The Lions of Al-Rassan

Name: The Lions of Al-Rassan
Rating: 4.32 (30004 reviews)

by Guy Gavriel Kay

First published 1995

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4.3(30,004)

Jehane bet Ishak is a Kindath physician in the divided land of Al-Rassan, where Asharite city-states compete after the fall of a once-unified caliphate. Her life becomes bound to Ammar ibn Khairan, a poet, diplomat and assassin serving the ruler of Cartada, and to Rodrigo Belmonte, the most formidable Jaddite commander of the northern kingdoms. Political violence forces all three into exile and uneasy cooperation, creating loyalties that cross the religious identities by which their world expects them to be divided.

The balance changes when austere Muwardi warriors arrive from across the straits and the northern Jaddite states renew their advance. Court rivalry becomes religious war, leaving Ammar and Rodrigo on opposing sides despite the respect and affection between them. Inspired by eleventh-century Al-Andalus, the taifa kingdoms and the legend of El Cid, the novel presents conquest not as a simple clash of civilisations but as the destruction of relationships, cities and shared ways of life.