The Adventures Of Amina Al- Sirafi
INTRODUCTION
In the name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate. Blessings upon His honoured Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his followers. Praise be to God, who in His glory created the earth and its diversity of lands and languages, peoples and tongues. In these vast marvels, so numerous a human eye cannot gaze upon more than a sliver, is there not proof of His
Magnificence?
And when it comes to marvels . . . let us delight in the adventures of the
nakhudha Amina al-Sirafi. Yes! That Captain Amina al-Sirafi. The smuggler, the pirate. The blasphemer that men of letters accuse of serving up human hearts for her sea-beast husband, and the sorceress—for she must be a sorceress, because no female could sail a ship so deftly without the use of forbidden magics— whose appearance somehow both beguiles and repulses.
Traders along our air shores warn against speaking her name as though she is a djinn that might be summoned as such—though, strangely, they have little compunction when it comes to spreading vicious rumours about her body and her sexuality: these things that men obsess over when they hate what
they desire and desire what they cannot possess.
I am certain you have heard talk of her. After all, it is tradition for the travelled men of our ummah to share the world’s wonders by creating accounts of their voyages—particularly when those voyages are enlivened by gossip of fearsome female rogues. Many such travelers will swear their
accounts are not written to tantalize or entertain—God forbid!—but are intended first and foremost to strengthen the hearts of the faithful and
provide evidence of the promised splendor of God’s creation. And yet, as
Muslims, are we not told to speak honestly? To ascertain what is truth and
beware spreading falsehoods?