Awake To Emptiness is Book 1 of the novel The Years Of Rice And Salt.

Summary

Bold, a Mongol warrior in the service of the Khan Temur-i-Lang (Tamerlane) is part of a great campaign to conquer Magyar (Hungary). Upon arrival, he soon finds out that every single Magyar has died from a plague and that the cities are deserted. Atop of that, a great storm kills Temur.

Bold flees and wanders until he is captured by slave traders who bring him to Alexandria. There, he is sold to an Arab, who in turn sells him to the Chinese in Mombasa. The eunuch Admiral Zheng He in charge of a huge fleet travel along the eastern African coast, on to Lanka (Sri Lanka) and reach Hangzou. During the voyage Bold takes care of a young African boy, Kyu, who was castrated by the Chinese. The silent Kyu grows a great hate against the Chinese and plans his revenge.

In China, Bold and Kyu work in a restaurant owned by Shen and his wife I-Li. Kyu ends up burning the place before taking Bold with him to Nanjing and then to the new capital, Beijing, where Kyu plans to kill the emperor Zhu Di (The Yongle Emperor). Bold and Kyu enlist their services to the Imperial family and Kyu, as a eunuch, gathers power throughout the years. When Zhu Di dies in a campaign against Tartars and Zhu Gaozhi takes the throne, Kyu rebels. However, he and his entourage, Bold included, are killed.

World history

c.1381-1424 (death of Yongle Emperor)

Characters

• B : Bold Bardash, Mongol horseman
• K : Kyu, African boy
• I : I-Li, Shen’s wife
• Z : Zheng He, admiral of the Chinese fleet
• S : Shen, Chinese restaurant owner
• P : Psin, another Mongol Warrior

Thesaurus & Encyclopaedia

Based on the Trivia and Study Guide compiled by Mark Rosa in 2004. Page numbers from the US paperback edition.

3 Monkey and Tripitaka : Monkey, or Sun Wu-Kong (see p. 11 note), is the hero of the Journey to the West (西遊記). Sent on the journey with priest Xuanzang 三蔵 (“Tripitaka” in Sanskrit, meaning “three baskets” as in Chinese) as punishment by the Buddha, safely brings Buddhist scriptures back to China from India.

3 Temur : Tamerlane in English literature, corrupted from Temur-i-Leng; 鐵木兒 in Chinese approximation; the first character provides the “iron” mentioned in the story; was a legendary conqueror whose campaigns led him throughout the Middle East, India, and Mongolia. In real history, he died of a fever in 1405 at the age of 69, while on the way to an attempt at conquering China. In this story, a coin flip send him and his army eastward instead of westward.

10 Moravian Gate : (In Czech, Moravska brana) The valley in eastern Moravia, which is itself in the eastern part of the modern Czech Republic. It contains the Bečva and Odra rivers and serves as a border between the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

11 Sun Wu-Kong : (孫悟空 the second and third characters mean “awaken” and “emptiness”, respectively)

20 “three smaller temples flanked a large one” : This is probably the Parthenon in Athens.

21 Issyk Kul : A large mountain lake in Kyrgyzstan.

21 Lake Qinghai : Means “blue lake” (青海).

27 Mamluks : Also “Mamelukes”. Slave soldiers for the Abbasid caliphs, who eventually rose to their own positions of power. By the 14th century, Mamluks were ruling Egypt, and maintained their hold until Muhammad Ali Pasha’s ambush revolt in 1811.

28 Zanj : A generic word for East African black slaves of the Abbasid caliphate in Basra.

33 Zheng He : 鄭和 in Chinese (1371-1435). Zhenghe.jpgIn this incarnation, jati member “Z” is the historical person Zheng He, Chinese mariner, explorer and fleet admiral. Made many voyages to various parts of the world in the early 15th century in his immense fleet under the sponsorship of the Yongle Emperor. His family was Muslim, thus KSR’s comment that he was a western “hui”. This story , with . The expedition depicted in the novel seems to merge several of his voyages: the 4th voyage (1413 – 1415), the 5th voyage (1416 – 1419), both of which stopped at Mogadishu and Calicut, and the 3rd voyage (1407-1409), which involved rival kings of Java.

