The Haj

About this book

The Haj is a novel published in 1984 by American author Leon Uris about a Palestinian Arab family caught up in the area's historic events of the 1920s–1950s as witnessed by Ishmael, the youngest son. The story begins in 1922 when Ibrahim, Ishmael's father, takes over the position of muktar from his dying father in the relatively isolated village of Tabah in the Ajalon Valley, just off the main road leading to Jerusalem from Jaffa. The book then goes on to show how the family is affected by the proximity of nearby kibbutz Shemesh, by the political struggles exhibited and the pressures exerted by the region's Arab leaders during the course of 35 years, and by the disruptive effect being a refugee had on them. Haj in the novel's title refers to the pilgrimage to Mecca, which every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so is obliged to make at least once in his lifetime. Literally, it refers to the pilgrimage that the head of the family, Ibrahim al Soukori al Wahhabi, made to Mecca in his young adulthood, and which gave him the honorific Hajji used throughout the book. Figuratively it refers to both the transforming physical journey that the family makes from its home in Tabah to the refugee camps near Jericho, and to the psychic transformations that the family endures as it is ripped away from its traditional life and sees, one by one its values being eroded.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Leon Uris

3 August 1924 – 21 June 2003

Leon Marcus Uris, novelist, was born in Baltimore, Maryland to William and Anna Uris. His father was a paperhanger who had immigrated from Poland. He was educated in schools in Maryland and Virginia, but he never graduated from high school. He joined the U.S. Marine Corps when he was seventeen and served in the South Pacific and New Zealand during World War II. He worked briefly as a driver for a newspaper, but after 1950 he was a full-time writer. Uris published his first novel, *Battle Cry*, when he was 29. He sold the novel to a film producer and wrote the screenplay. He is well-known for his screenplay, *Gunfight at the OK Corral*. His novel, *Exodus*, was an overwhelming success, and…