The Satanic Verses

by

Salman Rushdie

Saladin Chamcha Character Analysis

Saladin Chamcha is an Indian expatriate and voice actor who rejects his cultural heritage in favor of assimilating into British society. Born Salahuddin Chamchawala, Saladin has a troubled relationship with his father, Changez, and grows up feeling overshadowed by his father’s authority and traditional values. This conflict drives Saladin to adopt a new identity in England, where he changes his name, accent, and demeanor to fit into his ideal of Britishness, distancing himself from his roots. Saladin’s defining characteristics include his deep-seated insecurity, resentment, and desire for acceptance. These traits become more prominent after he miraculously survives the plane explosion which begins the novel—only to find himself transformed into a devil-like creature with horns and hooves. This metamorphosis symbolizes his inner conflict and feelings of alienation, both from his adopted country, which treats him as an outsider, and from his native culture, which he has rejected. His transformation leads to a series of humiliations, such as being detained as an illegal immigrant and enduring racial abuse. As the novel progresses, Saladin grapples with his identity and sense of belonging. Eventually, he reconciles with his father and accepts his heritage, allowing him to return to human form.

Saladin Chamcha Quotes in The Satanic Verses

The The Satanic Verses quotes below are all either spoken by Saladin Chamcha or refer to Saladin Chamcha. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Fallibility of Prophets Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

“Fly,” Chamcha shrieked at Gibreel. “Start flying, now.” And added, without knowing its source, the second command: “And sing.”

How does newness come into the world? How is it born?

Of what fusions, translations, conjoinings is it made?

How does it survive, extreme and dangerous as it is? What compromises, what deals, what betrayals of its secret nature must it make to stave off the wrecking crew, the exterminating angel, the guillotine?

Is birth always a fall?

Do angels have wings? Can men fly?

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha (speaker), Gibreel Farishta
Page Number: 8-9
Explanation and Analysis:

These were the first words Gibreel Farishta said when he awoke on the snowbound English beach with the improbability of a starfish by his ear: “Born again, Spoono, you and me. Happy birthday, mister; happy birthday to you.”

Whereupon Saladin Chamcha coughed, spluttered, opened his eyes, and, as befitted a new-born babe, burst into foolish tears.

Related Characters: Gibreel Farishta (speaker), Saladin Chamcha
Page Number: 10
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

We are creatures of air, Our roots in dreams And clouds, reborn In flight. Goodbye. The enigmatic note discovered by the police in Gibreel Farishta’s penthouse, located on the top floor of the Everest Vilas skyscraper on Malabar Hill, the highest home in the highest building on the highest ground in the city, one of those double-vista apartments from which you could look this way across the evening necklace of Marine Drive or that way out to Scandal Point and the sea, permitted the newspaper headlines to prolong their cacophonies.

Related Characters: Gibreel Farishta, Saladin Chamcha
Page Number: 13-14
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 3 Quotes

Once upon a time—it was and it was not so, as the old stories used to say, it happened and it never did—maybe, then, or maybe not, a ten-year-old boy from Scandal Point in Bombay found a wallet lying in the Street outside his home […] when he saw the black leather billfold lying at his feet, the nausea vanished, and he bent down excitedly and grabbed,—opened,—and found, to his delight, that it was full of cash,—and not merely rupees, but real money, negotiable on black markets and international exchanges, — pounds! Pounds sterling, from Proper London in the fabled country of Vilayet across the black water and far away.

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha
Page Number: 35-36
Explanation and Analysis:

The promise of the magic lamp infected Master Salahuddin with the notion that one day his troubles would end and his innermost desires would be gratified, and all he had to do was wait it out; but then there was the incident of the wallet, when the magic of a rainbow had worked for him, not for his father but for him, and Changez Chamchawala had stolen the crock of gold. After that the son became convinced that his father would smother all his hopes unless he got away, and from that moment he became desperate to leave, to escape, to place oceans between the great man and himself.

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha, Changez Chamchawala
Related Symbols: The Magic Lamp
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

One man’s breath was sweetened, while another’s, by an equal and opposite mystery, was soured. What did they expect? Falling like that out of the sky: did they imagine there would be no sideeffects? Higher Powers had taken an interest, it should have been obvious to them both, and such Powers (I am, of course, speaking of myself) have a mischievous, almost a wanton attitude to tumbling flies. And another thing, let’s be clear: great falls change people. You think they fell a long way? In the matter of tumbles, I yield pride of place to no personage, whether mortal or im—. From clouds to ashes, down the chimney you might say, from heavenlight to hellfire. . . under the stress of a long plunge, I was saying, mutations are to be expected, not all of them random. Unnatural selections. Not much of a price to pay for survival, for being reborn, for becoming new, and at their age at that.