33 Hui : One of China’s many ethnic minorities, the Hui practice Islam and have historically been the victims of discrimination, but not so in, say, Zheng He’s case. The word can also be used for Chinese Muslims in general. The Chinese character for hui is 回, which usually means a round or instance or time or rotation with a number before it, and is also used for innings in baseball. I don’t know why it’s used for these people; it may have been chosen for its phonetic value. According to the 1990 census, there are approximately 8.6 million Hui in China.

35 the Yongle Emperor : 永樂 or 永楽 in simplified characters; his personal name Zhu Di is 朱棣. The third emperor in the Ming dynasty (ruled 1403-1424). He attempted to have his nephew, the previous Jiangwen 健文 emperor, killed (supposedly in a palace fire, though Jiangwen may have survived to live in obscurity as a recluse), and stole the throne. The sponsor of Zheng He’s treasure fleets, he did indeed move the capital from Nanjing north to Beijing.

38 Dalada : The sacred tooth of Buddha. In our world, this is enshrined in the Temple of the Tooth, known as the Dalada Maligawa, located in the city of Kandy in Sri Lanka.

39 Japanese wakou : 倭寇 Pirates in the Sea of Japan who avoided rules against shipbuilding and overseas voyages by conducting raids from small boats.

40 Tianfei : 天姫 The characters mean “heavenly princess”; a goddess who protected sea travelers.

43 Shen : In Chinese, 沈 meaning “sink”.

48 the Four Emperors : Sanskrit catur-mahārāja; Chinese 四天王. Indra’s four deva guardians who protect the world from the asuras. They are: East Dhrtarsastra (in Chinese and Japanese, 持國天), South Virūdhaka 增長天, West Virūpāksa 廣目天, and North 多聞天 Vaiśravana, bearing the colors white, blue, red, and yellow respectively. You can see a statue of them at the Horyuji 法隆寺 in Nara, Japan, which is the world’s oldest wooden building, dating from 607.

48 Twenty-Eight Constellations : 二十八宿 Marking off the fixed stars, these 28 are split into four groups of seven, each associated with one of the animals that guard the four directions: the Blue Dragon, the White Tiger, the Red Phoenix and the Black Warrior. (Note that these are different from the Four Emperors.)

48 The Twelve Horary Branches : This is the familiar Chinese zodiac (生肖 shengxiao; in Japanese 干支 eto or 十二支 jūni-shi). In order, the animals are the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig. There are special characters used for the signs which are different from the ones used when talking about the animals. The year 2004 is the monkey.

63 Temurid : The empire built by Timur (see p. 3); it later became the Mughal empire.

66 Beijing : 北京 Běijīng; the new capital of China whose construction was begun by the Yongle emperor in 1406. I’m not too sure, but supposedly the modern pronunciation Běijīng came about in the Qing dynasty (17th to 19th centuries, roughly), and that in the 1400s, the historical pronunciation of Peking might be more accurate.

77 Chao Kao : 趙高 (Zhao Gao in pinyin; died c. 207 BC) The chief eunuch of the first Chin (Qin) dynasty emperor. When the emperor died suddenly, Chao concealed his death and made up a fake imperial decree ordering a rival official to commit suicide; he followed this by killing several other officials. Eventually the heir of one of the people he killed retaliated, killing Chao and ending the Qin dynasty.

78 the Hongxi Emperor : 洪熙 (1378-1425). He succeeded the Yongle Emperor and did indeed end the voyages of fleets such as Zheng He’s. Born in 1378, he was not a young man at all when he took the throne, so either KSR has changed Chinese history significantly in having the Yongle die sooner, or he’s taking artistic license in describing the Yongle’s struggles to get his son to appreciate his position. Died in 1425, just one year after becoming emperor.

85 “We were a village, that time in Tibet” : A reference to a previous incarnation; this life of the jati will be mentioned several more times in the story as future incarnations recall it, allowing the reader to piece together the story of their deaths.

Quotes

(p.36-37: Calicutans wonder at the size of the Chinese fleet)

The Haj In The Heart is Book 2 of the novel The Years Of Rice And Salt.

