Jahan Gushai, the Diwan Master and the Assassin

Ziad Mubarak

"A ruler and an assassin are the protagonists of this novel.
Its events unfold during the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate and the beginning of Mongol rule.
In that era, rich with contradictions and conflicts, in the final days of the Abbasid state and the early days of the Ilkhanate established by Hulagu Khan and his family in Iraq, Ala ad-Din Juvayni, the ruler of Iraq and author of the book “Jahan Gushai,” in which he chronicled Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire, and his dynasty, meets Gotyar, who belongs to the Hashashin group.

In this imagined biography, Juvayni represents both authority and rebellion simultaneously, mirroring the calamity of the Juvayni family, who worked in the Mongol chancelleries, with the calamity of the Barmakids in the era of Harun al-Rashid.
As for Gotyar, he epitomizes the methods, ideas, and struggle of the Hashashin against the Mongols during that difficult historical period.
The novel delves into a dark era of Arab-Islamic history; when the lamp of the Abbasids was extinguished with the fall of Baghdad, and the world plunged into the grim darkness of the Mongols.

Ziad Mubarak – a Sudanese writer and engineer (born in Khartoum, 1983) and founder of the cultural magazine “Masarib Adabiyyah.” He published a short story collection titled “Al-Akhar,” and his novel “Jahan Gushai; The Diwan Master and the Assassin” was included in the 18th list for the unpublished historical novels category of the Katara Prize 2024.

“The novel by the writer Ziad Mubarak is a model of distinguished construction in the field of both historical narrative and historiography” – Mohamed Badawi Mustafa – Sudanese writer, journalist, and academic"