The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca by Tahir Shah

# Category: Travel

# Format: Hardcover, 368 pages

# On Sale: January 31, 2006

# Related Links:

Author's website

Pictures of renovated Caliph's House or Dar Khalifa where Tahir Shah still lives.

Radio Interview with Author on WNYC




When writer and film maker, Tahir Shah, became a father, he, like most parents, started looking to the future, and realizing that a life in organized and sanitized London would do nothing for his children's sense of adventure and simply promote cultural insularity, he decided to move his family to a place where he spent many an enjoyable day when he was a child - Casablanca! (Tahir's father was famed Sufi poet, Idries Shah, who drove his family from London to Casablanca every summer because the Atlas mountains reminded him of his home in Afghanistan, which was now inaccessible owing to the Taliban occupation)

Moving to and settling in Casablanca was no joke and even though they managed to get themselves a sprawling house which was once the palace of a former Caliph, it was in a terrible state of deterioration and urgently needed huge repairs in order to make it habitable again. Also, it was located right in the middle of a bidonville or a slum, but most troubling, it was reputed to be infested with Jinns who are attracted by empty houses (more on that later).

In those first few months everything that could go wrong, did and quite frankly, if I were Tahir Shah's wife Rachna, who had a 3-week old baby at the time of the move, I would have packed my bags and returned to London. In Morocco, house renovations rarely involve a signed contract, it's all via a verbal agreement thus resulting in a customer having very little hold on the contractor. The craftsmen would be prompt to start on a project, or several projects in the home, but they could take months finishing it.

"Why the hell can't they finish one damn thing before they move on?" I complained again and again.

Kamal would creep behind me, his head low. "It's the Moroccan way," he would reply. "We may not finish things, but we start them so well!"

"The Caliph's House" is primarily a first-person account of Shah's family's relocation to Morocco, but it is so much more. It's a journey into his ancestory, ethnicity and also a beautiful cultural peek into Casablanca, its people, customs, especially its society's close association with the supernatural, in particular, the Jinns.

"...They go by various names - Jinns, Genies, Jnun- and are believed by all to share the earth with us, living in animate objects. They are born, get marries, bear children, and die, just like us. Most of the time they are invisible to humans, but they can take almost any form they wish, most commonly appearing in the hours after dusk, disguised as cats, dogs or scorpions. Although there are some good jinns, most are wicked. Nothing gives them greater pleasure than injuring humans for the discomfort they imagine we cause them"

Tahir Shah, has done a great job of introducing Morocco to his readers and the account of the renovation of the house made for great reading although I do wonder if he went too far in uprooting his young children from their secure and stable London home and subjecting them the Caliph's House with its decay, the rat infestations, the bloody animal sacrifices meant to appease the jinns and the fetid shanty-town that surrounded the house. But then again, his kids have his genes and noting from his earlier books where he travels to King Solomon Mines in Ethiopia, the Upper Amazon in search of shrunken heads and meeting primitive tribes in Central India, nothing is 'too far' for Tahir Shah.

And then, he makes a good case for why Morocco was attractive to him. He says, Morocco was the first time in his life when he became completely alert. "...In the West, you can drift from day to day in the knowledge that society will protect you and your children. Any problems, and someone will pick you up and dust you off. But after five minutes on North African soil, I knew it was up to me to guard my family. No one else was watching them."

This rang true for me, too. When I lived in India I felt my wits were constantly sharpened because, I had to live by them 24/7. I am a lot more relaxed here in Canada. I feel in some ways my reflexes are so much slower here because I don't need them as much. That lack of safety I felt in Asia was an energizing force but also a huge concern, but is my adopted country cushioning me too much?

In closing, I really enjoyed the book. I feel like I have been given a private viewing into the lives of the people of Morocco. I have learned that while they are extremely superstitious, they are also a very proud nation, where family and honor come before anything else. You can tell that the author came to care deeply for the place and its people, every page in his 368-page book gives him away.