Summary

Kokila is brought to the world by the dai Insef in an Indian agrary village. Insef finds an abandoned girl, Bihari, and Kokila befriends her. Kokila’s father arranges her marriage to Gopal. Kokila’s father-in-law Shastri and brother-in-law Shardul abuse of their power as headmen of the local villages.

Bihari falls pregnant with Shardul, and when she dies while giving birth, Kokila takes her revenge by poisoning Shastri and Shardul. Kokila is executed.

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Kya the tiger helps a young man find his village. But the villagers see her as a threat and kill her.

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This young man was Bistami, a wandering Sufi scholar from Ahmadabad, and we are in Moghul India. Bistami travels to Agra and Fatepur Sikri, the newly founded capital of Emperor Akbar. Bistami befriends with the Emperor but he is disliked by many in the court. Through intense fast and prayer, Bistami succeeds in having a metaphysical experience.

Akbar has Bistami ostracized by sending him on haj to the Mecca. There, Bistami studies with other Persian-speaking Sufis, chief among them Ibn Ezra, a scholar that is more interested in the material world. However life in the Mecca does not reach the emotional and spiritual climax of the initial pilgrimage to the Kaaba stone. Also, Bistami feels the threat of the house of Akbar extending to the Mecca. With the Sufis, he travels to Maghrib and to al-Andalus, a rich land which is being repopulated since the plague left it empty.

Bistami and Ibn Ezra join a caravan led by the sultan Mawji Darya and the beautiful but enigmatic sultana Katima. They settle to create the city of Baraka over the ruins of a frank town. Bistami cannot but agree to Katima’s progressive views on Islam and gender equity. But when the sultan dies and Katima continues to rule over Baraka, the sultan’s brother Said and more traditional Muslims chase Katima and Bistami. They move up North and create the city of Nsara but are persecuted till they die.

World history

c.1560s

Characters

First incarnation

• B : Bihari, an abandoned child, dai Insef’s apprentice, dies upon giving birth
• K : Kokila, an indian child, avenged the death of Bihari, executed
• I : Insef, old dai
• Z : Zaneeta
• S : Shardul

Second incarnation

• B : Bistami, young boy
• K : Kya, a tiger, brings Bistami home and is killed

Third incarnation

• B : Bistami, a Sufi holy man following his epiphany
• K : Katima, a sultana with progressive Islam convictions
• I : Ibn Ezra, a Sufi scholar interested in physical phenomena
• S : Said Darya, Caliph of al-Andalus, brother-in-law of Katima

Thesaurus & Encyclopaedia

Based on the Trivia and Study Guide compiled by Mark Rosa in 2004. Page numbers from the US paperback edition.

96 Lakshmi : The Hindu goddess of good fortune, and the wife of Vishnu.

96 Saraswati : Also spelled Sarasvati. The Hindu goddess of knowledge.

103 Siva and Parvati : Also spelled Shiva; the Hindu god of destruction. Shiva is considered to be benevolent despite being the destroyer. Parvati is his wife.

118 Akbar and Fatepur Sikri : Jellaladin Muhammad Akbar (the Great) (lived 1542-1605, reigned 1556-1605) ruled the Mughal Empire from his capital, Fatehpur Sikri, in Agra. Its wonders, still visited today, include the five-storied Panch Mahal (“panch” mans “five” in Sanskrit) and the Pachisi Court, which is laid out like the familiar board game. Akbar was Muslim, but was influenced by many other religions, and this shows in the designs in his capital.

118 Mughal : The Mughal (or Mogul) Empire was an Islamic empire that ruled over the Indian sub-continent, including modern-day Pakistan and great parts of Afghanistan. The Mughal Dynasty ruled from 1526 to 1857, although th latter 150 years (from 1707) were marked by revolts, rivaling empires and British colonialism. Akbar the Great ruled the Empire during its classic period.

