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Publication Omens

Posted January 23rd, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

I don’t believe in omens, though I confess I’m sometimes tempted to.

Like when I realized just three weeks ago that The First Muslim was being published on the day on which Muhammad’s birthday falls this year.*  I wish I could say that this was the result of careful planning on my part, or on that of my publishers.  In fact it’s either a wonderful coincidence, or…

You see what I mean about omens?

That was just about the time the first finished copy of the book arrived in the mail.   Since it came straight from the printers, I didn’t recognize the return address, so wasn’t sure what was in the padded envelope until I opened it.

And went “Oh my God!”

I think I might have mentioned somewhere that the cover was elegantly understated.  Perhaps even a tad overly under-stated.  I do remember suggesting to the publishers that they increase the color values just a little – a slightly more saturated yellow as in the photo in the right-hand column, for instance.  “We’ll see what we can do,” my editor said.

She didn’t get back to me on that, and I hadn’t expected her to.  So I had no idea that the yellow had been transformed into gold!  Thus the “oh my God,” repeated several more times as I traced the raised pattern of it with my fingers.

This had to be a special author’s copy, I thought.  It’s been many years since publishers commemorated a book’s publication by ordering up such a one-off copy for the author (usually leather-bound, with gold leaf on the edges).  It was a token of appreciation, and a lovely one, but they’d stopped doing it because of the expense.  Now Penguin’s Riverhead Books imprint had clearly resuscitated the practice.

I called my editor immediately to thank her for ordering such a beautiful author’s copy, and then came the best surprise of all:

“Oh no,” she said, “this isn’t just for you.  All the books are like that.”

gold coverSo I’m still kind of amazed at the physical existence of my own book.  Is this stunning production really the same creature as the innumerable drafts of much-scrawled-on typescript pages strewn around my study for years?  It’s as though with publication it’s achieved a separate existence.  Like a teenager leaving home, it will now make its way in the world on its own terms, an independent agent only tangentially related to me.   All I can do is wish it well, cheer it on, defend it when it needs defense — and trust that others will agree that it lives up to the sheer elegance of its cover.

—————————————————–

[*Re Muhammad’s birthday:  the  traditional Islamic date is the 12th of the month of Rabi al-Awwal, which falls this year on January 24.  The Christian date changes each year since the Islamic calendar is lunar, which means that the Islamic year is eleven days shorter than the Christian one.  To further complicate matters, the 12th of Rabi al-Awwal is the Sunni date;  Shia celebrate the birthday, known as mawlid, five days later.  And one more complication: not all Sunnis approve of the idea of celebrating the birthday.  Observance of it is banned in ultra-conservative Saudi Arabia, for instance, whose dour Wahhabi version of Islam seems ever suspicious of joy and festivity.]

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File under: art, Islam | Tagged: Tags: biography, birthday, cover, mawlid, Muhammad, The First Muslim | 20 Comments
  1. SusieOfArabia says:
    January 23, 2013 at 2:09 pm

    The book looks beautiful, Lesley – and I think these are GOOD omens!

  2. Junnaid Javed says:
    January 23, 2013 at 2:10 pm

    Lesley- I couldnt wait to read this so I cheated and ordered in on Kindle…the gold looks unbelievably good! I cant wait to get my hands on the book itself!!!! Thank you!

  3. Saimã Abbasi says:
    January 23, 2013 at 2:31 pm

    Many congratulations, and i want to say about omens that you are a very lucky person that you write the biography of my beloved Prophet and it gets published on the date of Prophet’s birthday i want to congratulate you for this again and from deep of my hearts, I’m no authority yet as a believer I think your books got praise from heavens. I want to buy the first copy.

  4. Linda Williams says:
    January 23, 2013 at 2:43 pm

    I love this story, and revel in your awe of your publication! Congratulations. Can’t wait to get my copy.

  5. Sandra Peters says:
    January 23, 2013 at 2:46 pm

    Leslie,

    Thank you for sharing the exquisite beauty of your new book.

    I saw the photo and read your comments including the significance of the Publication Date. To me, this was a good omen to purchase “The First Muslim” immediately, which I just did along with “After The Prophet”.

    How exciting to be alive in these times that such writing is available to enlighten the general public!

    Advance Kudos for all your effort to birth this book!

    Sandra

  6. Fatima Haider says:
    January 23, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    Hi Lesley,

    I had realised this coincidence a few weeks ago when I first saw your blog and saw the date of release as 24th. I thought you had timed it that way on purpose, but even if you haven’t I think this’accident’ is just one of the many signs of Allah endorsing your work and the amazing effort you put into all your books. I have just finished reading ‘After the Prophet’ for the second time and enjoyed it even more than the first. Can’t wait to get my hands on this one.

  7. zummard. says:
    January 23, 2013 at 5:20 pm

    CONGRATULATIONS! Lesley, on the birth of this ‘baby’. The radiant ‘gold’ has the magical quality to it, peering from behind the green with such blazing energy and power. The first look sent shivers down my spine out of sheer excitement. It definitely looks much better than the yellow colour previously chosen. You must be so proud of your creation. May you enjoy the many-fold rewards each day as long as you live. May the success of this project give you the thrust to create more masterpieces.
    Waiting impatiently to get this book in my hands!

  8. Nuzhat says:
    January 23, 2013 at 8:29 pm

    Leslie,
    This post brought tears to my eyes. I could ‘feel’ with you, on this issue. My people already know of me as a ‘Leslie addict’. I know I will I have to wait longer than the others to hold my own copy, until it reaches my destination in India. But having read the excerpts online, my enthusiasm is already whetted.
    About omens…..it’s a feel good factor actually, but for such a momentous event everything is acceptable.
    More luck to you,
    Nuzhat.

