed it—are sometimes considered to be another category of jinn.

  Ifrit: (Also written as afarit, efreet, afrit.) Ifrit is the big bad guy that Amira and Hamza have to square off against. In the Mughal version of the Hamzanama, the hero Amir Hamza also battles a terrible demon named Ifrit. But, in reality, the term ifrit is often considered a category of demon—one that is very powerful, cunning, and wicked. The word ifrit is sometimes also used as an epithet—a derogatory word for a mean person.

  Simurgh: This is one of my favorite creatures of Qaf! Kind, powerful mythical birds from Persian mythology, simurghs were originally defined as bird-dogs, having the face of a dog and the feathers of a peacock. Their feathers are usually colored bronze or copper, and they sometimes have the paws of a lion. Over time, the idea of a simurgh became linked with other mythical birds such as the Arabic rukh or, in English, the roc, giant eagle-like birds.

  Khawla ki Supahi: The Khawla warriors are a jinn battalion that I made up but that was inspired by a real Muslim woman warrior, Khawla bint al-Azwar, who lived in Arabia during the seventh century. Said to be incredibly courageous, she disguised herself in knight armor to fight side by side with her brother, not revealing herself until after the battle was over. A skilled horsewoman and weapons master, she became a great general, eventually leading a group of Muslim women warriors into battle with the Byzantine Army.

  Razia: The leader of the Khawla ki Supahi in the book is also named after a famous Muslim woman, Razia Sultana, who ruled the Delhi Sultanate, an Islamic empire based out of Delhi, India, from 1236 to 1240 CE. She was the first female Muslim ruler of South Asia. Originally appointed by her father, who believed she was more capable than all of his sons, she was later overthrown by the region’s nobles, who opposed a woman sitting on the throne, even though Razia was supported by the general population.

  Other Historical Notes and Figures

  Al-Biruni: Abu Rayhan al-Biruni was an Iranian academic and brilliant polymath (someone renowned for their knowledge and skills in multiple areas) who lived from around 973 to 1050. He is considered a legendary inventor, mathematician, historian, scientist, philosopher, astronomer, astrologer, and author (of 150 books!) who could speak multiple languages. There really is a crater on the moon named after him, and an asteroid, too. He’s thought to be the first person who divided the hour into minutes and seconds on a base 60 system. And, yes, he really did invent a device called the Box of the Moon. It was a mechanical lunisolar calendar with eight gears that showed the relative position of the earth, moon, and sun—a kind of early computer! Sadly, no actual Box of the Moon artifact has ever been found (I made that part up for the story so Hamza could get his hands on something!), but some of al-Biruni’s sketches and writing still exist, and that’s where I drew inspiration for Amira and Hamza’s Box of the Moon.

  Book of Ingenious Devices: This is a real thing! It was written and illustrated by the Banu Musa brothers around 850 CE. The brothers worked at the Bayt al-Hiqma, or House of Wisdom, in Baghdad, Iraq. The book has illustrations and descriptions of about one hundred different devices, including automatic machines, called automata. Some of the inventions were inspired by other works, while some were totally original ideas, such as automatic fountains, mechanical trick devices
(like 3D puzzles), water dispensers, tools like a clamshell-shaped grabbing device, and mechanical musical machines like the automatic flute player that has a cameo in this book!

  Suleiman the Wise and the Ring of Power: The prophet and king Suleiman, known in the West as Solomon, was the son of David and is an important figure in Christianity and Judaism as well as Islam. In Islam he is referred to as Suleiman the Wise for his intellectual prowess. His other gifts included the ability to speak with animals and to control jinn. According to legend, his Ring of Power, also called the Seal of Solomon, was made of iron or brass engraved with a five-pointed star. It allowed Suleiman to command jinn and also imprison them in vessels such as oil lamps! (Sound familiar?) But the jinn he put in lamps were probably not the kind that gave you three wishes when you freed them. Suleiman also used the ring to seal commands and letters such as the one found by Amira and Hamza. There are many legends about this ring and what happened to it after Suleiman’s death. Some say it was thrown into the sea by a demon and swallowed by a fish. Others say it was buried in the desert along with Suleiman’s many treasures. Note: Suleiman the Wise is not the same as Suleiman the Magnificent, who was a sixteenth-century Ottoman ruler, who is a super interesting and legendary historical figure in his own right.

  Further Reading

  To learn more about the Hamzanama and see some of the remaining Mughal illustrations, or to learn more about some of the creatures I mention, the following books and links are a good start, and I highly encourage googling to read more about the amazing histories I tapped into for Amira & Hamza: The War to Save the Worlds.