127 ibn Khaldun : Abu Zayd ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Khaldun al-Hadrami (عبد الرحمن بن محمد بن خلدون الحضرمي in Arabic; 1332-1406) was one of the world’s first great historians. His Muqaddimah, written in 1377, was highly regarded at the time and is still quoted today. Incidentally, he also served as a qadi in Egypt; the same office to which Bistami is appointed in India in the novel.

133 the tenth day of Moharram : Moharram is the first month in Islam. Imam Hosain, grandson of Muhammad, died on this day in AD 680. This is a day of mourning for Shi’ites.

133 “had once been a village girl, another time a horseman on the steppes, another time the servant of the Twelfth Imam” : Here Bistami remembers his life as Bihari, Bold, and another person whose story is not told here. Serving the Twelfth Imam, al-Mahdi, would mean that he lived around AH 260 or AD 874.

140 Ibn Sina : Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdullah ibn Sina (AD 980-1037). Writer on philosophy and medicine; he’s also known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna. A list of his works can be found here.

148 Suleiman : “Suleyman I, the Magnificent” (1494-1566); Turkish-born ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566. He conquered much of northern Africa and Europe during his lifetime, and was also famous for rewriting the laws of the empire.

148 “Khaldunian state of late dynastic corruption” : From ibn Khaldun’s commentary on history. Much later (p. 616-17), Budur reads from this text.

156 Ship of Fools : This phrase seems to come from the Christian Bible. The Ship of Fools was an allegory depicting deranged passengers of a ship without a captain and without a direction, a concept popular in Renaissance literature and pictorial arts.

170 Bayonne and Bordeaux : Two cities in France; Bayonne is at the Nive and Adour river crossing.

Quotes

• (p.146: Bistami’s thoughts on history (after Ibn Khaldun’s theories))
• (p.152-155: Bistami, Ibn Ezra & Zeya discuss the Plague, Europeans and Muslims)
• (p.159-160: Katima explains how Muhammad’s sayings were corrupted to the inequity of genders)
• (p.167-168: Katima explains how the caliphs corrupted Muhammad’s original idea of Islam)

Ocean Continents is Book 3 of the novel The Years Of Rice And Salt.

Summary

The Wanli Emperor decided to conquer Nippon and put Admiral Kheim in charge of the war fleet; I-Chin is the chief doctor and scientist onboard.

On the way, sea currents and a lack of wind carry the fleet far into the Dahai, the Great Ocean, into unexplored territory. They reach a land populated by people who call themselves the Miwok. The land is very rich and life there is enjoyable. However the Miwok start dying from a disease (smallpox) brought to them by the Chinese.

The Chinese leave, taking Butterfly, a young girl who has been learning Chinese, with them. Sailor Peng stays behind. Following the coast, they reach a land with tall cliffs on the seaside (the Andes) and people with lots of gold (the Inca). When they visit them, the local emperor takes Kheim and Butterfly hostage — or so it would seem — and takes them to a human sacrifice ritual. The Chinese attempt a rescue and kill every man they encounter in their retreat.

On the journey back home, a storm strikes the fleet and Butterfly, Kheim’s protégé and the whole crew’s source of hope, dies. Only three ships make it back to China, with stories of a new immense island on the East.

World history

c.1620s

Characters

• B : Butterfly, young Miwok girl
• K : Kheim, Chinese Admiral of Wanli Emperor
• I : I-Chin, doctor of Kheim’s fleet
• P : Peng, crew member of Kheim’s fleet

Thesaurus & Encyclopaedia

Based on the Trivia and Study Guide compiled by Mark Rosa in 2004. Page numbers from the US paperback edition.

189 Yingzhou and Fangzhang : 瀛洲 and 方丈. In China, there was the legend of the Eight Immortals crossing the ocean to find three sacred mountains, named Penglai, Yingzhou, and Fangzhang.

191 Hideyoshi : Japanese shogun Toyotomi Hideyoshi (豊臣秀吉, 1536-1598). He joined the Oda clan (Oda Nobunaga being the most famous member) at a young age and eventually rose to the post of kanpaku, or adviser to the emperor. He made two attempts to attack Korea and China, in 1592 and 1596, and both times his soldiers were forced to retreat. However, his influence on the government of the nation was significant in its increased totalitarianism — he made it illegal for commoners to own weapons, forbade them from leaving their home provinces, and ruthlessly murdered and expelled Christians from Japan.

