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“The nature of Christ is the essence of our religion, and that essence is subtle and problematic, and potends schism and discord.��

Modern Arabic novel is often criticised for being too political, and in many cases nothing more than a platform for writers to repackage contemporary war troubles in Arab countries into a kind of fictional reportage designed for quick consumption, forgotten as soon as the next big thing happens and is taken up. I share this criticism to the extent when artistic levers are abandoned and the novel becomes a vehicle for thinly disguised political propaganda; but at the same time I also sympathise with those for whom it is impossible not to be political in the face of the internecine conflicts that plague their societies with no end in sight. After all, a cursory look at the immense output of WWII-themed novels for the past 70 years should be enough to humble the critic.

Azazeel pleasantly surprised me. It’s a fascinating and successful novel, imo, that deservedly won the for 2009. This is solid historical fiction set in the 5th C Egypt & Syria and chronicles the great conflicts that took place in the early Christian church. Although historical, this novel is not dissimilar to what might be written today about religious intolerance and the violence it begets, except that the author has swapped sides and turned the clock back to say that, in a way, it's an old story with new names.

Ziedan has made use of a common fictional conceit of a memoir that was unearthed somewhere near Aleppo, in Syria, on the site of the ruins of an ancient Christian monastery. The archaeological dig turns up a number of perfectly preserved scrolls inscribed in Syriac, the first ever complete autobiographical account of the time that is bound to stir controversy when translated in full, just as it did in real life, when the Coptic Church objected to the “unnecessary intrusion�� into theological controversies which the Church settled a long time ago.

It follows the story of an Egyptian Coptic monk, Hypa, who is witness to the increasingly violent Christological disputes shaping up almost a century after Arius has been excommunicated and declared a heretic; and now the stage is set for another big dispute that would culminate in the excommunication of Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople, and the triumph of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, who was his principle opponent.

It was difficult to find the right voice for the character of ancient Christian monk which has no precedent in contemporary or classical Arabic fiction. But Ziedan successfully manages to make it work. He employs splendid imagery to evoke the remote past and its setting with beautiful metaphors of its time in the first-person narrative which work well for the most part. Historical events, places and dates around which the story is weaved are also strikingly accurate.

The character of Hypa the monk is drawn with great care. He is a gentle Christian man who is troubled having to take sides in the inane theological disputes on one hand, and on the other hand he’s consumed by personal conflicts between his religious calling and his human desires for freedom and knowledge.

In this two-fold crisis enters Azazeel, which is another name for Satan in Arabic and who symbolizes Hypa’s internal struggles as a man of God and a man of his desires, and urges him to take the final leap, to write about all the evil he has witnessed in life so that posterity can know who is more powerful. God or Satan.

"Would it have been difficult for God to forgive mankind with a simple order, without imaginary suffering, a humiliating crucifixion, an inglorious death and a glorious resurrection?"

September '18