In The Lions of Al-Rassan, Kay crafts a fictional world inspired by al-Andalus and the Spanish Reconquista, one poised on the brink of its own reconquest. When we begin the novel, the Asharite (Kay’s Muslim analogues) Khalifate of Al-Rassan, which had conquered the lands once known as Esperaña from the Jaddites (Kay’s Christian analogues) three hundred years ago, has fallen and splintered into a patchwork of city-states ruled by petty kings. Far to the north, the three Jaddite kingdoms of Valledo, Jalona and Ruenda, carved from what was once the Kingdom of Esperaña and divided among the sons and brother of the late King Sancho, are beginning to see an opportunity to reclaim their lost lands. Among the city-states of Al-Rassan, the Kindath (Kay’s Jewish analogues) live as second class citizens paying the heretics tax,1 always aware that in times of crisis they will be the first to be persecuted by Asharites or Jaddites. And last, but not least, across the straits, in the Majriti, the Muwardis—who follow a stricter, more ascetic version of the Asharite religion—await their moment to come to Al-Rassan as saviors and purifiers.

Kay places his three protagonists, the accomplished Kindath doctor Jehane, the Asharite poet, soldier and diplomat Ammar ibn Khairan, and the Jaddite military leader Rodrigo Belmonte, in this world on the brink of war. At its heart, the novel tells a story of how Rodrigo and Ammar, each perhaps the pinnacle of their respective cultures, meet as exiles in the cultured court of King Badir of Ragosa and discover in each other an unexpected kinship, love, and wordless understanding. Having taken the measure of each other, they find much to respect in each other. And yet, both men know that this beautiful kinship cannot last. It cannot survive the coming of holy war between the Jaddites of Esperaña and the Muwardis of Majriti.

Indeed, if there is a central theme to Kay’s elegy for al-Andalus, it is the fragility of the spaces in which men (and some, exceptional, women) can meet and see in each other a shared grace, kindness, and honor. Tolerance is hard. It always has been. The spaces where a measure of tolerance reigns have ever been easily closed, with terrible consequences. In al-Andalus, the real world antecedent for Al-Rassan, convivencia was fragile, and if Christians and Jews occasionally rose high in the courts of the caliphs, emirs, and sultans, such occurrences were exceptions rather than the norm. It was not an age of unreserved tolerance; it was contradictory and often complicated. Yet it was better, undoubtedly, than the forcible conversion of the Jews and Moors after the Reconquista.

And when war comes, each man chooses his culture: Rodrigo returns to Valledo to be its constable and lead its armies, while Ammar goes back to Cartada to be its ka’id and lead its armies. It is a mark of Kay’s strength as an author that this moment feels like a tragedy, that one can—like Jehane—love both Ammar and Rodrigo and sorrow that they must face each other in battle. One can see in Kay’s Jaddites honor, grace, kindness, and intelligence, just as one can see the same in the Asharites and in the Kindath. And both Jaddites and Asharites have their monsters and commit their share of atrocities in the name of their respective religions. There are no stark shades of black and white here, only a multitude of shades of gray. You are never allowed to cheer unstintingly for any side in this novel. Likewise, sitting here, in Spain, at the beginning of the 21st century, we cannot say, with any honesty, that the fall of al-Andalus to the armies of Castile and Aragon was a triumph untainted by any sense of loss.

I feel a deep kinship with this novel because of my own wandering past: I have grown up with an understanding of Islam from having been born and having lived in Malaysia, an understanding of Anglo-American culture from my experiences in America, Australia and the United Kingdom, and an understanding of Cantonese culture from my parents and grandparents. To me, the convivencia is the ideal to which one can honestly aspire to, an acceptance that greatness and nobility transcends cultural boundaries, and is as likely to be found in a scion of the deserts as it is to be found in the sons and daughters of the Yellow River or the prairies.

Reading The Lions of Al-Rassan among the remnants of Moorish Spain in Granada, one cannot help but be aware of the way in which the post-9/11 world we live in has resulted in a hardening of boundaries. It has made it harder to see in the other honor, decency, and above all, humanity. And that is a tragedy.

The Lions of Al-Rassan inspired in me a desire to see its real world antecedents: the Alhambra of the Nasrid Sultans in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, the tomb of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (known as El Cid or El Campeador) in the Cathedral of Burgos, and the Mosque-Cathedral of Córdoba. I did not see all of these places this time; I suspect it will take a few more trips to Spain to cover everything that I want to see in all her cities.2 Yet, I did complete the main pilgrimage I promised myself I would take, all those years ago. I saw the Alhambra, which undoubtedly was the inspiration for Kay’s Al-Fontina. I saw the last great flowering of Islam in Europe, and witnessed what heights of artistry its craftsmen and poets could reach, in the last century or two before their final defeat. It was as if they recognized their impending doom, and knowing that it was coming, decided to build something in the spirit of defiance, that they might not go gently into oblivion.