A Master of Djinn

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-6

Chapters 7-9

Chapters 10-12

Chapters 13-15

Chapters 16-18

Chapters 19-21

Chapters 22-24

Chapters 25-27

Chapter 28-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Background

Cultural Context: Djinn

Among the Abrahamic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—tradition describes God as creating two races of sentient beings: angels and humans. However, Islamic tradition believes that God created a third race of sentient beings, the djinn. These spirits are often reclusive or invisible, and their name is taken from the Arabic word meaning “hidden from sight,” although the term can also be interpreted as “demon.” The djinn typically have some level of magic power. Like humans, they are born, live, and die, unlike the immortal angels, though their lifespan is quite extensive compared to humans.

Most readers would easily recognize the djinn from their appearance—as the Westernized genie—in the Aladdin story from One Thousand and One Nights, even though that story, along with others, in the anthology is most often attributed to French authors, such as Antoine Galland and his 18th-century French translation Les mille et une nuits. Djinn make regular appearances throughout many compilations of the collection, with “The Fisherman and the Djinni” as one of the most notable tales—one to which Clark alludes in A Master of Djinn.

Beyond the One Thousand and One Nights, djinn appear regularly in the legends of the Biblical King Solomon. In the Talmud, written from the fourth through the sixth century CE, King Solomon captures demons, often imprisoning or enslaving them. Islam retains these legends, and since djinn can also mean “demon,” djinn tended to be integrated into them.

Djinn can be classified into different groups, such as marid, Ifrit, ghul, and others, and Clark retains that system throughout the novel. Many of these creatures are dangerous, with Ifrit often carrying the more demonic connotations, but often djinn are nonetheless ambivalent or benevolent toward humanity.

Historical Context: Colonialism

Upon discovering the Americas at the end of the 15th century, Europe extensively adopted the practice of colonialism. The powerful nations—primarily England, France, and Spain—established a presence in other nations around the world with the intent of harvesting resources and sending them back to Europe. This practice continued for centuries and culminated in the early 20th century, around the time A Master of Djinn takes place.

Though it established Europe, with already superior weaponry and technology, as a superpower, colonialism had disastrous effects for the countries they colonized. Diseases spread to populations that had no previous resistance to them, killing many. Many native languages, such as Arawak from the Caribbean and South America, Tasmanian from Tasmania, and several North American languages, went extinct or nearly extinct as Europe saw their own languages as a method of establishing dominance. The national treasures of world nations were plundered and sent to European museums, where many reside to this day. Many countries in Africa, South America, and the Indian subcontinent were destabilized to the point of extreme poverty or frequent warfare lasting to the present day. Entire Indigenous populations were pushed nearly to extinction, such as New Zealand’s Maori who saw a decline of more than 50%, or entirely to extinction, best exemplified by many of the Indigenous American nations in North America. Another destructive evil, colonialism gave rise to the Atlantic slave trade which is the personal expertise of the author P. Djeli Clark.

Many of these themes appear in his novel, with concepts of language, literature, and culture taking prominence. Characters’ command of Arabic indicates their affinity for Egypt. One Thousand and One Nights a repository of medieval Arabic popular fiction—which itself saw alterations and additions by colonizers—plays a significant role in the protagonist’s discovery of the truth, while also a source of culture the villain attempts to appropriate for her own ends.

Colonialism only began to die out after World War II with a series of declarations of independence, starting with India and Pakistan in 1947. Setting the novel in an alternate 1912 places it on the cusp of 20th-century violence that would start to see its decline, while still allowing readers to see the height of this world of colonialism, albeit altered to twist the narrative around on the European powers.

Cultural Context: Social Unrest

A Master of Djinn was published in 2021. In 2001, the United States experienced the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Within a mere two decades, the country has faced increasing protests over institutional racism, wars based on false information, school shootings, economic oppression, global climate change, the rise of far-right movements, and the Covid-19 pandemic.

A Master of Djinn certainly centers on issues of racism and populism, which plagued the United States in the years immediately prior to the novel’s publication, but it tackles historical issues at the root of those problems, including slavery and colonialism. Clark’s characters such as Fatma—a member of three disadvantaged populations at once—and Hadia—intelligent, motivated to change the world, and proud of her hijab—seem to fill that need for diversity and social justice that a portion of American readers desperately wanted.

In the abstract for his article, “Translating Trump Through a Brief History of Black America,” history professor Dexter Gabriel states:

Contrary to popular sentiment, [Black American] history has not been some teleological march of progress. It has instead been a history of paradoxes and contradiction, of triumphs and setbacks, and one of ongoing perseverance against shifting forms of adversity, including the [Trump] presidency and what it carries in its wake” (Gabriel, Dexter. “Translating Trump Through a Brief History of Black America.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies vol. 2, no. 5, 2017).

A Master of Djinn embodies many of these concepts, including that adversity shifts but is never alleviated, and that racism and biases can be manipulated to cause devastating problems.