The Benjamin Manuscript is a historical novel in which the coordinates of time and space converge—from the era of our master Jacob and his son Benjamin, whose tale is recounted from the great-grandfather Abraham, the father of the prophets, to the present day, where Benjamin’s shrine lies in the Haidan district of Mosul along the Red Route. It spans from the city of Ur, resting on the western bank of the Euphrates River at the moment when the divine decree reached its culmination in the cosmos and the call of prophethood resounded, passing through the ruins of Qamran in Jordan in 1947, where the shepherd Mujtaba stumbles upon a manuscript while searching for one of his lost goats, and finally arriving at the Red Route, where Khaled al-Ikiyabi endeavors to unravel the cipher of the Benjamin Manuscript.

_ Huda Anwar