The Adventures of Amina Al-Sirafi

The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi is the first of three books in a series by New York Times bestselling author Shannon Chakraborty. The series focuses on a middle-aged female pirate who embarks on one last quest in the medieval Indian Ocean with her former shipmates to recover a kidnapped teenager from a brutal Frankish (European) sorcerer named Falco, who seeks objects of powerful, dark magic. Amina must fight both human and magical elements, including her tricky, demonic husband, to save the kidnapped teenager, her crew, and herself so that she can return home safely to the child she loves and wants more than anything to protect.

This study guide refers to the 2023 Harper Voyager Edition.

A Note on Wording: The source text includes an AFAB (Assigned Female at Birth) character who is universally believed to identify as female (and is absent for the majority of the text). Upon appearing in the text, the character is discovered to prefer not to identify as female. Accordingly, this guide uses female pronouns to refer to the character up until the declaration of identity is made. After this point, the guide utilizes gender-neutral pronouns in accordance with the character’s actual identity.

Plot Summary

In a formal tone, a scribe begins the novel by announcing their intention to let Amina al-Sirafi speak in her own voice, as there are many incorrect ideas about women who have adventures. Amina’s narrative voce takes over and begins telling a story about saving two young men from a monster that they summoned from the water. Once saved, the young men spread stories about Amina. The stories reach a woman named Salima in the city of Aden. Salima seeks Amina out and offers her money to save her grandchild, Dunya, from a treasure-hunting Frankish (European) kidnapper named Falco. When Amina refuses, Salima threatens to kill Amina’s family and uses guilt as a weapon, for Salima’s son, Asif, died on Amina’s ship, and the kidnapped teenager, Dunya, is his child.

Amina agrees to save Dunya and finds her friend Dalila, who is known as the Mistress of Poisons. Together, they find Amina’s ship, the Marawati which is being looked after by another friend named Tinbu. Amina and Dalila arrive in time to save Tinbu and the crew from being crucified for piracy. In a daring rescue mission, the two women drug the prison guards, free the crew, and sneak aboard the Marawati. They shoot fiery arrows into the pursuing warships, ramming their way out of the harbor. It transpires that Tinbu met a man named Layth who worked for Falco, and when they question Layth, he magically chokes to death on the money they pay him, indicating Falco’s magical hold over him. In a subsequent visit to Salima’s home, Amina gains information Amina from Dunya’s library that convinces her that they need to find Majed, her old navigator. They also learn that Falco is searching for many magical objects, one of which is the legendary Moon of Saba. Upon finding Majed, Amina learns that he has gone straight and has a family now, but his wife convinces him to go with Amina anyway.

Now that Amina’s crew is assembled, Majed directs them to a pirate stronghold island called Socotra. Upon arrival, they see wreckage from Falco’s ship, so Amina, Dalila, and Tinbu go ashore to scout and discover that villagers are either gone or dead. Amina feels a presence that it turns out to be her fourth husband, Raksh, who is a magical creature that Amina calls a demon. Raksh once sailed with Amina, and during that time he used his supernatural powers to strike a deal with Salima’s son, Asif, offering the man power in exchange for his soul. Now, Amina and Raksh fight with both weapons and words. Amina is angry about Raksh’s role in the death of Asif, and Raksh is angry that he can no longer make strong deals with humans since his marriage to Amina. He has recently been sailing with Falco and informing the sorcerer about the Marawati’s crew, but he has now escaped.

Amina forces Raksh to show her how to get into Falco’s camp to rescue Dunya. He leads her and her crew through a secret back entrance to a magic cave, where Amina sees a door that attracts her. They find a room with many butchered corpses of the villagers. They rescue the few remaining people, and Amina remains behind to distract Falco’s men, who soon capture her. Falco fails to talk Amina into sailing for him, so he forces her to drink a magic potion and is about to throw her into a pit of scorpions when her crew rescues her. A scorpion stings her, but Raksh pulls the magical sting from her chest in order to prevent Falco from forging a magical connection that would allow him to control her.

