1. How does Ansary feel about being from Afghanistan before September 11, 2001?
2. What feelings prompt him to write his e-mail?
3. He sends the e-mail to a few friends and reaches hundreds of thousands of people. What are the technological factors that make this possible? What are the human factors?
THE LOST WORLD: Villages and Compounds
1. Ansary says that the world in which he grew up “was not divided into a men’s world and a woman’s world, the division was between public and private.” Do you think a woman would agree with this description?
2. What does Ansary mean when he says “it wasn’t a thing-centered world”? Give examples from the text.
3. “We didn’t spend much time pondering Islam. We didn’t have to. Islam permeated the life of the compound like the custard that binds a casserole together, hardly separable from ordinary and daily life.” Explain.
4. Why did the Afghan government discourage Afghans studying abroad from marrying foreigners? Why did the Ansary family fight this?
5. What was the role of the kinar-nisheen in the family compound?
6. How was the Ansary family compound different from more traditional family compounds?
7. The author claims that “the many compounds of a clan like ours formed a sort of secret urban village . . . and each of these secret villages were connected to an actual village outside the city, in the nearby countryside, a village that felt like the soul of the extended family network.” How might this influence the life of the city?
8. Does Ansary ever situate himself in one of Afghanistan's many ethnic groups? Why do you think this is the case?
THE LOST WORLD: The Ansary network
1. What led Khan Kaka to stop practicing dentistry? What does this tell you about aristocrats in Kabul?
2. How did he make his living afterwards?
3. What does the story about the relationship between Ansary’s grandparents tell you about traditional Afghan society?
THE LOST WORLD:Germ of the west
1. What are the differences between Ansary’s English-speaking friends and his Afghan ones?
2. How would you characterize the education in the traditional Afghan
school Ansary attends as a small child?
3. How does Ansary explain the rise of Islam in the 7th century?
4. What does it mean when Ansary claims that “history is a river, except people can live only in lakes so they dam the current and build villages by still waters – but the dam always breaks”?
5. How would you characterize the view of evil expressed by Ansary’s religion teacher?
Link: for more information on the early history of Islam, see http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/islam/
1. How does the Afghan government plan to modernize by forming the Hilmand Valley Authority? (HVA) What role does the U.S. government play in the plan?
2. What was the importance of the Hilmand Valley in the Ghaznavid Empire?
3. How does the experience with their dog, Hungria, highlight the conflict between the Ansary children’s Afghan and American sides?
4. Why do you think this chapter is called “Mortality”?
THE LOST WORLD: American Lashkargah
1. What is the relationship between American Lashkargah and the traditional village?
2. How was the Ansary family’s life different from that of the Americans in Laskkargah? How was it different from the life they had lived in Kabul?
3. How did the Afghan school in Lashkargah reflect the HVA’s mission “to impose Western progress on the Afghan people”?
4. Why do you think the royal family opposed the custom of women wearing a chad’ri or veil? What effect do you think this had?
5. How do you think Rebecca, Rona, Mahjoobah and Amina felt about being the first girls in the traditional Afghan school?
6. Why did the other students resent the six students who passed the examinations?
THE LOST WORLD: Unintended Consequences
1. How is the tone of this chapter different from the others?
2. How does Ansary feel that the government added “to a class of underemployed, semi-educated misfits looking for answers their culture couldn’t give them”? What do you think of this analysis?
3. What factors does Ansary feel increased the gulf between Kabul and the rural villages?
THE LOST WORLD: Leaving Afghanistan
1. How did the king’s institution of a constitutional monarchy change the lives of the Ansary family?
2. Ansary claims that “when you’re in two worlds so different, your mind is forced to say that one is legitimate and the other is a crock.” Have you ever felt that way?
3. What is Ansary’s strategy for leaving Afghanistan? What does it mean for the rest of his family?
4. At the end of the chapter Ansary says: “soon I would be relieved of the discomforts of a divided self, free to roam the world as just one person: Tamim Ansary, American guy.” Have you ever had the experience of having a “divided self”? Could you leave it so easily?
