38 pages • 1-hour read
Alif the Unseen
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Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary
Alif, NewQuarter, and Sheikh Bilal need a plan to stay ahead of State. There is a mirage of a lake in the distance. Alif wanders toward it and is surprised when a man comes out of the lake to converse with them. The man is a jinn. The Empty Quarter truly is jinn territory. Alif talks the jinn into helping them find Vikram. The jinn is reluctant but takes them to Irem (the City of Pillars), a place perpetually on the verge of dusk, “giving the impression of a day that had never begun or a night that had never ended” (307).
In the city, the jinn takes them to a bar/inn and then goes to see about finding Sakina. The three have a good meal and sleep. Alif wakes to Sakina in their room. She confirms Vikram’s death and that the girls may be somewhere in the Empty Quarter. They visit another jinn in hopes of getting answers. They get nowhere until Alif sees a door and is “possessed by a wild idea” (336). When the opportunity presents itself, he charges the door, managing to get inside right before the jinn stops him. On the other side, he finds Dina, who is under the jinn’s protection.
Chapter 13 Summary
Alif is beyond relieved to find Dina alive and well. The convert is there, too, and she is pregnant with Vikram’s baby. She married Vikram to get protections extended to her and Dina after he died. Dina helps Alif clean up his appearance. They discuss their feelings for one another, and Alif apologizes for being so stupid about Intisar. Dina forgives him, saying “even when I was annoyed with the boy you were, I liked the man I knew you would become” (351). Alif says they need to find the Alf Yeom, and Dina reveals she’s had it the entire time Alif was in prison.
Chapter 14 Summary
The Hand ransacked the Immovable Alley, and Sakina fears Irem will be next. To draw the Hand’s attention away, Alif will take a decoy book to him and leave the Alf Yeom in Irem under the protection of a jinn who can hide things easily. Alif tries to gain aid from the rest of the jinn, but NewQuarter interrupts. Their city’s internet is down, and their “little modern-day Carthage has been sacked” (362). Gray hats posted pictures of scrambled websites to the cloud, the Al Basheera homepage among them.
NewQuarter suggests this is proof the Hand messed up, and Alif sees the screenshots for what they are: evidence of the Hand’s failure to code the Alf Yeom.
Alif offers the jinn a deal. Demons are helping the Hand. Alif will take care of the man if the jinn battle his unseen allies. The jinn agree to help, and an exhausted Alif falls asleep. He dreams of Azalel, who’s come to see Vikram’s daughter in the convert’s womb. Alif admits he’s afraid he won’t succeed, and Azalel promises to help him.
Chapter 15 Summary
Sheikh Bilal and the convert decide to remain in Irem, where the Sheikh has been offered a place to study and teach. Alif, Dina, and NewQuarter go home to fight the Hand but find the city in shambles. The people rebelled when the Hand crashed the internet and power grid. The city is a battleground.
Alif, Dina, and NewQuarter go to NewQuarter’s apartment. It’s been ransacked. A demon attacks them and takes the decoy book. During the demon’s attack, Vikram appears to Alif, encouraging Alif to continue fighting. The three leave NewQuarter’s apartment only to run headlong into an army of demons. They retreat into the apartment, where the Hand is waiting for them. He has the Alf Yeom and imprisoned the jinn who was guarding it.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
The city in shambles represents the Hand’s failed attempt to create a quantum computer with the Alf Yeom. The mixing of magic and technology results in drastic consequences. Alif is captured by State, and the Hand insights a rebellion. The rebellion also mirrors Alif’s character arc. In order to affect change, Alif had to come out from behind his computer and enter the seen world. The same is true for the people of the city. They make no progress remaining unseen. Only when they no longer have the internet do they, too, enter the seen world and demand the change they want.
The convert appears for the last time in these chapters, and her name is still not given. She remains unseen, which mirrors the belonging she finds among the jinn. Her decision to stay in Irem is foreshadowed by her initial decision to study in a new country and change her religion. Throughout the book, she struggles the most with understanding the unseen world. After she weds Vikram, the unseen becomes clear. She embodies the idea that any change can be accepted under the right conditions. The convert finds where she belongs after much trial and error.
The convert carrying Vikram’s baby mixes the seen and unseen. This harkens back to the debate of whether people are themselves in cyberspace, in the “unseen” area of the internet. One’s identity doesn’t change online. Like the convert’s baby, people are a mix of the seen and unseen—the “seen” of the “real” world and the “unseen” of the digital world. Sakina observes that Alif’s generation is closer to understanding the Alf Yeom than previous ones. The convert’s half-jinn baby foreshadows the next generation getting even closer to understanding the Alf Yeom.
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