43 pages • 1 hour read
Yasmina KhadraThe Swallows of Kabul
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2002A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Atiq goes to the mosque for prayers, then stands outside listening to the veterans, one of whom claims he and a few other troops destroyed an entire Soviet tank battalion. Atiq wanders, thinking about how fortunate Musarrat is and noting that she needs to learn to live with her illness. Atiq finds himself back at the prison, and he settles on a cot inside. Nazeesh, an older man, visits Atiq. Nazeesh used to be a mufti, a Muslim legal scholar, with some renown, but he encountered some struggles with mental health, which reduced him to another person struggling to survive in Kabul. Nazeesh brings Atiq some apples and dried meat, sitting with him and talking about how Nazeesh’s father complains too much. Nazeesh tells Atiq that he plans to leave Kabul, but Atiq tells Nazeesh that Nazeesh will never have the courage to leave. Nazeesh is offended, and he takes his food back home with him. Atiq thinks he needs to stop treating Musarrat gently.
Chapter 6 Summary
Mohsen wakes up to Zunaira acting like they did not argue the previous night. Zunaira is only supportive of Mohsen because she knows it is too hard to be alone. Zunaira asks where Mohsen went the previous night, and he tells her he went to the mosque. Zunaira reflects on their time at college, where she had trained to become a magistrate and Mohsen had studied to become a lawyer. They fell in love and married, but, after the invasion and the rise of the Taliban, they lost their jobs and social standing.
They discuss the weather, and Mohsen suggests going out for a walk. Zunaira refuses, both because she does not want to see the horrors of the city and because she refuses to wear a burqa, feeling that the burqa erases a woman’s identity and makes her into an object. Though Zunaira is unemployed, she is proud of herself and her identity. Mohsen concedes. Zunaira feels bad for him. He once had a large fortune and freedom. Now, they cannot hold hands or talk in public without risking Taliban intervention. Although Mohsen says they do not need to go out, Zunaira says she will put on her burqa.
Chapter 7 Summary
Atiq wakes up and hobbles outside, noting the many children running wild in the streets, which is becoming an issue in Kabul. Atiq passes Nazeesh, then he walks back to apologize to Nazeesh for being mean the previous night. Nazeesh forgives him. He asks Atiq if Atiq thinks that he, Nazeesh, will ever leave Kabul. Atiq says Nazeesh will leave one day. As Atiq walks off, he wonders why he feels compelled to hurt others. After talking with Nazeesh the previous night, Atiq went home, found Musarrat asleep, and made loud noises to disturb her. Atiq thinks he has developed a tendency to burden others so that he feels less bad about his own problems. Mirza calls out to Atiq, telling him to get an exorcism. Atiq keeps walking, bumping into a man and woman.
Mohsen and Zunaira are shocked by Atiq walking into them. They begin laughing when Atiq disappears. A Taliban policeman hits Mohsen in the face with a club, telling him he is not in a circus. More Taliban agents gather, and Mohsen claims he is walking his wife to her parents’ house. The Taliban policeman tells Mohsen to go to the nearby mosque, where Mullah Bashir is giving a sermon, instructing Zunaira to wait outside the mosque.
Chapter 8 Summary
In the mosque, Mullah Bashir gives a sermon promising that the time is coming when the world will convert to Islam with the arrival of Imam Muhammad al-Mahdi, adding that anyone who does not believe in the coming of the end-times is an enemy. Mohsen sees Zunaira outside through a window; she turns away a Taliban agent by pointing to the mosque. Mullah Bashir continues, criticizing the West for their immoral and amoral societies and policies, such as allowing gay marriage and valuing finances above spirituality. Bashir promises paradise to those that die defending Islam. He promises destruction for those who die opposing Islam, drawing chants of praise from the crowd.
Zunaira jumps at the loud chanting. She sits back down when no one exits the mosque. Passersby are enchanted by Mullah Bashir’s sermon, but Zunaira is suffocating, struggling with what she feels are the physical and political restrictions of the burqa. She feels that the burqa represents the loss of her rights as a citizen, and she regrets coming out with Mohsen. However, she must wait to avoid further aggression from the Taliban agents.
