The Shadow of the creascent Moon

(Novel by Fatima Bhutto)

Presented by
Maryam Khalil
Sana Tasneem
Ayesha Rana
Kanwal Yasmeen 10247

INTRODUCTION
Fatima Bhutto, a scion of a widely known political dynasty of Pakistan is the author of
highly regarded works of fiction. She is a prize-winning Pakistani novelist. Her major previous works are
Whispers of the Desert and Songs of Blood and Sword. The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is her first
fictional work written in 2013 and in 2014, it was longlisted for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Bhutto has an unpleasant political background. Her grandfather, the former Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, was hanged in 1979 by General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq and then her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto,
was murdered for which Fatima Bhutto accused her aunt - Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto - who later
herself was assassinated. In this book, Bhutto highlighted the political violence and complexities of a war
that anguish the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) close to the Afghan border in Pakistan. FATA
is the center for terrorist activity and partly ruled by the Taliban. This land is also home to a multi-sided
war where American drones targeted the Taliban, Sunni Muslims bombed Shia Muslims and insurgents
fought against the army for the sake of independence from the central government. In Dawn, Razeshta
Sethna reviews that “Bhutto smartens her fiction by using her characters and their stories to explore the
souring relationship between Pakistan and America and its implications at the height of the ‘war on
terror’” (Sethana, 2014).
SUMMARY
The Shadow of the Crescent Moon sets in the fictional tribal region named Mir Ali that borders
Afghanistan. Fatima Bhutto’s debut novel begins with one tense morning of Friday during Eid as three
Pakistani brothers and two of the women they loved sway in and out of the hardships of war. The whole
novel took place over the course of one single morning. Bhutto accustomed the third person narrative
that exchanged between the perspectives of the characters. All the brothers met at the breakfast table
before leaving for the prayer in three different directions as none of them was aware of whether one of
the mosques will get besotted. They chose different locations because it was too risky to gather all the
family members at the same mosque that could easily be hit. As Bhutto stated in her novel, “No one
prays together, travels in pairs or eats out in groups. It is how they live now, alone” (Bhutto, 2013). This
novel is a heart-wrenching piece of writing. Along with political forces, characters suffer religious forces
as well. Aman Erum is the elder brother who had just returned from studying in America. He is very
courageous and has no interest in dwelling in Mir Ali. In his teenage, his father Inayat Mahsud wanted
him to join Inayat’s mission against the central government of Pakistan for the independence of this
northwestern region so that it could be a part of Afghanistan. Aman Erum had an affiliation with
Samarra, a member of the independence movement. Gradually Aman Erum realized that neither he nor
his dreams will fit into the tribal life he observes around him. Similarly, Samarra, a taboo-breaking
personality who knew how to shoot a gun and ride a motorbike. She also had a desire to free Mir Ali. In
the interviews, when Aman Erum was asked about his thoughts of 9/11 and the fall of the Taliban, his
repeated answer was, “two airplanes hit foreign buildings, this is what people in Mir Ali heard. What
they knew about this new war, what they understood about the events that turned their town into a
battlefield once more, was this: those planes were flown by heroes'' (Bhutto, 2013). Sikandar was the
middle one who instead of going abroad while having the opportunity chose to be a doctor in the town’s
reprobate hospital where only expired medicines and vaccines were available. His wife Mina was a
psychologist by profession working in the same hospital. She was depressed because of losing her only
young son Zalan in a terrorist attack on the hospital. She then spent her time visiting the houses of the
dead children. She gave them bathe and embraced their mothers she didn’t know. Mina was unable to
accept the reality that is why she attended the funerals, prayed for them, recited poems while giving
them bathe to find her own son. She found solace in this whole process (Bhutto, 2013). Bhutto’s
characters are deeply tortured both physically and psychologically. Hayat was the younger brother who
was the most idealistic and inflexible. He continued his father’s mission of fighting for the northwestern
region. He was then involved with Samarra and they both had become a part of the Mir Ali insurgent
movement. Anyhow, Samarra’s connection to the terrorists or freedom fighters was strong as compared
to Hayat. Samarra is not nourished by elementary idealism but by a rebellious attitude. She had become
the victim of rape by the soldiers from the Pakistani army when she was younger. She wanted to become
a leader to punish the attackers who were not berated yet. After breakfast, Aman Erum traveled to the
mosque by taxi. On his way to the mosque, he had flashbacks from his childhood memories. Bhutto
constructed the memories from the flashbacks of the characters’ lives to exhibit the pain and suffering
they were in. Sikandar made his way to the hospital to have a look at the situation and Hayat moved to
the town riding off on his motorbike. Since their father, Inayat had passed away, all of them had
separated their ways to accomplish their desires. Inayat had fought for years against the deceits of the
state, and he often warned his sons that they would have to compensate for their choices. He disclosed
to his sons that “each and every member of the household will know that pain is of no consequence
when fighting for the collective” (Bhutto, 2013). Aman Erum was desperately finding a way to depart
from Mir Ali for good and Sikandar proceeded in search of his wife Mina as she was not in her senses and
went off to the houses of the strangers for serving the funerals of their children. For now, Hayat isn’t
unattended. He was in the companionship of Samarra and they both are on their course of action to
assassinate the Chief Minister. While they move secretly, Aman Erum perceived them along with each
