38 pages • 1 hour read
Alif the Unseen
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Chapters 8-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Alif leaves the alley in a rush to meet Intisar. Intisar doesn’t show, and state agents recognize Alif. Alif runs and takes refuge in a mosque overseen by Sheikh Bilal. The sheikh covers for Alif but insists Alif clean the dirt he tracked through the mosque. He explains that prayer requires a clean floor: “When you pray all your actions must fit together like gears in a great machine—like one of your computers” (189). In a discussion of religion that follows, the sheikh likens god’s plan to a computer schematic.
Later, Dina, the convert, and Vikram come to the mosque. The sheikh is wary of allowing Vikram inside but does so anyway. Dina and Alif argue. Dina is angry at him for leaving her and was terrified when he didn’t come back. Alif storms away and falls asleep. He is woken later by Vikram, who says a woman is there to see him but that Alif mustn’t let her in because “she is being followed by something terrible” (210). The woman is Intisar.
Chapter 9 Summary
Intisar says she was going to meet Alif at the tea shop, but her fiancé found out. She warns Alif not to contact her anymore. Alif asks her again to run away with him, and she again refuses. Intisar initially sent Alif the Alf Yeom to hurt her father and fiancé for making decisions about her life, but she’s come to respect and like her fiancé, who has given her a new perspective on Alif’s online identity. Intisar asks if Alif has really been involved with criminals, and suddenly, Alif realizes Intisar shouldn’t have known he was at the mosque. She is baited to drag Alif out. He slams the door in her face. At Vikram’s insistence, Alif locks the rest of the doors. Alif and his friends prepare to hold out for as long as they can.
Vikram provides a distraction by frightening the men outside. Meanwhile, Alif and the girls participate in morning prayer with Sheikh Bilal. They discuss identity in the digital world—whether committing a sin with one’s avatar means that one also committed the sin in real life. The conversation reminds Alif of a story in the Alf Yeom and his earlier discussion about quantum computing with the sheikh. The stories in the Alf Yeom are stand-ins, bits of code. The Hand wants the book because “he’s trying to build a computer” (226).
Chapter 10 Summary
Alif barricades himself in the sheikh’s office to code the Alf Yeom. He will teach the sheik’s “normal silicon-based computer to think in metaphors” and, by doing so, create a quantum computer to beat the Hand at his own game (228). While he works, code and fantasy begin to blur. Alif finds himself in the presence of Princess Farukhuaz from the Alf Yeom’s many stories. A battle of code takes place. Alif sets up programs to destroy the State’s computer. The Hand fights back, but with the princess’s help, Alif’s tower becomes something greater that destroys the Hand in cyberspace, “injecting the beast’s most basic infrastructure with multivalent statements it could not process” (239). Lost in his coding, Alif finally admits that his relationship with Intisar was never real and that he hides behind the letter alif because doing so means he doesn’t have to face reality. The Alf Yeom’s code destabilizes, and Alif discovers the princess is actually a demon. Alif comes back to himself with a jolt when the office door crashes open. The sheikh’s computer fried with the destabilizing code, and Alif’s fingers burned from being in contact with the melting plastic.
An injured Vikram tells Alif they are out of time and that the men outside are coming inside now. Alif’s head still spins from being in a trance. Dina throws her veil over his head so they are face-to-face, and Alif realizes he may love her. Vikram takes Dina and the convert to the Empty Quarter to offer them protection among his people. When they are gone, Sheikh Bilal lets the men in. Alif is captured and knocked unconscious.
Chapter 11 Summary
Alif wakes in the pitch dark of a state prison cell. The Princess Farukhuaz demon taunts Alif from the darkness, closing in on him in tightening circles. Only by reciting holy verses can Alif keep the demon at bay.
An unspecified amount of time later, the Hand visits Alif to discuss his vision of the Alf Yeom as a computer. Alif tries to tell the Hand his idea can’t work, but the Hand says Alif failed because his computer wasn’t powerful enough to process the code. When Alif finally asks what the Hand wants, the Hand replies he wants Alif to realize the Hand has won “like a premonition of death” (260).
More time passes. Between the demon’s presence and worry for his friends, Alif’s sanity degrades. The Hand comes again and informs Alif they have also imprisoned Sheikh Bilal. Before the Hand leaves, Alif admits he’d been looking forward to the Hand’s return, their discussion, and the presence of light. The Hand believes he’s won and no longer provides Alif with food. Alif wastes away but is amazed to find his body is “a machine more elaborate and efficient than any computer he had ever used” (271).
Sometime later, Alif’s cell door opens again to reveal a well-kempt young man. He introduces himself as Prince Abu Talib Al Mukhtar ibn Hamza, but says Alif knows him as NewQuarter01, the city’s first blogger. NewQuarter breaks Alif and Sheikh Bilal out of prison. They barely get off the prison grounds before they are discovered. NewQuarter manages to lose the guards in a car chase. They crash near the Empty Quarter. Alif explains the Alf Yeom and the jinn to NewQuarter, who doesn’t believe a word.
Chapters 8-11 Analysis
The contents of the morning prayer bring another layer to the idea of identity. Sheikh Bilal poses the question of whether committing a sin in cyberspace means one has committed a sin in reality. Ultimately, the question is whether a person’s identity carries into their digital presence. Tin Sari’s ability to identify real individuals by tracking their interactions in cyberspace alludes to this question. Sheikh Bilal’s query also foreshadows Alif coming back to his real self as the story progresses. No matter what presence Alif hides behind, he is still himself, whether that be Alif, his given name, or some other moniker. While Alif is in prison, he marvels at his body being such an efficient machine. All this time he has hidden behind computers, only to now realize he, himself, is more powerful than any machine.
The quantum computer that Alif codes from the Alf Yeom foreshadows the rebellion at the book’s end. Like an oppressed society, the book’s code is unstable and liable to break at the slightest imbalance. This is the definitive difference between magic and technology. The Alf Yeom cannot function as computer code because, as has been pointed out by Sakina and the jinn in Chapter 0, the Alf Yeom was never meant for humans to understand. Code is a human invention and not compatible with jinn magic. Alif’s acceptance of this fact foreshadows his ultimate victory over the Hand. The Hand’s refusal to acknowledge the difference between magic and technology represents his later demise.
NewQuarter exemplifies hiding behind a different name. Rather than a poor hacker, NewQuarter is a prince who hides his identity to keep himself safe. When an angry mob discovers who he is in the final chapters, NewQuarter must admit to his true identity before he can redirect the mob’s attention to the Hand. Like Alif, NewQuarter can only make change once he comes out of hiding. Earlier, the convert and Alif showed how people are alike across cultures. NewQuarter and Alif represent the same idea across rank. NewQuarter is royalty, but he is no safer than Alif during the rebellion.
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