Related Characters: Gibreel Farishta, Saladin Chamcha
Related Symbols: Bad Breath
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:

“Gibreel,” said Saladin Chamcha, “help.”

But Gibreel’s eye had been caught by Rosa Diamond. He looked at her, and could not look away. Then he nodded, and went back upstairs. No attempt was made to stop him.

When Chamcha reached the Black Maria, he saw the traitor, Gibreel Farishta, looking down at him from the little balcony outside Rosa’s bedroom, and there wasn’t any light shining around the bastard’s head.

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha (speaker), Gibreel Farishta, Rosa Diamond
Page Number: 146
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 4 Quotes

Chamcha’s room struck the sleepless intruder as contrived, and therefore sad: the caricature of an actor’s room full of signed photographs of colleagues, handbills, framed programmes, production stills, citations, awards, volumes of movie--star memoirs, a room bought off the peg, by the yard, an imitation of life, a mask’s mask. Novelty items on every surface: ashtrays in the shape of pianos, china pierrots peeping out from behind a shelf of books. And everywhere, on the walls, in the movie posters, in the glow of the lamp borne by bronze Eros, in the mirror shaped like a heart, oozing up through the blood-red carpet, dripping from the ceiling, Saladin’s need for love. In the theatre everybody gets kissed and everybody is darling. The actor’s life offers, on a daily basis, the simulacrum of love; a mask can be satisfied, or at least consoled, by the echo of what it seeks.

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha, Jumpy Joshi
Page Number: 180
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 5, Chapter 1 Quotes

Sufyan, taking his cue from his younger daughter, went up to where Chamcha, huddled in his blanket, was drinking enormous quantities of Hind’s unrivalled chicken yakhni, squatted down, and placed an arm around the still-shivering unfortunate. “Best place for you is here,” he said, speaking as if to a simpleton or small child. “Where else would you go to heal your disfigurements and recover your normal health? Where else but here, with us, among your own people, your own kind?”

Only when Saladin Chamcha was alone in the attic room at the very end of his strength did he answer Sufyan’s rhetorical question. “I’m not your kind,” he said distinctly into the night. “You’re not my people. I’ve spent half my life trying to get away from you.”

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha (speaker), Mr. Sufyan (speaker)
Page Number: 261-262
Explanation and Analysis:

I am the incarnation of evil, he thought. He had to face it. However it had happened, it could not be denied. I am no longer myself, or not only. I am the embodiment of wrong, of what-we-hate, of sin.

Why? Why me?

What evil had he done -- what vile thing could he, would he do?

For what was he—he couldn’t avoid the notion—being punished? And, come to that, by whom? (I held my tongue.)

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha (speaker)
Page Number: 265
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 7, Chapter 1 Quotes

Culture, city, wife; and a fourth and final love, of which he had spoken to nobody: the love of a dream. In the old days the dream had recurred about once a month; a simple dream, set in a city park, along an avenue of mature elms, whose overarching branches turned the avenue into a green tunnel into which the sky and the sunlight were dripping, here and there, through the perfect imperfections in the canopy of leaves. In this sylvan secrecy, Saladin saw himself, accompanied by a small boy of about five, whom he was teaching to ride a bicycle. The boy, wobbling alarmingly at first, made heroic efforts to gain and maintain his balance, with the ferocity of one who wishes his father to be proud of him. The dream-Chamcha ran along behind his imagined son, holding the bike upright by gripping the parcel-rack over the rear wheel.

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha
Page Number: 414
Explanation and Analysis:

Chamcha recommended caution. Recalling Mishal Sufyan’s loathing for Simba, he said: “The fellow has—has he not?—a record of violence towards women . . .” Jumpy turned his palms outward. “In his personal life,” he owned, “the guy’s frankly a piece of shit. But that doesn’t mean he disembowels senior citizens; you don’t have to be an angel to be innocent. Unless, of course, you’re black.” Chamcha let this pass. “The point is, this isn’t personal, it’s political,” Jumpy emphasized, adding, as he got up to leave, “Um, there’s a public meeting about it tomorrow. Pamela and I have to go; please, I mean if you’d like, if you’d be interested, that is, come along if you want.”