other and placed them together with the fact that they were hatching a plot to murder the Chief
Minister (Bhutto, 2013). The novel closed with a lot of ambivalence. At the end of the novel, an attack
took place but their prevailed ambiguity about whether the minister was murdered or if it was Hayat and
Samarra who assaulted him. There was a recommendation that Hayat betrays her in the sequel. Mina
was the mere character whose crescent edged with hope instead of brutality and moral decomposition.
During one of the funeral orations, she found the old Mina because of confronting the Taliban for the
attack in which she lost her son. The issue wasn't not resolved but there is a viewable personal
purification that predicted something good for her forthcoming. Lucy Beresford in The Daily Telegraph
stated that “The Shadow of the Crescent Moon captures so well is not just the trauma of war, but also
the conflicts of contemporary Pakistanis, torn between remaining faithful to the legacy of previous
generations, and their own dreams of choosing their own destiny” (Beresford, 201
Characters
Inayat Mashud
As fatima bhutto writes, Inayat was a sentinel of Mir Ali’s history. Inayat had fought in the first battle for
Mir Ali in 1950’s and had survived.He had fought amongst the browest against the nervous young
soilders of pakistan’s new army.He is the father of Eman Erum,Sikander, and Hayat.He had raised his
young sons on the stories of Mir Ali’s struggles.Inayat along with his fellow townsmen of Mir Ali, sought
independence from pakistan and its excessive injustices in the 1950s. He fought that civil war.Civil wars
were lit by the wide scale violence that spanned over decades and finally reached its zenith.In the (war
on terror) those who refuse ro better their freedom have to bear the oppressive acts of the state. Inayat
is a man ,who felt that it is not worth living without freedom.
Ghazan Afridi
Ghazan Afridi is Samarra’s father. Samarra grown up as her father want.Samarra learned how to drive
motorcycle,how to climb on mountains,how to catch fishes and how to move with head held high,from
her father Ghazan Afridi. He is the man of honour,but he disappears. There are just hopes expanding
upon days,months,years for his return.Samarra has hope for his return.Aman Erum also get that hope to
Samarra. Ghazan Afridi left Samarra with her mother.(MALALI), taking his chinese- made motorcycle on
odesseys, he never spoke of afterwards. But he also wants to knee down pakistan . These are the last
words of Ghazan before dispatch. He told samarra to be patient. These are the words that Samarra hold
in whole in whole scenario. Samarra fought back to prove her innocence and her Ghazan Afridi. Zalan
Zalan is the little child of Mina and Sikander.Zalan was bruilty killed in a strike upon van.After losing her
children Mina got some psychological disorders.Sikander pulls her out of out all that .
As Fatima bhutto writes in novel
The bastards thought it was a government van.but it was a van filled with children.there were
children inside.They fired an RPG into it.They would have known but they did not know they just
fired.Zalan death is signify the death of innocent people in that war between millitary and Taliban.
Balach and Azmaray
As Fatima Bhutto writes in novel that it is not just the university that has been snuffed out by the politics
of occupation and suspicion.Mir Ali’s schools have also been identified as dangerous. Teacher are paid
by the state to report an subversive activities on their campuses and in the classroom.
Balach wan a known firebrand.He had a printed a pamphlet,a charge sheet,detailing pakistan’crime
against its people.East Pakistan,Balochistan,Sindhis,Pashtuns Ahmed,’is the minorities.
Balach had name them all.He is Azmaray,s brother.A man came to universty where Balach teaches and
grabbed the Balach.From that day ,Balach was a mising one.No one in the country waited for Mir Ali’s
missing.There was just disappearances.
Azmaray protest againts that with many families and photographed and became hero.and after three
days.he was brutly murdered.All the people gathered to march for Azmaryay,who was known and for
Balach ,who was not.
Aman erum
Aman Erum the elder b is rother who had just returned from studying in America. He is very
courageous and has no interest in dwelling in Mir Ali.
father Inayat Mahsud wanted him to join Inayat’s miagainst the central government of Pakistan
for thindependence of this northwesternregion so that it could be a part of Afghanistan. Aman Erum
had an affiliation with
Samarra, a member of the independence movement. Gradually Aman Erum realized that neither
he nor his dreams will fit into the tribal life he observes around him. Similarly, Samarra, a taboo-
breaking personality who knew how to shoot a gun and ride a motorbike. She also had a desire to
free Mir Ali. In the interviews, when Aman Erum was asked about his thoughts of 9/11 and the fall
of the Taliban, his repeated answer was, “two airplanes hit foreign buildings, this is what people in Mir
Ali heard. What they knew about this new war, what they understood about the events that turned
their town into a battlefield once more, was this: those planes were flown by heroes'' .
Sikander
Sikandar was the middle one who instead of going abroad while having the opportunity chose to be a
doctor in
the town’s reprobate hospital where on medicines and vaccines were available. His wife Mina was a
psychologist by profession working in the same hospital. She was depressed because of losing her only
young son Zalan in a terrorist attack on the hospital. She then spent her time visiting the houses of
thedead children. She gave them bathe .mina was unable accept the reality that is why she attended
the funerals, prayed for them, recited poems while giving them bathe as a way to find her own son. She
found solace in whole process (Bhutto, 2013). Bhutto’s characters are deeply tortured both physically and
psychologically.
Hayat
The youngest brother is idealistic and headstrong Hayat, who has picked up his father’s cause
of fighting for independence. Hayat has now become involved with Samarra, and together they
are part of the Mir Ali insurgent movement. However, Hayat’s connection to the freedom
fighters, or terrorists, is not as strong as Samarra’sinflexible. He continued his father’s mission of
fighting for the northwestern region. He was then involved with Samarra and they both had become a
part of the Mir Ali terrorists or freedom fighters was strong as compared to Hayat.

