Product Description

Look into the eyes of a jinn and you stare into the depths of your own soul...Writer and film-maker Tahir Shah - in his 30s, married, with two small children - was beginning to wilt under brash, cramped, ennervating British city life. Flying in the face of friends' advice, he longed to fulfil his dream of finding a place bursting with life, colour, history and romance - somewhere far removed from London - in which to raise a family. Childhood memories of holidaying with his parents, and of a grandfather he barely knew, led him to Morocco and to 'Dar Khalifa', a sprawling and, with the exception of its jinns, long-abandoned residence on the edge of Casablanca's shanty town that, rumour had it, once belonged to the city's Caliph. And so begins Tahir Shah's gloriously vivid, funny, affectionate and compelling account of how he and his family - aided, abetted and so often hindered by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life local characters: guardians, gardeners, builders, artisans, bureacrats and police (not forgetting the jinns, the spirits that haunt the house) - returned the Caliph's House to its former glory and learned to make this most exotic and alluring of countries their home. "The Caliph's House" is a story of home-ownership abroad - full of the attendant dramas, anxieties and frustrations - but it is also much more. Woven into the narrative is the author's own journey of self-discovery, of learning about a grandfather he hardly knew, and of coming to love the magical, multi-faceted, contradictory country that is Morocco.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #83779 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From the Inside Flap
Look into the eyes of a jinn and you stare into the depths of your own soul...

Writer and film-maker Tahir Shah - in his 30s, married, with two small children - was beginning to wilt under brash, cramped, ennervating British city life. Flying in the face of friends' advice, he longed to fulfil his dream of finding a place bursting with life, colour, history and romance - somewhere far removed from London - in which to raise a family. Childhood memories of holidaying with his parents, and of a grandfather he barely knew, led him to Morocco and to 'Dar Khalifa', a sprawling and, with the exception of its jinns, long-abandoned residence on the edge of Casablanca's shanty town that, rumour had it, once belonged to the city's Caliph.

And so begins Tahir Shah's gloriously vivid, funny, affectionate and compelling account of how he and his family - aided, abetted and so often hindered by a wonderful cast of larger-than-life local characters: guardians, gardeners, builders, artisans, bureacrats and police (not forgetting the jinns, the spirits that haunt the house) - returned the Caliph's House to its former glory and learned to make this most exotic and alluring of countries their home.

The Caliph's House is a story of home-ownership abroad - full of the attendant dramas, anxieties and frustrations - but it is also much more. Woven into the narrative is the author's own journey of self-discovery, of learning about a grandfather he hardly knew, and of coming to love the magical, multi-faceted, contradictory country that is Morocco.

From the Back Cover
Look into the eyes of a jinn and you stare into the depths of your own soul…

When Tahir Shah decided to pursue his dream of bringing a vast ruin of a palace in the Moroccan city of Casablanca back to life, he soon learned that he and his family had bought a great deal more than they’d bargained for. For Dar Khalifa, ‘The Caliph’s House’, not only came with three guardians inherited from the previous owner but also more than its fair share of jinns – those invisible, often mischievous, sometimes malign spirits that take up residence in abandoned houses in Morocco…

Entertaining, often hilarious and beautifully written, Tahir Shah’s acclaimed account of his year-long adventure in this kingdom where the modern and the medieval collide is a magical, multi-faceted delight.

‘Funny, moving, fast-paced and thoughtful . . . as intricate, complex and beautiful as the Arabian Nights world it describes’ Jason Webster, author of Duende

‘Full of charm and humour, elevated by a consistent sense of the beauty and mystery of everyday life’ Guardian

‘A vivid evocation of the spirit of the place . . . combines the pleasures of good property porn with those of the best travel writing’ Daily Telegraph

‘An extraordinary tale . . . written with tremendous verve, colour, compassion and wisdom, it’s a magical story’Geographical Magazine

‘Wonderfully entertaining’ Doris Lessing

‘A year abroad, a house rebuilt, but with a difference. Extremely odd characters and the narrative drive of a good novel. Very funny’ John Man, author of Genghis Khan

About the Author
Tahir Shah was born into an Anglo-Afghan family, with roots in the mountain stronghold of the Hindu Kush. Shah's ten books have chronicled a series of fabulous journeys. He lives with his wife and two children in Casablanca. Visit his website: www.tahirshah.com

Customer Reviews

Home renovation at its best.
Moving house can be traumatic at the best of times. Moving to a different country can be even more so, there's the language to contend with, the clash of cultures and if you're unlucky a whole host of Jinn to excise. Tahir Shah, an Afghan by blood but an Englishman by nature writes the most exquisite upper class prose of his move to Casablanca. He turns the normally dull subject if house renovation into the most fantastic series of adventures that deal with the mundane issues of bribing various officials to the adventures bordering on the supernatural where he deals with the various Jinn's that plague his stay. Expect to learn a lot about the culture and customs of Morocco, but this is not the sort of travel writing to profoundly move you or inspire you. This more the sort that makes you chuckle gently as you read away a blissful Sunday afternoon.

A journey
‘Your grandfather taught us so many things, but the thing that affected me most was his advice to seek out what is no immediately seen. He said that on the surface, the carrot is a mere tuft of green, but under the ground there’s a root waiting to be found… He always told me to meet ordinary people. “The ordinary world”, he would say, “is complete”’. These words, revealed by an old acquaintance of Ikbal Ali Shah, probably set Tahir Shah on the right track, and his nightmare about how to settle in a new house, in fact how to settle in a strange environment, took another turn. As the zillij pattern he was trying to lay down in his house, the many sided events he encountered needed the background of a whole design to make sense.
Amazing reading, as the palace Dar-al-Caliph, a remote dream of a sunny unshackled life in Morocco, away from the safe-hygienic-boring life in England, becomes an entity of its own, a melting pot where dreams fade away and not finding the warp and weft of the unfolding situation may mean loosing everything. Not to be missed the advice given by his wife, when the situation becomes mad: ‘If you want the house done you have to be like a Moroccan’.

‘Jinns, collecting the grandfather’s legacy, the underbelly of Moroccan life, more jinns, old age crafts, guile, the humour of the absurd, the world seen from one of its peculiar corners ….’
Read it, perhaps you may find a piece of zillij, or a broken tile that may fit somewhere in your own house.

"Wonderful!" says London lady who loves horses
This book is unputdownable. Just one more page....and then suddenly its all over and you wish there was more. It is funny, sensitive, and a real journey in time and space. The rich tapestry of this family's building of a life in their Caliph's House brought me sunshine, filling my life and transporting me away from the grim grey London winter into another dimension. A perfect antidote to February & March.