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha (speaker), Jumpy Joshi (speaker), Uhuru Simba, Mishal Sufyan
Page Number: 426
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 7, Chapter 2 Quotes

The moment Saladin Chamcha got close enough to Allie Cone to be transfixed, and somewhat chilled, by her eyes, he felt his reborn animosity towards Gibreel extending itself to her, with her degree-zero go-to-hell look, her air of being privy to some great, secret mystery of the universe; also, her quality of what he would afterwards think of as wilderness, a hard, sparse thing, antisocial, self-contained, an essence. Why did it annoy him so much? Why, before she’d even opened her mouth, had he characterized her as part of the enemy?

Related Characters: Gibreel Farishta, Saladin Chamcha, Alleluia Cone
Page Number: 442
Explanation and Analysis:

“‘Minnamin, Gut mag alkan, Pern dirstan,’” Chamcha replied. “It means, ‘My darling, God makes hungry, the Devil thirsty.’ Nabokov.”

“Him again,” Gibreel complained. “What bloody language?”

“He made it up. It’s what Kinbote’s Zemblan nurse tells him as a child. In Pale Fire.”

Perndirstan,” Farishta repeated. "Sounds like a country: Hell, maybe. I give up, anyway. How are you supposed to read a man who writes in a made-up lingo of his own?”

Related Characters: Gibreel Farishta (speaker), Saladin Chamcha (speaker)
Page Number: 456
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 9 Quotes

He stood at the window of his childhood and looked out at the Arabian Sea. The moon was almost full; moonlight, stretching from the rocks of Scandal Point out to the far horizon, created the illusion of a silver pathway, like a parting in the water’s shining hair, like a road to miraculous lands. He shook his head; could no longer believe in fairy-tales. Childhood was over, and the view from this window was no more than an old and sentimental echo. To the devil with it! Let the bulldozers come. If the old refused to die, the new could not be born.

“Come along,” Zeenat Vakil’s voice said at his shoulder. It seemed that in spite of all his wrong-doing, weakness, guilt—in spite of his humanity—he was getting another chance. There was no accounting for one’s good fortune, that was plain. There it simply was, taking his elbow in its hand. “My place,” Zeeny offered. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“I’m coming,” he answered her, and turned away from the view.

Related Characters: Saladin Chamcha (speaker), Zeeny Vakil (speaker), Gibreel Farishta
Page Number: 561
Explanation and Analysis:
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The Satanic Verses PDF

