The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca, Tahir Shah

The Caliph's House: A Year In Casablanca, by Tahir Shah

This book is a memoir; it is an account based on the author’s personal experiences of purchasing and completely renovating a large house in Casablanca. Wanting to escape the dullness and drabness of England and move to a more colorful culture, the author, Tahir Shah, purchased a large house called “The Caliph’s House”, and set about completely renovating it. He moved his family into the house, where they lived during the renovation, which took an entire year. The house was located on the edge of a shantytown and near the sea on the edge of Casablanca. The house had not been lived in for a decade and was in serious disrepair.

The book is about the author’s experiences in dealing with and learning the culture of the people of Casablanca, particularly those he encountered in renovating the house – some of their beliefs and their work culture. The experiences described by Shah are almost all bad experiences. Most of them are related to three topics – the belief in evil spirits called “jinns” and the daily problems and disruptions caused by this belief; the problems associated with workmen – some were crooks and others were competent, but refused to work and complete tasks; and the problems he experienced in dealing with various government officials. He also describes other problems, but they are of lesser magnitude. The book is really a series of descriptions of one problem after another, many of which were pretty serious problems and almost all of which were absurd.

I wonder about the factual nature of the book. I suspect that much of it is an exaggeration or possibly even fiction “based on” his experiences. I am not troubled by that, but I think it should probably be mentioned. For example, he seems to have one grandfather who was Afghan, and the other three grandparents were British. He was raised in Britain. However, he never mentions any ancestors except the Afghan. I’m sure he is proud of his heritage, a direct descendant of Mohammed. However, he does not mention the greater part of his ancestry, and only alludes to the fact that he was not raised Muslim. I suspect that he does the same thing regarding other aspects of his life. For example, he does not describe happy times, but there must have been happy times because his wife and children do not seem to have rebelled. In addition, the problems must not have been as bad as he describes them because he continued to work through them for a full year, and again, both he and his wife and children seem to have accepted them. He writes very little of his family in this book. The book is really about his experiences in renovating the house.

I found the book interesting. I would not give it five stars, as most Amazon reviewers did, but I would give it four stars. I enjoy reading about cultural differences in people, and this book describes a culture vastly different from any I have known. I have been to Casablanca, and that fact also added to my interest in this book.