Alif the Unseen

Vikram is a jinn with “a predatory, unnerving humor” in his eyes (91). Alif explains their situation and asks Vikram for help. Vikram refuses, both because Alif can’t afford his service and because his help would get them in deeper trouble. Alif and Dina leave, and Alif realizes his backpack is missing. Alif recognizes the detective who was outside their apartment, and the detective in turn recognizes Alif and Dina. They run while the detective fires on them. Dina takes a bullet. Just when it seems the detective will capture them, Alif sees “a tawny shape dislodge itself from the air and knock the detective flat on his back” (98). Their rescuer is Vikram’s sister. She brings them to her brother, who fixes Dina’s arm and says he’ll help them because Alif sheltered his sister during a sandstorm. Vikram’s sister is the cat that hung around outside Alif’s apartment.

Vikram has Alif’s backpack, which he’s gone through and in which he’s discovered the Alf Yeom. Alif still doesn’t know why Intisar wanted him to have the book. Vikram suggests she didn’t want someone else to have it. When Alif is annoyed that the book is just stories, Vikram corrects him, saying “in it is contained all the parallel knowledge of my people” (103). It is the book of the jinn that Reza was compiling in Chapter 0.

Alif recovers his netbook and goes online, where he finds his fellow hackers in a panic over his absence. They have all been attacked by a Tin Sari-enhanced Hand. Alif reads about the jinn in Intisar’s thesis. Vikram tries and fails to convince Alif the jinn are real. Although Alif does not believe it, Alif’s vision does strange things when he looks at Vikram. Vikram explains that his “mind is getting sick of dealing with things it's taught itself not to see” (113).

Back at Vikram’s tent, Vikram says they will bring the Alf Yeom to an American gori (meaning a white or fair-skinned girl or woman) who can help them identify the book’s age and, thus, possibly why Intisar had it. Alif doesn’t want to involve foreigners, but Vikram’s argument that they have little choice wins Alif over. Vikram uses his jinn abilities to mesmerize the state agent outside his tent into thinking “these are not the banu adam you’re looking for” (123). Dina laughs out loud, which startles Alif because he’s never heard her do so before

They arrive at the gori’s apartment. Vikram explains she is a convert to Islam, and Alif henceforth thinks of her as “the convert.” She is an American student studying archival sciences. The convert says the book looks like an original copy, not an 18th-century remake, but she needs to test the material to be certain. If she’s correct, then the book was written in Arabic at a time when the language was only for sheikhs and scholars, a situation that Alif likens to data encryption.

Alif wishes he could just ask Intisar why she gave him the book and he abruptly realizes he can without Tin Sari hiding him from her. He and the convert go to Al Basheera (the university), where the convert tests the book’s age. Alif emails Intisar, asking her to meet in their usual place.

The book turns out to be at least 700 years old, which raises questions about how Intisar may have gotten it. To answer them, Vikram takes Alif, Dina, and the convert to the Immovable Alley. It is a meeting place of the jinn and “an alley, certainly, but it did not behave like one” (160). Sakina, a friend of Vikram’s and a jinn, confirms the book is the original Alf Yeom. She dispels the legend that reading the book will give humans mythical abilities and says that this copy of the book was missing until a few months ago, when a young woman (Intisar) bought it, and a prince took interest in it. The prince is the Hand/Intisar’s betrothed, and the chapter ends with the sobering realization that “the Hand is coming for the Alf Yeom” (171).