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Ismail Gaspirali, The Muslims of Darürrahat. Translated by Çiğdem Pala Mull. Edited by Sharon Carson. 2024.

In Ismail Gaspirali’s 1890s story The Muslims of Darürrahat, (the Peaceful Country) the not entirely intrepid narrator Mullah Abbas Efendi arrives in the imaginary land of Darürrahat. He has been led there by mysteriously appearing guides, who take him from Alhambra palace in Andalusia through an underground tunnel, where he emerges in Darürrahat to find a Muslim utopian country filled with progressive people and dotted with beautiful Islamic architecture and technologically advanced cities. As in most works of utopian imagination which are also aimed squarely at social critique of the author’s present day, there is nothing simple about this world or this literary work.

The Muslims of Darürrahat first appeared in serialized form in the widely circulated Central Asian newspaper Tercüman, which was edited and largely written by Crimean Tatar educator, journalist and Muslim reformer Ismail Gaspirali. This is the full story’s first appearance in English, translated by Çiğdem Pala Mull and the centerpiece of a book edited by Sharon Carson to include introductory materials, a contextual timeline, and three interpretive essays exploring the story as a work of nineteenth century utopian imagination which has some compelling resonance in our time.

Çiğdem Pala Mull is Professor of English and the Chair of the Western Languages and Literatures Department at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Turkey. She is also the translator of Harold Bloom’s Western Canon.

Sharon Carson, is Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of English at the University of North Dakota, where she teaches American literature, transnational studies, and comparative religions and literature.

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This title is published in collaboration with North Dakota Quarterly. For more from NDQ go here.

For more titles published in collaboration with NDQ check out:

Snichimal Vayuchil. Translated by Paul M. Worley. North Dakota Quarterly Supplement Series 1. 2018. Download or purchase here.

Jurij Koch, The Cherry Tree. Translated by John. K. Cox. North Dakota Quarterly Supplement Series 2. 2022. Download or purchase here.

Also check out:

Eric Burin, editor. Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College. 2017. Download or purchase here.

William Caraher, ed., The University of North Dakota and the Great War. North Dakota Quarterly Reprint 1. 2020. Download or purchase here.