191 Wanli Emperor : (萬歴 1563-1620; ruled 1572-1620) Hideyoshi’s second invasion of Korea and China would be the one that occurred in the 25th year of the Wanli’s reign.

191 Ieyasu : Tokugawa Ieyasu (徳川家康 1542-1616), the general who successfully united Japan by defeating the army of rival Ishida Mitsunari at the Battle of Sekigahara (present-day Gifu prefecture, near the border with Shiga) in 1600. Three years after this, assuming the title of Shogun, he made the eastern city of Edo (now Tokyo) his power base, leaving the Emperor behind in Kyoto.

192 tozama daimyo : 外様大名 As KSR describes, these were the daimyo who were not previously allied with Ieyasu when he defeated Ishida’s forces at Sekigahara. Ieyasu’s allies, in contrast, were called fudai daimyo. It might be easy to misinterpret “the Tozama Daimyo” as being a single person’s name; in fact this is a name for a group of daimyo.

193 Omura : Lord Omura Sumitada (In Japanese 大村; Christian name Bartolomeu; lived 1533-1587) was the first of the few Christian daimyo in Japan. He actively traded with other countries, opening ports in Yokoseura and Nagasaki to Portuguese ships. Considering that in KSR’s history most of the Christians have been wiped out, one can imagine that while much of Asian history will remain unchanged, Omura’s life will be significantly different. He would still be around seventy years old when he makes the treaty with the Wanli to open his ports to the Chinese.

194 Hokkaido : 北海道 The northernmost of Japan’s four main islands. This name was actually given to the island in the early Meiji period (1868-), and it would have been called Ezo 蝦夷 (home of the Emishi, or Ainu) at the time of this chapter. However, as we’ll see later, this many not be a mistake; the Japanese may have taken the island from the native Ainu sooner in KSR’s world and renamed it sooner.

194 Dahai : 太海 Chinese “great ocean”.

194 Annam : 安南 An area in central Vietnam; it seems that KSR is using it to refer to Vietnam as a whole.

195 Kublai Khan’s two attempts at invading Nippon : The Mongol warlord attempted to conquer Japan in the 1270s, but his fleet was turned back by high winds. The Japanese came to call these gusts kamikaze, or “divine winds”.

203 Miwok : The Coast Miwok traditionally lived on the land north of San Francisco; “Miwok” means “people” in their language.

215 “The palace above the city was huge” : This is probably Pachacamac, a preeminent religious center of pre-Colombian Peru. It was integrated into the Inca Empire in the 15th century AD.

218 super-Fujis : Mt. Fuji 富士山 is Japan’s tallest mountain, at 3776 meters.

227 wu ya : In Chinese, 五鴨. I don’t know if the Miwok words for this and the next one are correct or not.

227 Peng-zu : A Shang Dynasty official who is said to have lived for 800 years. China’s equivalent of Methuselah.

232 qi : 気. In this case, “spirit”. Later this word’s meaning will expand to include electricity.

Quotes

• (p.205-206: Kheim experiences terrestrial paradise)
• (p.233: Kheim’s description of America like Marco Polo’s description of China)

The Alchemist is Book 4 of the novel The Years Of Rice And Salt.

Summary

Khalid al-Samarqandi, having attempted to deceive Sayyed Abdul Aziz Khan into thinking he could convert lead into gold through alchemy, has his right hand cut off in punishment. With the help of his son-in-law Bahram working in their water-powered metalwork compound and of Tibetan scientist Iwang, they come to disprove alchemy altogether and exceed the knowledge established by Aristotle. Together, they go on to try to understand how the world works in a multitude of fields.

Bahram, the most religious-inclined, tries to keep love at the center of his happy family and of their actions. Khalid rejects all of that and fights to prove himself to the world and to God. Iwang has his own personal concept of religion, perhaps monotheist too, and Bahram realizes the Hindus too could be monotheists. Iwang develops an interest in Islamism but, to Bahram’s relief, does not convert.

