The Riddle of Qaf

ALI BABA and his forty colleagues were not thieves but philosophers; Pythagoras’s theorem of the triangle was inspired by a crucifixion in Jerusalem; and the greatest demon Sinbad had to face was not mythical, but cannibal. These are clues offered by Alberto Mussa in his capitvating journey through the Arabic alphabet in The Riddle of Qaf, recently published by Aflame. The protagonist, a Brazilian of Lebanese descent like Mussa himself, heard the riddle at his grandfather’s feet. He believes it is an unrecognised muallaqat, the pre-Islamic poems suspended from one of Islam’s most sacred places. MORE