PART TWO: LOOKING FOR ISLAM
1. Why does Ansary feel that “the tribal pretensions of the counterculture spoke to my Afghan soul”?
2. What does Ansary mean when he claims he wants to write “the real story of Islam”?
3. What is Franz Shurmann’s thesis about the resurgence of Islam?
4. What personal and political events lead up to Ansary’s decision to travel to Southwest Asia? What do you think of the way he tells the story?
LOOKING FOR ISLAM: The Convert
1. What does the story of Riaz and Mawmaw tell us about the Ansary family?
2. Why does Tamim Ansary decide to travel only as far as the Afghan border?
3. How would you describe the differences between Ansary and his brother Riaz? How does he describe them?
4. How does Ansary decide to travel as a “lapsed Muslim looking for his roots”?
1. Why does Ansary use the analogy that “European restaurants and hotels would drain the money out of me like yogurt out of a cheesecloth bag”?
2. What do you learn about Tangier from the fact that there are so many men who want to be guides?
3. What are Ansary’s impressions of the Muslims he meets in Morocco? How are they different from his memories of prayer in Afghanistan?
LOOKING FOR ISLAM: Crossing Morocco
1. In this chapter, Ansary begins to wonder “what if the revolutionaries really were fueled by spiritual and not material hunger?” What leads him to wonder this?
2. Why does Ansary consider the defeat of the Mu’tazilites significant?
1. How does Ansary feel when he realizes he has left his money in Morocco and he cannot cross the border from Algiers?
2. Why do you think the Algerian government wants to control currency exchange?
LOOKING FOR ISLAM: Crossing Algeria
1. Why do you think there were no women on the bus to Oran?
2. What does Jake, the American, add to the story?
3. Why are there no tourist facilities in Algiers?
4. What do we learn about Ansary from reading about his experience with the molluk?
1. How does Ansary’s growing commitment to Debbie influence the story?
LOOKING FOR ISLAM: The Bus to Turkey
2. Why is Ansary excited about the idea of going to Turkey?
3. Why does Ansary have a hard time imagining ethnic cleansing in places he has spent time? What do you think of this?
1. What are the signs of a growing political crisis in Istanbul?
2. What does Ansary mean when he says: “My family was part of the leading edge of rational secularism in Afghanistan. We were the Westernized ones . . . “?
3. What does the trip to Istanbul add to the plot of Ansary’s story?
LOOKING FOR ISLAM: The Embassy
1. What does Ansary learn at the Iranian embassy?
2. Why do you think Ansary says that “In America, as far as I can tell, human relationships pass out of one’s life all the time”?
3. Ansary explains his difficulty with writing by saying “Without English around me, my head felt empty . . . .” Why do you think he gives this explanation?
LOOKING FOR ISLAM: The True Believer
1. Why do the people in the bookstore admire the mujahideen? (You might have to follow the link to find out about them.)
2. What are the reasons given by Abdul Qayum (Alberto) for embracing Islam?
3. The author states that “the Islamic world was someone else’s not mine.” What are his reasons for feeling this way?
PART THREE: FORGETTING AFGHANISTAN
FORGETTING AFGHANISTAN: The Rebel Leader
1. What prompts Ansary to get involved in the politics of exiles from Afghanistan?
2. What problems doe he encounter?
3. What does he gain from his involvement?
4. Analyze the problems with exile politics seen in this chapter.
FORGETTING AFGHANISTAN: My Father’s Masterpiece
1. What difficulties arise when Ansary’s father visits him in the U.S.?
2. How does his relationship to his father change with his father’s death?
FORGETTING AFGHANISTAN: The Art of Losing
1. To what extent are Tamim Ansary’s conflicts with his brother Riaz political and religious? To what extent are they personal?
2. Why is this chapter called, “The Art of Losing”? Do you think the author masters this art?
FORGETTING AFGHANISTAN: Hanging On
1. This chapter talks about how Ansary maintained his Afghan identity in the United States. How does he describe the features of the Afghan way of doing things his family adopts in the U.S.?
2. When he first hears about the Taliban, what does the author see as their goal?
3. How do his views of the Taliban change over time? Why?
4. What changes in Afghanistan does this chapter detail?
1. How do you explain the differences in how the three Ansary children handle their bicultural heritage? You might want to consider the following factors: gender, birth order, individual characteristics, and life experience. Do you notice similar differences in your own family?
2. How do you characterize Ansary’s point of view in the final lines of the book?