Samarra
Samarra is not nourished by elementary idealism but by a rebellious attitude. She had become the victim
of rape by the soldiers from the Pakistani army when she was younger. She wanted to become a
leader to punish the attackers who were not berated yet. After being raped at In her younger age she
did not let herself become fragile, she developed her personality more vigorously and determined to
punish the culprits. Similarly, the Mina
Mina
Mina, in all her madness, remains the most interesting for her understanding of the changes
that they must grapple with being Shia and anti-Taliban in Mir Ali.

While accompanying her husband, Sikandar, in his hospital van, they are accosted by Talibs
with wispy beards and light-blue turbans, and it is Mina who has the strength to stand up to
them. In an outburst so full of rage and pain that it shocks the Talib commander, she accuses
them of injustice. “These men are students of justice. They can be accused of being violent, of
being rash, of anything but injustice,” 
War on terror
Bhutto smartens her fiction by using her characters and their stories to explore the souring
relationship between Pakistan and America and its implications at the height of the ‘war on
terror’; she criticises the government’s perception and treatment of a young, lost generation
from the tribal belt, those who suffered and were pulled into a war they never understood. As
Samarra says to the officer who beats her during her incarceration, accusing her of being a rebel
and traitor: “You are the ones who have sold everything in this country you defend so urgently.
You sold its gold, its oil, its coal, its harbours,” even its airspace.
Bhutto highlighted the political violence and complexities of a war
that anguish the Federally Administered Tribal Areas
(FATA) close to the Afghan border in Pakistan. FATA is thecenter for terrorist activity and partly ruled
by the Taliban.
This land is also home to a multi-sided war where American
drones targeted the Taliban. In the interviews, when Aman Erum was asked about his thoughts of
9/11 and the fall of the Taliban, his repeated answer was, “two airplanes hit foreign buildings, this is
what people in Mir Ali heard. What they knew about this new war, what they understood about the
events that turned their town into a battlefield once more, was this: those planes were flown by heroes.
Pakistan’s relationship to the “War on Terror” has been highly ambivalent. On the one hand,
Pakistan played a key role in facilitating the U.S.-led intervention in Afghanistan from shortly
after 9/11 up to the present. It has permitted the transit of matériel across Pakistani territory to
U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Pakistan has also tolerated American missile attacks launched from
Afghanistan against Taliban and al-Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s lawless border region with that
country.

