The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca | 
|  | | | Title: | The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca | | Author: | Tahir Shah | | Publisher: | Bantam | | Type: | Book / Paperback | | Publication Date: | 26 December, 2006 | | ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0553383108 / 9780553383102 | | List Price: | $13.00 | | You Save: | $2.60 | | Amazon Price: | $10.40 | |
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Product Description
In the tradition of A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun, acclaimed English travel writer Tahir Shah shares a highly entertaining account of making an exotic dream come true. By turns hilarious and harrowing, here is the story of his family’s move from the gray skies of London to the sun-drenched city of Casablanca, where Islamic tradition and African folklore converge–and nothing is as easy as it seems….
Inspired by the Moroccan vacations of his childhood, Tahir Shah dreamed of making a home in that astonishing country. At age thirty-six he got his chance. Investing what money he and his wife, Rachana, had, Tahir packed up his growing family and bought Dar Khalifa, a crumbling ruin of a mansion by the sea in Casablanca that once belonged to the city’s caliph, or spiritual leader.
With its lush grounds, cool, secluded courtyards, and relaxed pace, life at Dar Khalifa seems sure to fulfill Tahir’s fantasy–until he discovers that in many ways he is farther from home than he imagined. For in Morocco an empty house is thought to attract jinns, invisible spirits unique to the Islamic world. The ardent belief in their presence greatly hampers sleep and renovation plans, but that is just the beginning. From elaborate exorcism rituals involving sacrificial goats to dealing with gangster neighbors intent on stealing their property, the Shahs must cope with a new culture and all that comes with it.
Endlessly enthralling, The Caliph’s House charts a year in the life of one family who takes a tremendous gamble. As we follow Tahir on his travels throughout the kingdom, from Tangier to Marrakech to the Sahara, we discover a world of fierce contrasts that any true adventurer would be thrilled to call home.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews:
• A Year In Casablanca Indeed 14 May, 2008
Tahir Shah has written another charming book about his experiences in a strange and wonderful land. He manages, once again, to both render and strip away the mystery of the subject of his book: Casablanca and, to a lesser extent, Morocco at large.
The book is (purposely I gather) written in the same form as Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence, right down to the hand-drawn sketches. Each chapter follows his experiences, together with his wife and children, in a purely chronological order, during his first year living in, and restoring, the Caliph's House in Casablanca.
The book is great and full of insights and wonderful little anecdotes. It's peppered with colourful characters and histories and is, to my mind, quite deeply personal as well. I suspect that some artistic license has been taken by Shah for the sake of the story and to keep the drama high (surely he's not still surprised by references to Jinn after month seven...) but it's all perfectly acceptable.
I look forward to getting a copy of the sequel shortly and can also recommend another of his books, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, for a fascinating and unique look at the culture of magic and mysticism in India.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3U7PPDXLL48ZZ
• Not The Usual Home Remodel 08 January, 2008
The foreign home restoration genre takes a real turn with Tahir Shah's experiences in Casablanca. His patience was amazing. I would have gone stark raving mad. I enjoyed his writing and have gone on to other books written by him. His wife must be a saint to have put up with all of the Caliph's House problems.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A10VWIVLIQIGXV
• One Must Experience Other Cultures To Understand One's Own 27 November, 2008
If you've ever wondered what it would be like to figuratively pack up your tent and plop it down in a distant, exotic land, you'll find this book fascinating. Tahir Shah decided to give up his comfortable but boring life in the fog and rain of London and transplant his family to Casablanca. He buys a decaying but stately mansion in Morocco and sets about fixing it up. On the surface Morocco has many trappings of the Western world, but in fact, Shah quickly finds that virtually nothing works in Morocco the way it does in London. This charming book describes the vicissitudes and victories, both minor and major, of Shah's first year living in Morocco.
When Shah arrives in Morocco, he sets about trying to return Dar Khalifa (the Caliph's house - his new home) to its former grandeur. His view initially is that while some of the customs and rules of Morocco are different, once he figures them out he'll have no problem restoring his house and settling comfortably into life in Morocco. Little does he anticipate that his success in Casablanca will ultimately require him to understand and, at some level, appreciate an entirely different world view. Things in Casablanca simply don't work like they do in London.
