Zahra bint Ibrahim al-Tarek
Quick Facts
- Role: Secret Muslim illuminator of the Sarajevo Haggadah; central historical figure whose identity is solved by Hanna Heath
- First appearance: The chapter “A White Hair”
- Time and place: Seville, 1480; later the emir’s harem and the household of a Jewish physician
- Aliases: al-Mora (“the Moorish woman”)
- Training: Taught to illustrate medical texts by her father; later trained by the master painter Hooman
- Key relationships: Ibrahim al-Tarek (father), Hooman (mentor and enslaver), Isabella/Nura (emira and lover), Netanel ha-Levi (physician and final master), Benjamin (Netanel’s deaf-mute son)
- Signature mark: A self-portrait in saffron robes within the seder scene and an Arabic signature hidden along the hem
Who She Is
Bold and indelible even when history tries to erase her, Zahra bint Ibrahim al-Tarek is the hidden hand behind a Jewish masterpiece. A Muslim enslaved in Christian-Muslim Spain, she survives through her artistry. “A White Hair” reconstructs her life from the fragmentary traces she smuggles into the haggadah itself—most daringly, a self-portrait and a secret signature—so that the book becomes both sacred object and the archive of her existence.
Zahra’s art is more than technique: it’s empathy rendered in gold leaf and pigment, an act of moral defiance against a world that treats her as a commodity. By embedding her likeness and name, she insists that the artifact preserving others’ exodus will also preserve her own story.
Appearance
We see Zahra only because she chooses to show herself. In the seder illumination, Hanna notices an “ebony-skinned and saffron-robed” woman seated among a Spanish Jewish family—an anachronism that has baffled scholars for a century. Zahra’s narration adds details: green eyes “like the sea,” and skin her master likens to “a ripening plum.” The portrait functions as both likeness and claim: the artist steps into the text to certify authorship.
Personality & Traits
Zahra’s defining tension is between vulnerability and agency. Enslavement and sexual violence strip her of name and safety, yet her mind and brush remain her own. She reads people precisely, transforms danger into opportunity, and protects others through the careful distribution of beauty.
- Resilient and courageous: After the Hajj caravan attack and her father’s murder, she endures capture and rape yet learns to navigate the harem’s politics, safeguarding herself and those she loves.
- Exceptionally talented: A mussawir (painter of likenesses) trained by a physician father and refined by Hooman, she renders not just faces but interior life—what patrons feel and fear—culminating in an illuminated haggadah that translates sound into sight.
- Empathetic: Her intimacy with Isabella (Nura) grows from shared captivity into solace and love; her images for Benjamin reimagine ritual as a visual language a deaf child can “hear.”
- Intelligent and perceptive: She deciphers power dynamics—what flattery buys, what silence protects—and calibrates each commission to appease, persuade, or shield.
- Defiant: By painting herself at a Jewish table and hiding her Arabic name within the robe’s hem, she refuses erasure; the act converts private craft into public testimony.
Character Journey
Zahra begins as a cherished daughter and apprentice illustrator, secure in her father’s learning and love. The Hajj caravan attack shatters that safety: Berber raiders murder Ibrahim and sell Zahra, misgendered as a boy, to Hooman. Under Hooman she learns studio discipline and painterly finesse; when he discovers she is a woman, he rapes her and transfers her to the emir’s harem as a court artist. There she finds reciprocity with Isabella/Nura—first confidante, then lover—recovering a measure of selfhood. Isabella’s desperate “gift” of Zahra to the Jewish physician Netanel ha-Levi delivers Zahra to the first household that treats her with dignity. With her name restored and a clear purpose—creating a haggadah for Benjamin—Zahra turns trauma into art. She inscribes herself into the book so that her voice endures with it, embodying the novel’s meditation on The Power and Endurance of Stories and Artifacts.
Key Relationships
-
Ibrahim al-Tarek: As father and first teacher, he aligns medicine with image-making, teaching her to see structure and function. His murder is the primal wound that drives her toward the only inheritance she can keep: her craft.
