Seeking Father Khaliq is a modern allegory about one man’s search for spiritual fulfillment. Set in the Middle East, Philosophy Professor Kareem al-Busiri teaches at a prestigious Egyptian university. The professor is persuaded to undertake important pilgrimages. He falls in love with a colleague, while attempting to manage mortal conflicts of values and ideology between his two sons. Carefully researched and constructed, this dynamic story reflects the current religious, political, and social turmoil of the region. Seeking Father Khaliq is unique in its Middle East setting, and its focus on Islam, as well as elements of Christianity and Judaism. The use of the jihadist conflict in Egypt as a surrogate for larger regional conflicts, the religious pilgrimages, and the resolution of inter-faith marriage issues are also highlighted.

Sarah, a free-spirited artist in her late twenties, accepts an assignment from her granduncle, Albert Smithson, to write his memoir. ‘Bertie’ has a crippling terror of death brought about by the agonising death of his father, who was an atheist. He learns that there are three conditions one must attain to die in a peaceful state. At age fifty-four, he has none of them and is determined to achieve them all.

What happens when a Black American billionaire with feral business instincts engages with a violent Sicilian Mafia family? Will his wealth become the justification for an affair that funds a migrant charity? The billionaire and his wife, the migrant charity couple, and the Mafia family find that they are neighbors in the mysterious Nebrodi Mountains of Sicily. Jerry Johnson, an African American billionaire from the Bronx, New York, and his young Spanish wife, Balencia Hidalgo, an accomplished artist, have renovated and enlarged their 18th-century residence in the small village of Gabiana in the Nebrodi Mountains. The Johnson’s new neighbours are David and Eva Pretorius, who work for a refugee charity in Sicily. Situated between the two couples is the Forio family, of which Salvatore (known as Shorty) is the head. Shorty has a wife and three married children living with him, and they are Mafia. “This is a fast-paced, action-packed tale that skillfully showcases love, family, tragedy, and loss amidst a bevy of criminal activity.” – Blue Ink Reviews

It's the nineties, and Kashmir is in turmoil. The tourism industry has taken a big hit, and the youth are disillusioned, with no jobs or hopes for the future. In this climate, Malla Khaliq waits day after day for guests to arrive at his three beloved houseboats - Gul, Gulshan and Gulfam - on the Dal Lake, and struggles to keep his three sons together. While Noor Mohammed loves his father, and tries to keep the faith, despite evidence that business is on the decline, Ghulam Ahmed and Ghulam Qadir have plans that might place them in the path of danger. Meanwhile, as Khaliq prepares for his much-pampered daughter Parveen's wedding, the sudden arrival of a mysterious American girl sets in motion events that threaten to disturb the precarious equilibrium of his household. Gul Gulfam Gulshan paints a portrait of a Kashmir in transition, and of a man who is trying to salvage the memories and values of his youth. Once a popular television series, this novelization vividly recreates the streets of Srinagar and the once-living economy of the Dal lake. This is a deeply affecting story about relationships, migration, ambitions and dreams of preserving one's homeland.

The attack on Mumbai shocked the world. For three days terrorists wreaked havoc over multiple venues in India’s commercial capital, leaving a trail of blood, death and destruction. Reporters from Hindustan Times tracked the events as they unfolded at Cama Hospital, the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus and followed the three-day siege at the Taj and Trident Hotels and at Nariman House. The collection brings together their dispatches as well as commentaries, profiles and columns published during the siege and its aftermath. This is a dramatic snapshot of the victims, heroes and perpetrators of the attacks and also of the outrage that still grips the nation.

Includes reviews of works written in languages of lesser currency, news from PEN Centres, original works, and papers delivered at International PEN congresses.

This is how we are, Narjis. We're those, whose dreams were not in harmony with their reality, as we were born at a time, other than their time, in a world, other than their world. So don't make your children bear responsibility for our history, which was contaminated by fanaticism, ignorance and other countless infectious diseases. For, our heritage is heavy, Narjis. Our heritage is heavy, and we, alone, should bear the evil consequences of our weakness. We left those epidemics eat into our heads, like worms, gobbling the remnants of our dreams, just as we left the worry of expatriation eat gradually into our souls. Meanwhile, we remained submissive, incapable of changing our life. We're, without formality, passive people. So, by God, Narjis, leave my daughter, now, to dream, as long as there is room, in her life, for dreams.

Seeking Father Khaliq is a modern allegory about one man’s search for spiritual fulfillment. Set in the Middle East, Philosophy Professor Kareem al-Busiri teaches at a prestigious Egyptian university. The professor is persuaded to undertake important pilgrimages. He falls in love with a colleague, while attempting to manage mortal conflicts of values and ideology between his two sons. Carefully researched and constructed, this dynamic story reflects the current religious, political, and social turmoil of the region. Seeking Father Khaliq is unique in its Middle East setting, and its focus on Islam, as well as elements of Christianity and Judaism. The use of the jihadist conflict in Egypt as a surrogate for larger regional conflicts, the religious pilgrimages, and the resolution of inter-faith marriage issues are also highlighted.

When sub-inspector Waqas Akram is posted at a dusty, sizzling Punjab town where a Hindu art teacher has been recently lynched on the accusation of blasphemy against Islam, he has already decided to quit police service following a not-so-great career. So, when he is assigned the case of a suicide of a seventeen-year-old boy, Waqas is tempted to accept the obvious and close the case. The ominous presence of a religious outfit around the boy’s house is another reason to stay away. But Waqas realizes there’s more to the case, when the boy’s friend reaches out claiming it was no suicide and that the case is linked to the Hindu teacher’s lynching. Waqas is intrigued as childhood memories of another lynching return to him. From witnesses’ statements, he pieces together accounts of friendships that transcended religions before they were ruined by betrayal, conspiracy, and religious fanaticism. Will Waqas succumb to the terror of religious bigots, or will he uphold justice in a society which badly needs it?

"From the earliest records of human civilization until the dawn of the twentieth century, and in widely separated cultures throughout the world, the story of honor was inseparable from the story of mankind. Today, an acquaintance with the concept of honor is indispensable to understanding the culture of the Islamic world and its sense of grievance against the West, where honor has been disregarded or actively despised for three-quarters of a century." "James Bowman draws from an wealth of sources across many centuries to illuminate honor's curious history in our own culture, and he discovers that Western honor was always different from that found elsewhere. Its idiosyncratic qualities derived partly from the classical tradition but mainly from the Judeo-Christian heritage, whose emphases on individual morality and, more recently, on sincerity and authenticity in private and personal life have acted as continual challenges to the traditional notion of honor as it is still maintained in other parts of the world. These challenges to honor and the accommodations with it that they ultimately produced are a fundamental theme in our own culture's distinctive history; and the eventual collapse of the honor culture in the West is the background against which the War on Terror and the Clash of Civilizations ought to be seen."--Jacket.