They sail off and find Dunya, who has escaped and is now passed out from exposure on a small boat. When Dunya regains consciousness, she admits that she ran away to avoid an arranged marriage and declares that she doesn’t identify as a woman. Amina is torn about taking Dunya back but decides that she has no choice. A sea monster called a marid, which is controlled by Falco, traps and holds the Marawati while Falco boards. He and Amina fight, and Dunya stops them, promising to help him find the Moon of Saba if he agrees to let the crew live. He agrees, but then he stabs Amina and throws her overboard, saying that she is not part of the crew.

She survives, clinging to a wooden plank and drifting in the sea for days, until she finally washes up on a magic island. When she drinks water that flows from a tree, she is suddenly able to see the magical creatures and landscape around her. Raksh finds her, and she is furious that he abandoned them when the marid was attacking. He explains that if Falco gets the Moon of Saba, he will control the moon spirit that dwells within it, and elements of discord like Raksh will become power sources that will burn until Falco dies. Hearing this, Amina is frightened by the idea that Marjana, their daughter, will also be destroyed, for she too carries Raksh’s demonic heritage. Raksh offers to help Amina petition the beings that run the island to allow her leave. The inhabitants of the island are flying beings with human faces called peris, and their job is to keep balance between the human world and the magical world. They have decreed that any human who enters their realm must die, so they immediately drop Amina from their court in the open sky. Fortunately, another peri rescues her and offers to interceded with the other peris on her behalf. Raksh tells the court that Amina can be their tool for hunting and eliminating magical objects like the Moon of Saba. They make a deal with Amina, in which she agrees to search for and destroy five magical objects, including the Moon of Saba. She is granted the supernatural ability to detect such objects of power.

The helpful peri drops Amina and Raksh off at a pirate town on Socotra, where an Egyptian nakhuda, or captain, named Magnun offers to help Amina and gives her a magical knife that has the ability to sever the magical bonds that Falco forges between himself and his followers and monsters, like the marid. Magnun’s ship attacks Falco’s beachside stronghold from the sea, and Amina and some of her crew attack from the land. Amina finds that she now has magical strength, and her knife from Magnun cuts the mystical tethers between Falco and his crew, making them weak. Amina and her team defeat Falco’s henchmen, Amina likewise frees the marid, who forms a mental connection with her.

Having overcome Falco’s men, Amina enters the cave at the heart of his stronghold—which also houses the Moon of Saba. She suddenly finds herself on a boat with Asif pleading with her. When she realizes that he is an illusion, she punches him and discovers that he is really a parasitic magical creature that is sucking her blood. She kills it and proceeds to a large room full of monsters. She runs through and finds Falco watching Dunya, who is floating in midair and writing a spell on a stone column. The column explodes, and Dunya is knocked unconscious, but Falco now has the Moon of Saba. Amina revives Dunya, who tells Amina that she crafted a spell that will cause the moon spirit to possess Falco rather than the other way around. Moonlight is a necessary component for the spell to work. Freed from the Moon of Saba, the moon spirit al-Dabaran conjures a giant snake and sets it on Dunya. Amina’s psychic connection with the marid allows her to call the monster for help, and the marid knocks a hole in the cave wall, allowing the moonlight to enter the cave. Al-Dabaran escapes the basin. The cave collapses on Falco, and Amina stabs him in the heart when she sees that he is not yet dead.

Amina and her crew return home. Dunya completes the transition to become Jamal and sends a message to Salima, telling her what happened. Salima promises not to hurt Amina’s family because Amina has saved Jamal’s life; however, Salima states that she and Amina are still enemies. Amina returns home to Marjana and her mother, but she still has four more artifacts to find for the peri. Later, when Marjana is on the Marawati and asks if certain stories are true, Jamal offers to write them down.