The Shadow of the Crescent Moon

The 2013 novel The Shadow of the Crescent Moon is the first work by Pakistani author Fatima Bhutto, a scion of a famous political dynasty. Her grandfather, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was overthrown by a coup. Her father, Mir Murtaza Bhutto, was working to unseat the coup’s leader and was subsequently murdered. Fatima Bhutto blamed the death of her father on her aunt, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who herself was famously assassinated. Drawing on this intimate knowledge of the ins and out of Pakistani politics, Bhutto’s novel tries to tease apart the different strands of political violence that plague the part of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan’s North Waziristan province. The novel takes place over the course of several hours as three brothers and two of the women romantically involved with them weave in and out of the complexities of war.

The novel is set in 2007 in the fictional town of Mir Ali, which is situated in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a region in northwestern Pakistan that is partially under government control and partially ruled by the Taliban. After the 9/11 attacks, FATA became a center for terrorist activity as well as a focal point in the multi-sided war and violence that followed: American drones that target the Taliban, sectarian violence between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and insurgents fighting the army in order to break away from government control.

The third person narrative shifts between the perspectives of three Pakistani brothers. One Friday morning during Eid, they meet for breakfast before going to pray in three different locations since there’s no telling whether one of the mosques will get bombed.



The oldest brother is Aman Erum, who has just come back from studying in America. He is ambitious and has no desire to stick around in Mir Ali. When Aman Erum was a young man, his father Inayat Mahsud wanted him to carry on Inayat’s mission of fighting for this northwestern region’s full independence from the central Pakistan government so that it could become part of Afghanistan. Aman Erum had a relationship Samarra, a woman deeply committed to the independence movement. As Aman Erum grew up, he realized that he and his dreams would never fit into the provincial life he saw around him. Meanwhile, Samarra, already a taboo-breaking teenaged girl whose father taught her to ride a motorbike and shoot a gun, felt an increasing sense of urgency to free Mir Ali.

The middle brother is Sikandar, a doctor who had the choice of going abroad but instead chooses to practice medicine in the town’s rundown and underfunded hospital, where the only available medicines are expired antibiotics and vaccines. He is married to the depressed Mina. She was a psychologist in the same hospital as her husband but now spends her days attending the funerals of children she doesn’t know. Sikandar and Mina had a young son, Zalan, who was killed by a terrorist attack on the hospital. Unable to come to terms with what happened, Mina uses the funerals as a way of “finding” her own son while she prays, recites poem, and bathes the dead.

The youngest brother is idealistic and headstrong Hayat, who has picked up his father’s cause of fighting for independence. Hayat has now become involved with Samarra, and together they are part of the Mir Ali insurgent movement. However, Hayat’s connection to the freedom fighters, or terrorists, is not as strong as Samarra’s. Samarra is an up and coming leader, and she is fueled not by simple idealism but by rage and the need for vengeance. When she was younger, she was raped by soldiers from the Pakistani army. Since none of her attackers were punished, she is determined to be the one who punishes them.



After breakfast, Aman Erum takes a taxi to a mosque, Sikandar decides to check on the situation at the hospital, and Hayat rides off toward town on his motorbike. However, none of them are really doing what they said they would.

Aman Erum is increasingly desperate to find a way to leave Mir Ali for good, and Sikandar goes off to find Mina. Meanwhile, Hayat isn’t traveling alone. Along the way, he picks up Samarra, and the two are on their way to assassinate the Chief Minister. Although they try to ride covertly, Aman Erum sees Samarra get on Hayat’s bike and puts together the fact that they are planning an attack.

The novel ends with a lot of ambiguity. The attack is carried out, but it is unclear if the minister is indeed killed or if it is Hayat and Samarra who killed him. There is some suggestion that Hayat betrays her at the last moment. Aman Erum willing discloses his knowledge of Samarra’s ideas and loyalties to an intelligence officer in exchange for a student visa. As a result, Samarra is apprehended and presumably disappears into infinite military detention and torture.



The only character whose arc ends with hope rather than with either violence or a complete moral disintegration is Mina. During the chaos of the day and at one of the funerals, Mina finds her voice and confronts members of the Taliban about the attack on the hospital and the death of her son. There is no resolution, but there is a visible personal catharsis that bodes somewhat well for her future.

The novel has been praised for Bhutto’s descriptions and attention to detail but has been widely criticized for the very biased nature of her lens as she paints the Pakistani army with as black a brush as possible. The novel gives the benefit of the doubt to the Taliban and portrays life under their rule as one where women have many choices rather than stark and inflexible rules. Other critics point out that the novel doesn’t consider that Samarra’s actions could possibly be flawed as she is always considered a heroic freedom fighter and never a potential terrorist.