-
Hooman: A master painter who recognizes Zahra’s genius yet exploits her body and labor. He refines her technique and exposes the ugliness of patronage, forcing her to separate the pursuit of art from the people who control it.
-
Isabella (Nura): The emira’s shared captivity blossoms into intimacy and mutual rescue. Their bond restores Zahra’s capacity for trust; Isabella’s painful decision to pass Zahra to Netanel is both betrayal and salvation, a testament to love constrained by peril.
-
Netanel ha-Levi: A physician whose respect restores Zahra’s name and autonomy. In his house, talent is not a threat but a calling; he frames the haggadah as a gift for Benjamin, turning Zahra’s art into a bridge across faith, disability, and status.
Defining Moments
Zahra’s life turns on moments where survival, love, and artistry intersect—each decision rippling outward through the book that bears her mark.
-
The Hajj Caravan Attack
- What happens: Berber raiders ambush the caravan; Ibrahim is murdered, Zahra is captured.
- Why it matters: The rupture that converts a daughter-apprentice into an enslaved artist; it sets the premise that art will be her only secure identity.
-
The Rape by Hooman
- What happens: Hooman discovers Zahra’s sex and assaults her, then moves her to the harem as a painter.
- Why it matters: Reveals the cost of male patronage and refocuses Zahra’s agency from bodily autonomy, which is denied, to artistic authorship, which she can still claim.
-
Bond with Isabella (Nura)
- What happens: Confidantes become lovers; Isabella later “gifts” Zahra to Netanel to protect her.
- Why it matters: Love returns Zahra’s sense of self; the transfer, both wound and rescue, propels her to the household where she can create her masterwork.
-
The Creation of the Haggadah
- What happens: Commissioned for Benjamin, Zahra translates ritual narratives into images a deaf child can comprehend.
- Why it matters: Demonstrates art as ethical act—beauty engineered for accessibility—and fuses Islamic craft, Christian techniques, and Jewish story.
-
The Hidden Signature
- What happens: Zahra paints her self-portrait at a seder and hides her Arabic name along the hem.
- Why it matters: A quiet manifesto against erasure; centuries later, Hanna’s recognition completes the message’s journey, proving that artifacts can deliver their makers to future witnesses.
Symbolism & Themes
Zahra stands at the crossroads of Religious and Cultural Coexistence and Conflict. A Muslim woman illuminating a Jewish text with techniques shaped by Christian art, she embodies convivencia’s fragile synthesis. Her concealed signature dramatizes the lost histories of women and the enslaved; by embedding her identity in a durable object, she ensures that when the artifact survives, so does she—the ultimate “person of the book.”
Essential Quotes
I have set my head at an attentive angle, and imagine myself listening as the doctor tells of Musa, who defied the king of Mizraim, and used his enchanted staff to win his people's freedom from their bondage.
If only there could be another such staff, to free me from my bondage.
This juxtaposes the Exodus with Zahra’s present captivity, aligning sacred narrative with personal yearning. By painting herself “listening,” she converts spectatorship into participation, suggesting that art might become her staff—her means of liberation, if not from status, then from oblivion.
I am pleased with this picture, above all those that I have done. It seemed good to me to sign it with my name, which the doctor has returned to me. I used the last of my fine brushes to do it, the last of those with but a single hair.
The reclaimed name signals a restored identity, while the “single-hair” brush underscores the delicacy and risk of asserting authorship. The line marries technical mastery to ethical claim: precision is the vehicle for selfhood.
“I fashioned’—or the word could be translated as ‘made’ or ‘painted’—‘I fashioned these pictures for Binyamin ben Netanel ha-Levi.’ And then there’s a name. Ozren, there’s a name! Zana—no, not Zana, it’s Zahra—‘Zahra bint Ibrahim al-Tarek, known in Seville as al-Mora.’ Al-Mora—it means ‘the Moorish woman.’ Ozren, it must be her—the woman in saffron. She’s the artist.”
This moment of discovery completes Zahra’s communication across centuries. The layered translations (“fashioned/made/painted”) echo her cultural synthesis, while the thrill in naming confirms that the artifact has delivered its maker into history’s sightline—precisely as Zahra intended.