So, I'm dying, disabled, housebound & in childbirth levels of pain (with Brain Damage Memory Loss) - & I'm writing my last Memoir (Book 6) and setting it over 1,000 years in ten chapters with Chapter ten breaking the wall as an actual Memoir writing the Book... I used Islamic & Western Philosophy & a homage to Steinbeck ... anyone interested in discussing (happy to share - half way through:

Working Title - Djinn (or The Dying Sailor & The Beautiful Lady of Islam

Author- James B. Hansom (Ian James Hillyard)

Genre - Historical Fiction

Professional Summary:
Overview
Djinn (or The Dying Sailor and the Beautiful Lady of Islam) is a literary epic that spans over a thousand years of sacred longing, spiritual exile, and human connection, traced across the fall of empires, the erosion of faith, and the fragile survival of love itself.
While rooted in Spiritual Truth, the book is not tied to dogma — it is universal in its language of longing.
Set across ten interconnected chapters — from mythic valleys to shattered cities — the book weaves a twin narrative:
the sailor and the lady pass through each other’s lives like whispered prayers, echoes of a love too sacred to possess.
Only in the final chapter does the truth emerge: this is no parable, no myth — it is the record of two real souls meeting at the end of all things.
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️ The Structure
Each chapter inhabits a different historical setting —
breathing through mythic timelessness, medieval Islamic Spain, the fall of Constantinople, the Atlantic crossing, the decay of British Empire, the collapse of Mughal India, the violence of Partition, and finally, modern England.
At each step, two unseen souls — Djinn bound by memory and prayer —
one bearing the exile of longing, one bearing the burden of survival —
move closer to recognition.
The chapters do not simply recreate history;
they reveal the sacred scars each era has left upon human hearts.
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The Sufism of the Work
Sufism is not just a background here —
it is the breathing spirit of the entire book.
Key Sufi concepts embodied:
Sufi Principle Manifestation in the Story
Ishq (Divine Longing) Love that aches beyond flesh and survival, becoming prayer itself.
Sabr (Sacred Patience) Souls waiting across centuries for the breath of recognition.
Fana (Annihilation of Self) Lovers dissolving beyond ego and form — into presence, into meaning.
Tawhid (Unity of Being) The final realization: the beloved is not separate from the Divine. The meeting is both human and holy.
Rather than explaining Sufism academically,
the book lives it,
showing how longing itself becomes a form of sacred survival across broken worlds.
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Historical Journey Through the Chapters
Chapter Setting Focus
1. The Blue Scarf Mythic Vale, 1000 CE Birth of sacred longing.
2. The Poet and the Scribe Granada, 1148 A.D. Love and poetry before Al-Andalus falls.
3. The Fire & the Breath Constantinople, 1453 A.D. Sacred memory at the fall of Byzantium.
4. The Drunkard and the Student North Atlantic, 1604 A.D. Lost sailors seeking God across endless salt.
5. The Saint and the Soldier Kashmir, early 1700s The Mughal collapse; sacred survival beyond empire.
6. The Battle of Plassey India, June 1757 A.D. The British begin their conquest, cloaked in the language of ‘entrepreneurialism’.
7. The Salt of Rebellion India, 1857 A.D. Sacred fury ignites a century later — betrayal blooms into rebellion. (Sepoy Rebellion). Britain ‘Rules the Waves’.
8. The Scarred Sailor Marrakesh, 1900 A.D. Forbidden love under colonial decline.
9. The Broken Valley Kashmir, 1947 A.D. Partition; divine longing torn by human borders.
10. The Dying Ginger Sailor Devon, England — Present Day Final sacred meeting: myth becomes flesh; love endures death.
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What the Book Ultimately Is
The Dying Sailor and the Beautiful Lady of Islam is not just a historical novel,
not just a love story,
not just a memoir disguised as myth.
It is a sacred duet.
A living Sufi parable.
A testimony to the truth that:
Longing is prayer.
Patience is loyalty to the soul.
Love is not possession — it is recognition.
It is a book for readers who are tired of noise, tired of cynicism —
for those who have ever carried longing like a holy fire in the hollow of their chest.
It is a book that will burn, heal, and stay.