Shah describes a wealth of differences between Moroccan culture and the Western world. Superstition and the belief in evil spirits, dealing with the police (wow!), dealing with the bureaucracy, dealing with organized crime, fanatic Islam, labor relations, buying materials (there isn't any Home Depot around!) and a host of other issues confront and confound Shah as he sets about his task. There are many problems, but along the way he makes many new (and true) friends and experience a life that is alien to London. There is also a great deal of humor and tenderness in this story. Shah's grandfather died in Morocco in the 60s and he finds some people that knew him and ultimately obtains his grandfather's diaries.
The final chapter in the book is particularly poignant in which Shah summarizes some of the huge cultural differences between Morocco and the West. One of the great strengths of the West is that people by and large don't accept their lot in life. They are willing to strive to be more than they are, Shah states that the Moroccans are often content with the situation around them. On the other hand, Shah states that he is so much happier, particularly for his children, in Morocco as they are free from the Victorian guilt inflicted on them and their children by generations of tradition in England.
This book in other reviews is often compared to Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence. It is a much better book than the latter in part because the gulf between London and Casablanca is much bigger than New York/Nice. Shah is also a much better writer than Mayle in my view. For the dreamers who want to pull up the tent pegs and make a total change but for one reason or the other never quite got the gumption, this story is a highly readable account of someone else's journey. Highly recommended.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3AW8XP45YVIIZ
• Great Cultural Story 23 November, 2007
After spending time in Morocco and doing business with a Moroccan, this book and Shah's writing of his experiences has helped me to better understand some of my own experiences and appreciate my role in learning about the culture. It is a current, true to life, mostly lighthearted look into today's Moroccan culture. It is a fast read and one I would say for anyone thinking of visiting Morocco or wanting to know about the culture, it would be well worth the investment of time.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A3SOIVYCQL4RRD
• Another "domestic" Travel Book 31 May, 2008
Until fifty or so years ago, the paradigmatic "travel" book was an account of a solo adventurer's trials and tribulations traveling to and through relatively unknown and often moderately dangerous foreign lands, surviving on a shoestring and his or her wits and character. The best of these books made for exciting reading. As the world has gradually become smaller and more westernized, travel books have gradually become tamer and less exciting, so that by now the paradigmatic "travel" book is practically domestic in nature. It recounts a stretch of time, often a year, during which the author, often with family in tow, actually takes up residence in a foreign city or region -- for example, Peter Mayle in Provence, Adam Gopnik in Paris, and innumerable Brits and Americans in Tuscany. The best of these modern travel books are pleasant and many are instructive, but (alas) they never are exciting. THE CALIPH'S HOUSE: A YEAR IN CASABLANCA is another of these contemporary "domestic" travel books, although the setting, Morocco, is more exotic than Provence, Paris, or Tuscany.
In THE CALIPH'S HOUSE, Tahir Shah tells the story of moving his family (wife and two very young children) from the U.K. to Casablanca and into a dilapidated, rambling old house and compound (rumored to once have been the residence of a caliph), which he then spends a year restoring. The restoration is complicated immeasurably by what seems like the ten plagues of Egypt, including rats, mysteriously appearing slime, hordes of workmen who seem to want to move in rather than finish their work, and (worst of all) jinns. The book is driven by the recurring cultural clashes and misunderstandings between the rational and efficient Tahir Shah and the Moroccans, with their propensity to blame all mishaps and misfortune in the world on jinns, their absurdly byzantine bureaucracy, and their stubborn adherence to traditional, centuries-old ways of doing things. Rather than relying on his own wits to overcome the obstacles he encounters, Tahir Shah gets by on seemingly inexhaustible financial resources and the savvy of his street-wise Moroccan executive assistant, Kamal. Far from the heroic adventurer, Tahir comes across as a bit of a doofus. The only person of heroic or noble character that we are introduced to is Tahir's deceased grandfather, Sirdar Ikbal Ali Shah, a Pashtun Afghan who lived his last years in Morocco after a career as a diplomat, world-traveller, and writer.
Tahir Shah's writing is above average, but hardly distinguished. THE CALIPH'S HOUSE makes for a pleasant and instructive read, but nothing more. It did, however, end up coloring my view of Morocco. Before reading the book, Morocco was fairly high on my wish-list of places to go; it is now a few slots lower on the list.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1OBNY1WB38LMI
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