  9. Nancy McClelland says:
    January 23, 2013 at 11:06 pm

    I loved this post. It’s so encouraging to me that authors — some of them, anyway — are still touched and amazed that something they created becomes its own thing, takes on its own life. That even after publishing so many books, the joy and amazement are there, and at least this author is not trying to play it cool by submerging the expression of it all.

    “It’s as though with publication it’s achieved a separate existence.” Because it HAS, don’t you see?

  10. Publication Omens | Upload says:
    January 24, 2013 at 5:33 am

    […] anyone who loves books, I strongly recommend reading the original blog post in its entirety, on her blog, The Accidental […]

  11. Sani says:
    January 24, 2013 at 9:22 am

    My dear Lesley.

    I pray and hope that you will never be tired with my comments. In the first instance, Muhammad the last messenger never envisaged you to say something about him that is not correct. You are on your own to know and discern the truth and say it on his behalf. The other who believe in him will support you and give you any honor you want. No one knows the exact date of Muhammad except that his birth was related to the event in which the elephants of the Ethiopian king was destroyed. Muhammad never celebrated his birthday and no one among his family or his companions ever did that. I doubt if it was a custom of the Quraysh to celebrate birth days. This is one of the confusions in his followers[…]

  12. Mary Johnson (@_MaryJohnson) says:
    January 24, 2013 at 6:14 pm

    Lesley, I’ve just started reading on my Kindle. Wonderful! Congratulations. I love my Kindle, but your blog makes me covetous of a hardcover…. I’m so glad they gave you a delicious cover.

  13. Brian McInerney says:
    January 25, 2013 at 2:26 pm

    Dear Lesley

    Just got yr new book after reading AFTER THE PROPHET which I really loved and thought so well written! Yes, great cov for the new book for which I immediately placed the dj in a Bro-dart Mylar cov as I did with AFTER… dj which book I obtained in the STRAND bookstore here in NYC, second-hand but new. I got the NEW book at Union Square B&N ’cause I wished a new fresh copy and not a reviewer’s copy at the STRAND. Hope you’ll be presenting/reading in NYC some time soon. Great scholarship and great read! Thanks for all your effort!

    sincerely,

    Brian McI

  14. Salma says:
    January 30, 2013 at 9:36 am

    I just reading my copy of your book now and here’s another omen. I started reading “The First Muslim” while I was in the middle of reading Thomas Moore’s “Dark Nights of the Soul. When I came across the term “dark night of the soul” in your book to describe Muhammad’s experience, I almost had goosebumps. It was as though your book was conversing with the other book to explain to me what a “dark night” is – a very rich learning experience with both books that is for sure!

    Do you have a speaking schedule/tour for 2013? I would love to see you speak if you’re ever in the area!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 30, 2013 at 10:15 am

      Lovely synchronicity, Salama! Thanks for sharing.
      Speaking schedule is still in formation, but I’ll post dates and locations as they firm up, if not here than at http://www.TheFirstMuslim.com, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Where are you located?

      • Salma says:
        January 31, 2013 at 8:45 am

        Excellent, I’ll keep checking the website. I’m in Cleveland, Ohio!

  15. Nur says:
    February 17, 2013 at 10:34 pm

    Hi Lesley,
    I became a great fan of yours since I heard you in TED lecture on ‘quran’ few years ago. Then I loved you so much I watched all of your youtube videos I could find and finally this week I saw your TED lecture on Muhammad, and I was convinced to buy your latest book the “First Muslim”.

    But I am now reading your “After the Prophet book”. I lost my respect for you, because you wrote about Umm Al-Mu’menin Hazrat Ayesha RA :

    “Al-Mubra’a, the Exonerated, Sunnis still call her, but
    some Shia would use a different title for her, one that by no
    coincidence rhymes with her name: Al-Fahisha, the Whore.”

    I am very disappointed. Unless you disclose the source of this passage and prove that it’s not your attribution, you simply quoted a Shia materials, I’ll start blogging against you.

    Regards

    Nur

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 18, 2013 at 8:29 am

      Check the end notes. The note for this says “This usage is discussed in Spelling, Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past, and noted in Fischer, Iran: from religious dispute to revolution.” Both books are, of course, included in the Bibliography.

  16. Sobia says:
    April 28, 2013 at 5:15 pm

    I waited for the book to arrive because I was sure of it being a good read from the Ted talk I had heard which was the reason I bought it in the first place.
    I am still reading it for the last 3 weeks, slowly imbibing it’s message and marveling the language.
    I can feel the considered sensitivity, the carefully chosen language and the experience of a psychological training in almost every phrase.
    Objective analysis of decisions as taken by Mohammad SAWW is almost pure. Yet it is only human to diverge from it at times and sometimes I feel the bias has been allowed. For example in the detailed explanation of what is a munafiq and then to explicitly mention the paralytic situation at Hudabiya leaves room for the author to maybe take a deeper longer look at the concept in revision of it.
    It has opened many avenues for those who read to think about some of the situations, Muslim or otherwise alike.
    On the whole I have enjoyed the text,material,explanations, and the sensitive effort by the author.
    Thank you for writing this.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 28, 2013 at 6:10 pm

      Thanks for the kind words, Sobia — and for the generous acknowledgment that even where we differ in how we see things, we do so in good faith. — L.

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