This portion of the book follows the story of Hasan, as generally bad things happen to him. Christian inquisitors have made the lives of Muslims in Grenada very difficult. They generally abuse and torment the Muslim population. He has to stand by as his sister if manipulated into an arranged marriage by his father. His father basically sells his daughter for profit. Hasan’s sister was also afflicted by leprosy.
The next unfortunate thing that happens is the death of Hasan’s father, which you would think would resolve some of his issues, but no, it actually makes everything a bit worse. Now Hasan must marry a woman, Fatima, who he is not interested in at all. He actually loves Hiba, but there is nothing he can do, he marries Fatima. It seems that both of them despised their arranged marriage, and Hasan ends up comforting Fatima.
Hasan has no choice but to uphold his arranged marriage and deal with his newly established family. He is bound by the requirements of his strict Muslim culture and society.
The social interactions of this time seems very interesting to me. This seems commonplace to him at the time, but to someone of this day and age, it is almost outrageous. The change between the two is one of the most interesting and fascinating parts of the story.
It is very interesting that some of the traditions within that culture that would seem radical today were commonplace back then. I also find interesting that in that time, one of the reasons people moved to cities was for protection, as in villages they felt threatened by attacks from nomadic tribes. In the past in the U.S., it seems that people moved out of cities and into suburban and rural areas in part because of higher crime rates in urban areas.
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