Saladin Chamcha Character Timeline in The Satanic Verses

The timeline below shows where the character Saladin Chamcha appears in The Satanic Verses. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Part 1, Chapter 1
Metamorphosis and Identity  Theme Icon
...Gibreel Farishta, is singing happily and striking various poses in the air. The other man, Saladin Chamcha, is irritated by Gibreel’s levity and tells him to be quiet. A narrator reveals... (full context)
Immigration and Identity Theme Icon
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As Saladin and Gibreel fall through a thick layer of clouds, Gibreel maneuvers through the air and... (full context)
The Fallibility of Prophets Theme Icon
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Saladin tells Gibreel that they must fly and sing. He does not understand where his orders... (full context)
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Some unknown amount of time later, Saladin and Gibreel wash up on a beach—the only two people to survive the disaster. After... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 2
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While on Flight 420, Gibreel talks to Saladin about his childhood. As a child, Gibreel works with his father, Najmuddin Senior, delivering food.... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 3
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As Flight 420 takes off, Saladin Chamcha crosses his fingers, a superstitious habit of his. He has just completed a trip... (full context)
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In a flashback, Saladin (full name Salahuddin Chamchawala) is a child living in Bombay. One day, while riding home... (full context)
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One day, when Saladin is 13, he is playing alone among some rocks. While exploring, he sees an old... (full context)
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Saladin’s prayers are answered when, seemingly out of nowhere, Changez offers to send him to England... (full context)
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Racial Prejudice and Xenophobia Theme Icon
However, after Changez gives Saladin the wallet, Changez stops paying for things. The year is 1961 and Saladin is still... (full context)
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After five years of schooling in London, Saladin returns home to Bombay. There, Nasreen makes it a point to tease Saladin for what... (full context)
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...no one is around to help her, the incident kills Nasreen. One year later, while Saladin is in college in London, Changez marries another woman named Nasreen. (full context)
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When Changez informs Saladin of his new marriage, Saladin grows irate, and their relationship sours even further. A few... (full context)
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In the late 1960s, Saladin meets Pamela Lovelace, a fellow actor, and they get married a few years later. However,... (full context)
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While in India for a role, Saladin starts an affair with Zeeny Vakil, a Marxist writer passionate about Indian culture and identity.... (full context)
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Saladin and Zeeny have a conversation about Saladin’s work as an actor. The TV show Saladin... (full context)
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During their conversation, Saladin mentions Changez. Zeeny recognizes the name because of Changez’s involvement in politics. When Saladin mentions... (full context)
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Changez comes to see Saladin and Zeeny, but it is not a happy reunion. Although Changez is still married to... (full context)
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After the argument, Zeeny declares Changez the winner, which makes Saladin furious. Back at Saladin’s hotel, he and Zeeny get into a fight about Saladin’s identity... (full context)
Part 1, Chapter 4
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While traveling to London on Flight 420, Saladin sees a woman on the plane who he thinks he recognizes from one of his... (full context)
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Seated next to Saladin on the plane is a man named Eugene Dumsday, an American with a Southern accent.... (full context)
The Fallibility of Prophets Theme Icon
When Saladin wakes up, Sikh terrorists are in the process of hijacking the plane. There are four... (full context)
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As the hostage negotiations transpire, Saladin and Gibreel form a sort of friendship, which Gibreel initiates. Gibreel tells Saladin about his... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 1
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...in snow, and immediately begins celebrating his survival. He makes snowballs and sings carols. Meanwhile, Saladin lies nearby encased in a thin layer of ice. Saladin cannot comprehend what has happened... (full context)
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Inside Rosa’s house, Saladin reflects on his past, particularly on how his looks served him well in his younger... (full context)
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As Saladin contemplates his current situation, he experiences a sense of unreality, as if the world beyond... (full context)
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When Saladin appears in Rosa’s hallway, the police, particularly three plain-clothed immigration officers, react with glee, believing... (full context)
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Before the police can take Saladin away, Gibreel appears on the staircase, dressed in a maroon smoking jacket and jodhpurs from... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 2
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In the days after the police take Saladin away, Rosa begins telling Gibreel stories from her past. As Rosa is talking, Gibreel thinks... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 3
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Saladin finds himself trapped in a police van, surrounded by immigration officers and policemen who show... (full context)
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Saladin lies on the floor of the van as the policemen hold him down and restrict... (full context)
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The van rumbles on, and Saladin grows increasingly desperate. The officers’ taunts grow crueler as they force him to clean up... (full context)
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Saladin’s mind drifts as the beatings continue. He begins to feel detached from his body, as... (full context)
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Saladin wakes up in a hospital bed, coughing up green slime from his lungs. His body... (full context)
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During his recovery, Saladin becomes aware of the strange noises around him—animal sounds, cries of pain, and the continuous... (full context)
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While Saladin is the hospital, one of the policemen, Stein, pays him a visit. Stein warns Saladin... (full context)
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The manticore tells Saladin that he and several others are planning to escape the hospital immanently. The manticore invites... (full context)
Part 3, Chapter 4
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Jumpy Joshi becomes Pamela Chamcha’s lover on the same night she hears about Saladin’s supposed death in the plane explosion. Jumpy finds himself in a difficult position when Saladin,... (full context)
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Jumpy struggles with guilt and fear over Saladin’s sudden reappearance. He resents Saladin for returning from the dead in such a dramatic fashion,... (full context)
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...As the night wore on, Pamela began to express her frustrations with her marriage to Saladin. In particular, she complained about Saladin’s obsession with his idealized version of England—a place that... (full context)
