Three Begums

Three Begums revolves around the lives of three ordinary women—Hamida, Merryl and Saliha— who lived extraordinary, interwoven lives of fabulous joy, fierce pain, and untold trauma. Like many who came before them, they loved and dreamed. Although born in different times and places, they were united through their dedication to bettering the lives of all around them. Each fell victim to disease and premature death, without fulfilling their desires; but, like all desires, these continue beyond their lifetimes.

Flowing seamlessly between the biographical and autobiographical, Ziauddin Sardar captures the complexities of everyday living, human relationships and raw emotion, weaving lives and ambitions together. The great story of human societies unfolds through the eyes of an individual, with each chapter struggling to fulfil the aspirations of the last. Sardar shows how his own life was shaped by these women, and how their collective life undulated, sea-like, to the rhythms of Urdu poetry. This genre-defying book takes readers on a journey that is inimitably personal, yet reverberates universally.

Powerful and unforgettable, Three Begums is a profound reminder that, in a good life, the only thing that matters is virtue— particularly the virtue of compassion, and working for something greater than oneself.

Ziauddin Sardar is an award-winning, internationally renowned writer, futurist and cultural critic. His books include Desperately Seeking Paradise: Journeys of a Sceptical Muslim; Reading the Qur’an; and Mecca: The Sacred City. A former New Statesman columnist and equality and human rights commissioner, he is Editor of influential quarterly Critical Muslim.