The captive novelist, Bassem Khandakji, accompanies the Sufi hero Badr al-Din on his journey of rebellion, confronting corruption and the sultans' preachers. He is an intellectual who asks: What is the use of knowledge without dignity? He realizes that "light is not confined by loyalty," refusing to grovel or play the role of a parrot.

But this Badr al-Din is a human being, before and after this, a human being who does not escape turning against himself when the losses of loss overwhelm him, and a human being when he returns and gathers the fragments of himself, challenging himself and the dark world, so he emerges from the self and delves into parallel history and the conditions of its people: from Cairo with its magic, wealth, knowledge, and palace conspiracies, to Tabriz, passing through other places and people.