The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

Jamal is the chosen name of Dunya, the 16-year-old trans-gender scribe whom Amina is hired to find. Despite loving Dunya, Salima (Dunya’s grandmother) doesn’t accept or understand Dunya’s disinclination to marry a man or their inclination toward scholarly work and the family job of disposing of magical relics. They are also the child of Asif, a sailor whose death Amina feels responsible for. This sense of obligation to Asif’s family is one of the reasons that Amina takes the job.

Jamal is able to work powerful spells that they learned from years of studying in the family’s esoteric library. Falco takes Jamal primarily to use them to find the Moon of Saba, one of the sacred relics which ironically turns out to be a washbasin rather than a precious pearl. Jamal’s knowledge and skills are vital to the success of the mission, though their naive ideas about humanity are also the cause of many of the mission’s challenges. They set about recording Amina’s story and making her a legend, and it is their account that is being read throughout The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi.

Marjana is Amina’s young daughter. Her father is the demon Raksh. While she hasn’t shown obvious signs of magic yet, her dark eyes and occasional intuitions about situations makes Amina nervous, and Marjana’s welfare drives many of Amina’s decisions. The result is that while Marjana is physically present during only a few chapters of the book, her metaphorical presence is evident in Amina’s every action, for the pirate captain often feels guilty about The Conflicting Worlds of Domesticity and Adventure that dominate her life. Marjana is the only thing that keeps Amina from despairing when she isn’t sailing her ship and has to remain on land.

Salima is the rich, elderly mother of a sailor named Asif. Her son was close to Amina and died on her ship in a way that still haunts Amina. Salima is able to use this guilt, and the fact that Asif is the father of the kidnapped teenager, Jamal, to convince Amina to take the job of recovering them. Salima is wily, stubborn, and desperate enough to destroy people to get what she wants. Despite ultimately hiring Amina, Salima doesn’t treat the pirate captain well and lies about essential facts of Jamal’s vanishing, twisting the story to portray the incident as a kidnapping instead of admitting that Jamal is fleeing an arranged marriage. Salima is one of many characters who fiercely values family, and she may be the most aggressively fierce when it comes to protecting her family even as she threatens Amina’s. Notably, she is willing to liquidate all her assets to see Jamal safely returned, despite deeply misunderstanding both her son and his child. Her love, despite being fierce, is ultimately selfish, for she refuses to listen to Jamal, causing them to run in the first place. She also loses Jamal in the end when Jamal embraces their true self and decides to travel with Amina.

Dalila is one of Amina’s original crew members and the infamous “Mistress of Poisons” (58) though she herself calls her business “pharmaceuticals” (61). She is short, barely coming up to Amina’s chest, and often has eyebrows or hair burnt off as a result of her experiments with dangerous chemicals. She is a Christian in a predominantly Islamic land, and she is also a skillful poisoner who is adept at using all forms of deadly toxins, including knockout gas that is referred to in the section entitled “A Missive to the Wali of Basrah” as having taken out an entire squadron. Her hat infamously contains poison-filled vials that one should never break and which clink around her head when she moves.

Dalila and Majed, Amina’s navigator, do not get along, for Dalila first joined the crew after poisoning him and withholding the antidote until Amina agreed to take her onboard. Despite being one of the most important people to Amina while pirating, she “refuse[s] to learn anything about boats” (61). While sarcastic and surly, she is now one of Amina’s most trusted advisors. Her past, her origins, and even her real name remain a mystery even to Amina, who many times wants to ask and then backs off.

Tinbu, originally from India, was enslaved as a teenager. He was a staunch member of Amina’s crew and was left in charge of her ship, the Marawati, while she attempted to live a domestic life with Marjana. He is a loyal and brave second-in-command, and in the chapter entitled “Excerpt From a Warning About the Malabar Coast,” he is referred to as one of the most talented sailors that the narrator’s captain had even known. Despite this, when Amina returns, he declares his relief that he no longer has to command the ship. His bravery results in multiple injuries, and it is he who often comes up with ideas that save Amina and crew, though most of his solutions involve fire.

Amina notes that he is excellent at striking deals with criminals, though not so much with government officials, and is often extremely soft-hearted when it comes to animals and to his friends. He is also an example of The Conflicting Worlds of Domesticity and Adventure, as he mentions to Amina that his parents would like him to come home and marry. He also helps to highlight Amina’s open spirit when it comes to welcoming crews of all religions, races, and sexual orientations. She asks him about his multiple gods with interest and knows that he is gay and is currently in love with a Jew from Aden named Yusuf.

Raksh is Amina’s fourth husband. He is a demon and “a being of discord” (359). He first appeared to her in a beautiful human form to seduce her, for she exudes ambition and desire for adventure: emotions that he feeds on. He is the father of Marjana but isn’t aware that she exists. He makes deals with humans, and when this happens, they are bound together. His deal with Asif fed on the man’s ambition and resulted in Asif losing his soul and vanishing from existence, something Amina has felt guilty about for years.

While Raksh saves Amina many times, his motives are always selfish, and he makes it clear that he would let her die if it were to his advantage, though his behavior sometimes implies differently. He feels that their bond is different, and this unusual bond prevents him from making strong deals with other people. Amina believes the bond is that of their child, Marjana. His alien way of looking at the world highlights his lack of humanity. Whereas Amina is loyal, Raksh is selfish. Whereas Amina uses The Power of Teamwork, Raksh’s only use for such things is to feed on the resulting emotions. Despite this, he deeply understands Amina, and when they are together, he brings her good luck.

The interludes reveal that a young Majed ran away from his apprenticeship to a cartographer and joined Amina’s father, causing the authorities to look for him in order to question him about the smuggling activities of al-Sirafi. Amina notes that out of all her companions, Majed has been with her the longest, and she wouldn’t have become who she is without him. He is like a big brother to her, though he has tried to have a successful, law-abiding life, marrying a wife and starting family after returning home. He is devout in his religion and is a loving father and husband. His skill and morality bring the crew comfort.

His wife, a Somali woman named Nasteho, knows about his past, but when she sees how he enjoys researching Amina’s route and deciphering the clues to find the Moon of Saba, she encourages him to join the mission. She is instrumental in helping Amina to come to terms with her Conflicting Worlds of Domesticity and Adventure. Nasteho vocalizes the fact that she loves both her children and her work, allowing Amina to admit the guilt she was feeling about these two things. At the end of the novel, Majed declares that there must be a way to both pursue adventures and see their children.

Falco Palamenestra, otherwise known as The Frank, is a malicious sorcerer and the antagonist of the novel. Disillusioned by the fallout of the Crusades, he has now turned against God and launched a quest of his own to gather many magical objects in order to rival God’s power and start the world anew. When Amina meets him, she is initially disappointed, as he looks like a normal man with an almost pleasant face. She quickly sees that this is a mask, however, for he is able to suggest horrible and pleasant things with the same unfazed attitude and expression. He uses Dunya’s magic in a way that shocks them and shows no love or loyalty to his crew, butchering half of them when they refuse to drink the potion that will bind them to him. He is powerful, but his confidence and greed leave him exposed to trickery by Dunya, who escapes and then reverses the spell over the Moon of Saba, leading to his final downfall.