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This sparks a series of conversations about Pamela’s marriage to Saladin. Pamela sites one instance, in particular, that she thinks summarizes their marriage, which relates to... (full context)
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In the morning, Pamela frantically contacts the airline to determine whether Saladin could have survived the crash. Despite the airline’s assurances that no survivors exist, she refuses... (full context)
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...mind at all times. As she relaxes in the opulent surroundings, she resolves to leave Saladin and start a new life, feeling a renewed sense of freedom and determination. (full context)
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...blood that looks part human, part goat. Pamela runs upstairs in fear while screaming that Saladin died in the plane explosion. (full context)
Part 5, Chapter 1
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Saladin, now a grotesque creature with horns, hooves, and a tail, finds himself living in the... (full context)
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Within the Sufyan household, tensions rise as Hind Sufyan, Sufyan’s wife, wants Saladin out. Hind, who once embraced her role as a loving and supportive wife, now battles... (full context)
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...and avoids any serious injuries. Angry at how her daughter has been behaving, Hind accuses Saladin of bringing misfortune upon her family. She sees him as the root of all her... (full context)
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As Saladin’s physical transformation progresses, he unwittingly becomes a symbol of fear and fascination in the local... (full context)
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The youth of the neighborhood, drawn to Saladin’s rebellious image, start to idolize him. They see in him a reflection of their own... (full context)
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...unafraid and with Hanif by her side, goes upstairs to see what is happening to Saladin. When they reach the attic, they find Saladin in a terrifying state. He has grown... (full context)
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Despite the monstrous sight before her, Mishal does not flinch. She questions Saladin, asking where he plans to go, knowing full well that he wouldn’t survive long looking... (full context)
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At the club, Mishal and Hanif lay Saladin down on a couple of sleeping bags. As Saladin drifts into a fitful sleep, his... (full context)
Part 5, Chapter 2
The Fallibility of Prophets Theme Icon
...though he is floating high above London. From this perspective, he believes he can see Saladin, who still looks like a goat. Eventually, Gibreel collapses on Allie’s doorstep. Allie finds him... (full context)
Part 7, Chapter 1
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Saladin, reflecting on his life up to this point, concludes that everything boils down to love.... (full context)
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Saladin also held a deep, private love for a recurring dream in which he taught a... (full context)
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Though Saladin’s return visibly shocks Pamela, she allows him to live in the house, knowing it is... (full context)
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As he attempts to rebuild his life, Saladin’s lingering traumas from recent events prevent him from returning to normal. He becomes obsessed with... (full context)
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Saladin’s sense of dread intensifies when he starts dreaming of two women: Mishal Sufyan and Zeeny... (full context)
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Saladin’s growing discomfort with his life culminates when he attends a public meeting about Dr. Uhuru... (full context)
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After the protest, Saladin decides to go with Joshi to a karate school. Joshi, who teaches karate, mentions that... (full context)
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As Saladin leaves the class, he realizes that he is being pulled back into a world he... (full context)
Part 7, Chapter 2
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...time, Mr. Billy Battuta—a famous actor noted for his mistreatment of women—and his companion, Mimi Mamoulian—Saladin’s former co-star—announce their “grand coming-out” party. They recently returned to the city after dealing with... (full context)
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...the party, the heat is unbearable. Pamela and Jumpy arrive together in Pamela’s car, while Saladin, who prefers to travel alone, takes a coach that the hosts provide. The party setting... (full context)
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Saladin makes his way through the dense crowd, determined to reach Gibreel. However, the crowd suddenly... (full context)
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Gibreel, standing on a replica of London Bridge, looks directly at Saladin and raises his arm in greeting. Saladin, filled with resentment, recalls how Gibreel stood by... (full context)
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Gibreel, trying to be nice, begins asking Saladin about Pamela. Saladin tells Gibreel that Pamela is pregnant. Not realizing that Saladin is not... (full context)
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Gibreel, disturbed after hearing Saladin’s revelation, suddenly disappears. Saladin tells Allie that Gibreel is gone, which causes her to grow... (full context)
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Saladin, still harboring his own vengeful feelings, pretends to be sympathetic. At the remote getaway, Gibreel... (full context)
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The next day, Gibreel insists on climbing a nearby hill with Saladin despite the rainy weather. On the hike, Gibreel becomes paranoid and rants about protecting Allie... (full context)
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Back in London, Gibreel becomes increasingly obsessed with Allie while Saladin continues to manipulate them. Saladin, using his skills as a voice actor, begins making anonymous... (full context)
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Saladin, satisfied with the success of his plan, feels a twisted sense of triumph. Meanwhile, Gibreel,... (full context)
Part 7, Chapter 3
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Meanwhile, Saladin, who has been trying to reestablish some semblance of normalcy in his life, finds himself... (full context)
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Amid the chaos, Gibreel carries Saladin to safety. As Gibreel walks with Saladin in his arms, the fire seems to part... (full context)
Part 9
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Eighteen months after the chaos in London, Saladin boards a plane to Bombay upon receiving a telegram informing him that his father, Changez,... (full context)
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Saladin faces a frustrating ordeal to obtain a visa at the Indian consulate. His anger flares... (full context)
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Upon arrival in Bombay, Saladin makes his way to his childhood home where his stepmother Nasreen and Kasturba greet him.... (full context)
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When Saladin sees Changez, his father’s physical decline is shocking. The cancer has reduced Changez to a... (full context)
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As Changez’s condition deteriorates rapidly, Saladin decides to take him to the hospital, but there is little the doctors can do... (full context)
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After the funeral, Saladin visits his family home. He discovers the magic lamp he recalls from his childhood, which... (full context)
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Gibreel manages to avoid capture by the police and, with nowhere else to turn, visits Saladin. Once inside, Gibreel begins telling a confused story about the murders. As he talks, he... (full context)
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Shortly afterward, Saladin gazes out of a window, looking over the Arabian Sea. He sees how the moonlight... (full context)