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A review by bushraboblai
Brother Alive by Zain Khalid
5.0
The premise of the book itself seemed like something I would be obsessed with. Three Muslim orphan boys of different ethnicities adopted by an imam on Staten Island who is mystical and mysterious? Then a voyage into Saudi Arabia in their adulthood to find the truth about their father and what happened to their biological parents? Sounds like an odyssey story that deserves to be an instant classic.
There are aspects of my identity that I don’t completely feel safe discussing on the internet as it sends certain demographics of people into violent fits of rage. Reading the first part, which is narrated by Youssef (which by the way, is my favourite name) manages to express all the uncertainty, love, apprehension, and coming into your own moral understanding while living in a world that seems to be built to ostracize you is something that has been relevant for many decades for Muslim youth in America and only now are the younger generations able to express how unfair and ridiculously unnecessary it all is. I also think about the connection to the name of the Prophet Yusuf (AS) who became orphaned due to being sold into slavery by his own brothers (another metaphorical backstabbing) and how he is transported to a foreign society (Egypt) where he is put through trials and tribulations simply due to him being an outsider. I think this theme particularly applies to the parallel queer storylines of Youssef himself, and his adopted father and biological father dealing with this othering and the danger that comes along with it in a conservative religious school in the middle of Saudi Arabia
I might be the sole voice here, but I also really enjoyed the second part where Salim writes a letter to his sons and the whole thing is a little confusing and narratively doesn’t make sense. The reason I like this is because it reflects his mental state after the Saudi Arabian government has messed with his memories. I think that was a really clever rhetorical choice.
That same lack of cohesion and structure is reflected in the third part of Youssef’s narration as he suffers from the same disease and we see how being in a ~certain~ ultra high tech city in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert messes with his mental skills and cognition even more.
What I like best in the book is the exploration of the human character: the dangers of fundamentalism in a religion founded on the basis of peace, Sufism, the mysticism of religion, being a harassed group while following a religion, and growing up in America in the shadow of the melting pot propaganda while having lateral violence being committed to people that look like you at the same time.
There are aspects of my identity that I don’t completely feel safe discussing on the internet as it sends certain demographics of people into violent fits of rage. Reading the first part, which is narrated by Youssef (which by the way, is my favourite name) manages to express all the uncertainty, love, apprehension, and coming into your own moral understanding while living in a world that seems to be built to ostracize you is something that has been relevant for many decades for Muslim youth in America and only now are the younger generations able to express how unfair and ridiculously unnecessary it all is. I also think about the connection to the name of the Prophet Yusuf (AS) who became orphaned due to being sold into slavery by his own brothers (another metaphorical backstabbing) and how he is transported to a foreign society (Egypt) where he is put through trials and tribulations simply due to him being an outsider. I think this theme particularly applies to the parallel queer storylines of Youssef himself, and his adopted father and biological father dealing with this othering and the danger that comes along with it in a conservative religious school in the middle of Saudi Arabia
I might be the sole voice here, but I also really enjoyed the second part where Salim writes a letter to his sons and the whole thing is a little confusing and narratively doesn’t make sense. The reason I like this is because it reflects his mental state after the Saudi Arabian government has messed with his memories. I think that was a really clever rhetorical choice.
That same lack of cohesion and structure is reflected in the third part of Youssef’s narration as he suffers from the same disease and we see how being in a ~certain~ ultra high tech city in the middle of the Saudi Arabian desert messes with his mental skills and cognition even more.
What I like best in the book is the exploration of the human character: the dangers of fundamentalism in a religion founded on the basis of peace, Sufism, the mysticism of religion, being a harassed group while following a religion, and growing up in America in the shadow of the melting pot propaganda while having lateral violence being committed to people that look like you at the same time.