Their theoretical explorations are dismissed by the Khan and his councilor Nadir Divanbegi, who, with the looming threat of a Chinese invasion, asks for immediate military results. With the Khan’s power waning and with Nadir continuously placing his hopes in Khalid and Iwang, Nadir gathers more enemies in the court.

When the Chinese — the new Qing dynasty — finally attack, a plague also strikes. Khalid, Iwang and Bahram lock themselves in their compound. The plague appears inside the compound and they do not know whether it was given purposefully to them by Nadir to get rid of them, or whether it is a punishment from God. The disease spreads and ends up killing them all one by one.

World history

c.1640s

Characters

• B : Bahram al-Bokhara, a metalworker and Sufi disciple
• K : Khalid Ali Abu al-Samarqandi, a metalworker, also an alchemist then a scientist
• I : Iwang, a Tibetan glassblower that settled in Samarqand, and a curious scientist
• S : Sayyed Abdul Aziz Khan, Khan of Samarqand and Bokhara

Thesaurus & Encyclopaedia

Based on the Trivia and Study Guide compiled by Mark Rosa in 2004. Page numbers from the US paperback edition.

239 Bahram : Bahram is Persian for “Mars” and is likely a reference to the Mars trilogy.

240 Al-Razi : Abu Bekr Mohammed ibn Zakhariya ar-Razi (c. 850-932), called “Rhazes” in Latin. Another major scholar of medicine in the Islamic world who continued the work of the ancient Greeks. As did ibn Sina, he wrote a huge number of texts on medicine, philosophy, and science in general.

240 Sayyed Abdul Aziz and Nadir Divanbegi : They really did exist in Bukhara around this time, though the story seems to begin in 1641 and end in 1644, and Abdul Aziz Khan seems to have been at the height of his power somewhat after this. I’ve no idea if he really had the temperament given to him here.

241 Jildaki : Aidamir al-Jildaki (?-1342). Another writer on alchemy. In his commentary End of the Search, he discusses Qasdim, Khalid, Jabir, and Razi.

241 Jabir : The father of modern chemistry. Lived in the late 8th century AD. Occasionally known by his Latinized name of Geber, his rational investigations transformed alchemy into the modern science of chemistry. His Kitab al-Kimya “Book of Chemistry”, in particular, was translated into Latin and used frequently in Europe in later centuries.

241 “The Secret of Secrets” : One of the most famous of Razi’s books. This one discusses alchemy and chemistry.

251 Mary the Jewess : Said to be the founder of Greek alchemy; lived in the third century AD.

267 two thousand li an hour : Modern science measures the speed of sound in air to be 330 m/s; their measurement, given that an ancient Chinese li 里 is 576 meters, would work out to 320 m/s. For reference, modern China has standardized a li at exactly 500 meters, or half a kilometer, and a Japanese li (or “ri” 里) is about 3900 meters.

278 Sher Dor madressa : Located in the Registan, in Samarkand. It, along with the Ulug Bek observatory and Tilla Kari mosque, are three of the area’s most famous buildings. Ulugh Beg, the grandson of Temur (see note on p. 1), had an observatory built there in the mid-15th century AD, where many astronomical calculations were made, including the most accurate measurement of the solar year, until Copernicus improved on it a century later.

284 Zosimos : Zosimos of Panopolis lived in Egypt around the 3rd century AD, writing about alchemy as well as physics. It may have been printed two years before Khalid reads it, but the original is much older.

284 “Sum of Perfection” : Another work by Jabir; this one was translated in our world by Richard Russel of England in 1678.

284 Apollonius : Said to have discovered the Emerald Tablet in a cave in Tyana around the time of Christ, though Khalid’s explanation may be as right as any other. Hermes the Thrice-Great, or Hermes Trimestigus, is supposedly a descendant of the Egyptian god Thoth. More here.

285 Bartholomew the Englishman, “On the Properties of Things” : In Latin, “Liber de proprietatibus rerum”; written around 1230-1240 in nineteen volumes (presumably Bahram is buying a summary of some kind). The story on page 287 is taken directly from the book (Book XVI, chapter 16: “On Glass” (De vitro). Bartholomew (Bartholomaeus Anglicus in Latin) was a Franciscan monk.

