Many more manifestations of the wondrous, weird, and inexplicable occur as a war of the worlds begins, stoked from beyond by none other than Ibn Rushd, still loved by Dunia, and his real - life archrival, the religious thinker Ghazali, who, in Rushdie's
fabulist scenario, is aligned with the most terrifying jinn of them all.
But Dali was also a spectacular
fabulist, and that was the only excuse Anderson needed to concoct a
scenario that involved the following survivors of a shipwreck: a «sailor babe» (his words), a thuggy pirate, an ethnic pilgrim, an individual «in search of Namaste,» and a schoolboy.