Dynamic sectarian conflict

Fatima bhutto also highlights the radical sectarian conflict in pakistan.she highlights it in context of the
sikander and mina when they get stuck my militant who forced the to call themselves not shia but sunni.
Sectarian violence in Pakistan refers to attacks and counter-attacks against people and places
in Pakistan motivated by antagonism toward the target's sect, usually a religious extremist
group. Targets in Pakistan include the Shia, Barelvis, Sunnis,[16] Sufis, Ahmadis, Hindus and
small groups of Deobandis. As many as 4,000 people are estimated to have been killed by Shia-
Sunni sectarian attacks in Pakistan between 1987–2007.[17] And since 2008, thousands of Shia
have been killed by Sunni extremists according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).[18] One
significant aspect of the attacks in Pakistan is that militants often target Sunni and Shia places of
worship during prayers in order to maximize fatalities and to "emphasize the religious
dimensions of their attack"
Sectarian issue in Pakistan is a major destabilizing factor in the country’s political, social, religious and
security order. While causing unrest, disorder and violence in society, the sectarian conflict in Pakistan for
the last 27 years resulted into thousands of deaths from suicide attacks, bomb blasts, assassinations and
other terrorist acts. The state actors, instead of seeking the management and resolution of a conflict,
which has divided Muslims on sectarian grounds, tried to exploit the issue for political objectives.
Regardless of scattered events of Shia-Sunni discord, sectarian harmony in Pakistan was a model of
tolerance and brotherhood amongst different sects in the religion of Islam.
Escapism
the tendency to seek distraction and relief from unpleasant realities, especially by seeking
entertainment or engaging in fantasy. As fatima bhutto writes about the most important
character aman erum in the novel,
He wanted to get out, to be free, to make money, to move without checkpoints and military
police poking their red berets into your car and asking for your papers. The other boys of Aman
Erum's age didn't seem to feel confined by the country's wild borders; they didn't feel restricted
the way he did.
He didn’t care where,but he didn’t want to spend his life in Mir Ali.
That is the after effect of the war that expand upon year and decades in the FATA region. Eman
arun applied for military and also for foreign scholarship to escape for that scenario.
That is the same notion of all the people who stuck with that war in mir ali region. As sir amir
writes but this is war. Choices are few and decisions are hell difficult.
Women aspect
Bhutto’s female characters were more positive that delivered the memorandum to all women to
remain strengthened in every situation as it is the best way to deal with griefs (Sethna, 2014 Women were
the most important characters of the novel as they were remarkable for their courage and strength of
heart in the region where they could not even move with their own choice and their voices were out
of bounds. Samarra’s character was quite strong. After being raped at Samarra character is quite
Strengtheous in her younger age she did not let herself become fragile, she developed her personality
more vigorously and determined to punish the culprits. Similarly, the character of Mina remained
the most fascinating throughout the novel even in all her madness. She lost her young son but in spite of
going into trauma, she consoled the mothers of the dead children. At another place in the novel, Mina
with her husband Sikandar is traveling to the hospital in a van where the Taliban annoyed them
with frail beards and blue turbans on their heads and it was Mina who had the strength to stand in front of
them. She eagerly accused them of injustice and collapsed in front of all. It might be the reaction of
losing her only son by them that shocked the Taliban commander. She yelled: “These men are students
of justice. They can be accused of being violent, of being rash, of anything but injustice.

Disappearance
As Fatima Bhutto writes, Disappearance, there was a beautiful science to them .
Sir amir writes about balach and azmaray.that theme is in context of those people who
disappeared from Mir Ali.
The novel, along with its portrayal of trials and tribulations in the lives of the tribal people living
in war zones like Mir Ali, also pinpoints the state excesses as shown through the fictive
episodes: the disappearance of Balach the university lecturer; extra-judicial killing of Azmaray
the younger brother of Balach and philosophy student in the university of Mir Ali; and the gang-
rape of Samarra. Bhutto shows that such events occur due to the irresponsible acts of some
state actors like Colonel Tarik Irshad. The military measures taken to efface the unwanted non-
state actors like Taliban and insurgents may spill over to the people, still in the radius of
innocence, and may radicalise them to the extent of slipping out of the national imagination
causing a ripple effect as in the case of samarra.