285 “Epistle of the Sun to the Crescent Moon” : An alchemical poem by Mohammed ibn Umail. In Arabic, Risalat as-gams ild l-hilal.

300 two lis of air : Using the traditional Chinese distance, this would be about 1152 meters.

300 “or gold!” : The khan’s exclamation sounds somewhat foolish when one realizes that, lead, with an atomic mass of 206, is quite a bit heavier than gold.

303 Jundi-Shapur : Could refer to an academy founded in AD 555 by Nestorians who translated Greek works on medicine.

306 Sogdian kings : The province of Sogdiana, corresponding to modern Bukhara and Samarqand, was conquered by Alexander the Great during his excursions east of Persia after 330 BC.

312 Jupiter’s four moons : The four discovered during the Italian renaissance by Galileo (beginning in 1610) are are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, which surely correspond to the ones Khalid and company saw. Khalid names them for the Khan’s wives, and similarly in our world, when Domenico Cassini discovered four moons of Saturn (Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Iapetus), he honored king Louis XIV by calling them Lodicea Sidera (“the stars of Louis” in Latin).

317 subtle mathematician : In our world, this is a famous quote from Albert Einstein.

318 rakshi : An alcoholic drink made from millet. Originates in Nepal.

321 wan-jen-ti, the killer of myriads : The first two Chinese characters would presumably be 萬 (myriad) and 人 (person). I can’t guess the third one.

323 Ansari : ‘Abd Allah Ansari’s “Hundred Fields and Resting Places of the Wayfarers” is a classic Sufi text.

324 Rumi : Molana Jalal-e-Din Mohammad Molavi Rumi (AD 1207-1273; AH 604-672), author of many poems, including the Mathnavi, in Arabic and Farsi.

326 Ulug Bek Madressa : See Tilla Kari note (p. 278) above.

329 “Same above, same below” : This seems to be in the above-mentioned Emerald Tablet. See Robertino Solarion’s translation here.

329 “Multiply the two masses attracting each other” : This is the gravity equation in every physics textbook, GM1M2/r2.

332 7th century plagues : It’s unclear whether these are the first plagues that struck Europe from about 1347-51 (in real history as well as in the novel), or the mutated, more deadly plague which KSR posits for his story, which strikes around 1380 or 1400. Both of these dates lie firmly in the 8th century AH, not the seventh.

336 kharsini, paitung : In Chinese characters 白銅 “white copper”. A copper-nickel mixture; also called Chinese bronze.

344 Dar-al-Islam : “The House of Islam”; refers to the collected Islamic states.

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Khalid & Iwang’s short list of scientific advances, discoveries & inventions:

• Disproved alchemy
• Gravity – Objects fall at a speed independent of weight
• Air is essential to combustion
• Vacuum chamber
• Speed of sound
• How the eye perceives
• Angles of diffraction with prisms
• Decomposition of white light
• Formation of Rainbows
• Barometer
• Air pressure (“The weight of air”)
• Attempt to calculate the speed of light
• Acceleration (“the speed of speed”)
• Differentiation (Mathematics)
• Air friction
• Rifling (Spinning cannonballs to stabilize movement)
• Copernican referential
• Graphics
• Telescope
• Jupiter’s four moons
• Poison Gas
• Microscope
• The law of Gravity
• Chinese iron/white copper – Nickel Silver
• Typewriter
• Grenade
• Microbes
• Black-Body radiation (glow of heated solids)
• Ballistics
• Sewerage
• Quarantine

Quotes

• Khalid: “Another mystery! Allah preserve us! They will just keep coming forever until we are one with God!” (p.278)
• Khalid on Nadir’s monthly visits: “I thought I escaped the moon curse when Fedwa went through menopause” (p.310)
• (p.253-254: Sufi view of the world with love)
• (p.256: the scientist’s view of the world)
• (p.260: how the Sufis stopped technical innovation according to Khalid)
• (p.281: Khalid explains the scientific method)
• (p.292-294: Khalid’s anger at life, understanding the world as “God’s real work”)