Asghar and Zahra by means of Sameer Rahim, assessment: the unmaking of an Islamic marriage

We first meet the hero of Sameer Rahim’s debut novel as he’s sitting on a garden swing, kicking his heels. The region smacks of baby’s play, however Asghar has business to take care of. It’s his marriage ceremony day, and as his family squeeze into saris and bathrooms, Asghar mugs up on the necessaries.

A “tatty crimson booklet” rests on his lap. passed down the more youthful generations as a nuptial talisman, The Making of an Islamic Marriage is rumoured to explain “in unblushing detail the actual course to enjoyable marital intercourse”. Flicking in the course of the pages, Asghar finds himself unenlightened: “Written by a Pakistani mullah and printed in Birmingham within the early Nineties, it become in general a rundown of the prayers to be...