A Taliban agent swipes at Mohsen’s face, redirecting him to focus on the sermon. After the sermon, Mohsen must wait for the Taliban to allow everyone to leave, and many people crowd around Mullah Bashir in admiration. On the street, Mohsen helps Zunaira get up, feeling dizzy. She pushes him away, telling him not to touch her and reminding Mohsen of the lashes the Taliban agents dealt him earlier.
Chapters 5-8 Analysis
Nazeesh is a unique side character. Like Mohsen, he lost his job and suffered from mental health struggles following the two wars of the 1980s and 1990s. He visits Atiq and expresses his dream of “going away,” specifically to visit the ocean. Through him, the novel shows how individuals under the Taliban dream of freedom. He tells Atiq: “I’m never coming back to Kabul. It’s an accursed city. No one can be saved here” (66), connecting the ocean, and the concept of baptism, to salvation. Atiq’s critique of Nazeesh’s plan does not involve the Taliban or any interpersonal reasons for leaving. Instead, it focuses on the terrain around Kabul, full of hills and mountains, which threaten to slow down and incapacitate Nazeesh in his old age.
The text continues to frame Kabul as a naturally harsh environment following the wars. It emphasizes The Psychological Impact of Living Under Totalitarian Rule, in which hills and mountains are a strategic advantage. For the individuals living in Kabul, however, the landscape is like the Taliban, controlling their ability to move safely from place to place and threatening their well-being.
Zunaira embodies The Role of Love and Beauty as Forms of Resistance. She refuses, at first, to don the burqa. Mohsen notes how Zunaira’s beauty is intense, comparing her to the sun and relying on her beauty for spiritual sustenance. In putting on the burqa, Zunaira notes: “If I put that damned veil on, I’m neither a human being nor an animal, I’m just an affront, a disgrace, a blemish that has to be hidden” (77). Zunaira focuses on herself as an individual behind the burqa, emphasizing how the burqa erases her identity and the identities of all the women in Kabul. Zunaira is oppressed by Taliban rule, and her refusal to wear the burqa identifies her as a representation of resistance and strength. As she agrees to put on the burqa for Mohsen’s sake, her resistance is dampened, reflecting the city’s subjugation.
A common element in this section is the idea of “extenuating circumstances.” First, Atiq notes that Musarrat’s illness “no longer counts as an extenuating circumstance; she has to learn how to deal with it” (62). Up to this point, Atiq has not expected Musarrat to fulfill her duties in the home because of her illness. Now he is starting to see how Kabul views women, rejecting Musarrat because she is not useful to him. Second, Zunaira reflects on a man who had a kind of mental break, noting: “But the uncompromising Taliban, seeing no extenuating circumstances in his madness, had him blindfolded, gagged, and whipped to death” (72). Zunaira uses this anecdote as a justification for helping Mohsen overcome his mental health struggles. However, it also serves to highlight the difference between the Afghan people and the Taliban that rules over them. While individuals, like Zunaira and Atiq, are willing to forgive people based on context, the rigid adherence to Sharia law does not allow for such forgiveness.
Zunaira and Mohsen’s walk into town illustrate The Complexities of Moral Choice and Personal Responsibility. The Taliban accosts the couple, forcing Mohsen into the mosque while Zunaira suffocates in the street with fury: “Her vision clouds; she’s on the verge of bursting into tears” (99). Despite Zunaira’s suffering, she knows she cannot take off the veil. After Mohsen leaves the mosque, she refuses to let him touch her, displacing her anger at the Taliban onto him for his inaction. Although Mohsen knows he should defend his wife and Zunaira knows she needs to remove the burqa, neither of them are capable of action. They lack agency or “efficacy,” which is the knowledge and ability to make change in one’s situation. In this case, they lack the efficacy needed to protect themselves.
