The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca

This is the simple story of a man who buys a house in Casablanca. Just kidding, the mere act of buying sets off a chain of events that sends the reader headlong into the intricacies of Moroccan history, society, and culture. Tahir Shah has no idea what he's in for, but luckily, he lives to tell the tale. From bothersome guardians to a shady assistant to an actual exorcism involving a live goat, this book is weird and wonderful and makes for a pleasant afternoon read.

Tahir Shah wearies of London and its safe banality. He finally convinces his pregnant wife to buy a disaster of a mansion in Morocco and relocate there with their young daughter. From the beginning, their adventure feels doomed. Cats are found hanging by ropes from trees, strangled. The next door neighbor is the mysterious head of the Casablanca Mafia. Renovation efforts are led by a team of workers who can’t seem to complete anything. Everyone seems to believe in diabolical jinns, spirits who live in the mansion and who appear to want the family to abandon the house. Banality starts looking better and better to Tahir.

A fascinating and often hysterically funny look at life in Morocco, through the eyes of an Afghan who was primarily raised in England, but has traveled widely. I loved the sayings which headed every chapter, such as: "Never give advice in a crowd" and "Every beetle is a gazelle in the eye of its mother." Shah was very lucky to be able to connect with his grandfather's life as well, because his grandfather had spent his last years in Morocco. Meeting those people who had known him and been touched by him is irreplaceable.

I'll admit that sometimes the things that happened in the book were so fantastic that I wondered if they could possibly be true, but I've found nothing to suggest that they weren't. It's worth the price of the book to show more find out how Shah and his 'think outside the box' assistant gets his money back from the architect he fired. An absolutely inspired solution. Recommended. show less

Read this book for a virtual travel book club. I knew little about Morocco before reading this book, so it was a fun read. The story revolves around the difficulties of renovating a large broken down house. There was also some interesting family history. I particularly liked how the author recounted his experience of attempting to reconcile the rationalism of the West and the superstition world view of the people he encountered.

Anyone who has ever taken on the challenge of remodeling an older home will shake their head in wonder at the fortitude of Tahir Shah in facing the monumental task of modernizing a rambling, but beautiful old wreck on the edge of a slum in Casablanca. Even more astonishing was his wife's patience with this never-ending, jinn plagued task. He left his London flat with his wife and two small children to live in his future dream home (read money pit). No matter the culture, carpenters, masons, plumbers and the rest of that lot share a universal brotherhood that could drive the sanest home owner mad. Shah eventually surrenders his western attitudes and relaxes into the wheeling-dealing world that is Morocco.

Shah tires of London's dreary climate. He decides to pack up his family and move to Morocco. His grandfather had lived in Tangiers and he remembered exotic vacations as a boy driving through the Atlas Mountains. After looking in Fes and Marrakesh, he locates a fixer-upper in Casablanca, known locally as the Caliph's house, or Dar Khalifa.

The ensuing tribulations of trying to restore the home, using local architects and craftsmen is reminiscent Mayle's A Year In Provence. It is a deeper book than that, however, if only because Moroccan tribal culture is much more complex and exotic than rural southern French culture. For example, Shah has to hire 25 tribal exorcists to stay at the house, and practice rituals, including the killing of a show more wild goat, to exorcise the evil Jinns that infest the house.

Shah writes well and the book is a humorous, fun read. Moreover, Shah has posted numerous informative videos on youtube that enrich the reading experience. Excellent travel literature. show less

Everyone has a story of an event in their lives; how they met their sparkling spouse, how they came into their fascinating occupation, how they started an odd hobby for which they are extremely passionate. The most interesting stories are the ones that are life changing; an abrupt 180 degree turn from where they used to be. A hobby turning into a business so they can quit their dead end job, for example. Tahir Shah has such a story in The Caliph's House. The London based travel writer was looking to move to Morocco. Tired of grey weather and bland food, he wanted to get back to the culture of his ancestry. After many false starts a classmate of his mother's contacted him out of the blue in 2004 with an offer he couldn't refuse: the sale show more of Dar Khalifa, the once home of a Caliph, a spiritual leader of Casablanca. Even though this is a story about living through a house renovation it goes beyond tiles and plumbing. Shah explores what it means to buy and restore a house in a post 911 society. Morocco struggles to be a paradise of tolerance. At the same time, Shah becomes intimately and intensely aware of "how things get done" when he hires a man of ill repute to be his right hand man. Encounters with thieves, possible murderers, even the mob are the norm. But, it is the exorcism that readers all wait for with breath held. Who in their right mind would slaughter a goat in every room of a mansion-sized abode? show less