“I felt as if I had swum to the middle of the ocean” – An Author Introduction to The Sky Worshipers
Through eloquent language and powerful storytelling, author F.M. Deemyad has recreated a brutal but beautiful world in her novel, The Sky Worshipers. This fact-based historical novel is filled with hidden perspectives of the captive, conquered, and voiceless, once lost to history. It brings to light the tremendous but forgotten influence of Genghis Khan and his progeny, while asking readers to reconsider the destruction and suffering of the past on which the future is built.
While Deemyad’s novel clearly demonstrates her skill and imagination as a creative writer, it required years of careful research to determine the facts behind her characters. The research did not come easy. At one point, Deemyad remarked to a professor that she felt as if she had swum to the middle of the ocean. But eventually she overcame those challenges and, like any good historical novel, the research is seamlessly woven into the story. For those readers wanting to know more—wanting to know the truth behind their historical novels—author F.M. Deemyad has included a detailed introduction. In her introduction, the author gives context to her historical novel about Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire while sharing with readers the multiple challenges she met along the way.
Before diving in to Deemyad’s novel, read her introduction. Learn more about how history views the Mongols and how the author turned years of careful research into a stunning saga.
The Sky Worshipers – Author Introduction
The 13th Century is an episode in history that, to this day, remains in the minds of many people whose countries were affected by the Mongol invasions as an unforgettable era. Documentaries based on this tumultuous period attract tens of thousands of viewers, and generations of people have read with great fascination the many books and articles written about Genghis Khan and his legacy.
The swift and mindboggling manner in which the Mongols were able to conquer much of the world, subduing magnificent civilizations of the time despite their relative naïveté and lack of a huge army is quite impressive. One can easily argue that Genghis Khan was among the most striking personalities of the 13th century, although most people in the United States know little about him. His dramatic rise to power from humble beginnings, the fact that not only he united the country that came to be known as Mongolia but conquered a large stretch of the world, has indeed fascinated historians and students of military strategy.
Genghis Khan promoted his officers for their talents and skills, regardless of their tribal affiliations. Such promotions were contrary to the prevalent Mongol culture; yet, at times, he even allowed his former enemies to reach high ranks in his army if they proved their loyalty to him. He displayed great tolerance for foreign religions, although he could hardly distinguish one from the other. Muslims, Jews, Christians, and Buddhists practiced their faith freely in Karakorum, the Mongol capital.
He offered a chance for peaceful submission to the Mongol rule, and nations that did not resist Mongol invasions were spared. However, he showed no mercy to those who defied him. Like lightening, the Mongols conquered lands from Transoxiana to Persia and China, from Russia to Hungary and Poland, from Vietnam to Japan and Korea. No power could stand in the face of Mongol onslaught as they raped and plundered the fruits of the earth with an insatiable hunger. It is hard to imagine how moats were filled with prisoners of war, as Mongol siege engines constructed on-site by captured Chinese prisoners allowed these warriors of the Steppes to reach deep into the heart of the most magnificent cities of their time.
James Chambers, a contemporary historian, describes Samarkand, the capital of Persia during the pre-Mongol era, with these words: “Huge suburbs shaded by poplar trees and decorated with fountains and canals surrounded a city so rich that even within its walls every house had a garden. In the factories the citizens wove silk, cotton and silver lamé, the Persian craftsmen worked saddles, harnesses and decorated copper, and the workshops of the Chinese quarter produced the rag paper that was used throughout the Middle East. From the fields beyond the suburbs, the farmers exported melons and aubergines wrapped in snow and packed in lead boxes.” Ata Malek Juvayni, one of the greatest Persian historians of the Mongol era, wrote the following account of the invasion: “They came, they reaped, they burnt, they killed, they plundered, they left.”
According to some accounts, during the Mongol conquests that lasted through generations and left a large portion of the earth empty of its inhabitants, nearly 40 million people lost their lives, and great civilizations of that time were brought to their knees. Hungarians, to this day, mourn the horrors of the Mongol offensive. Modern historians, scientists, and archeologists have disputed some of these records. Their experiments and excavations show that the numbers actually killed by the Mongols in conquered lands were intentionally exaggerated to strike fear in the hearts of those who dared to resist.
Studies on the types of tools used by the Mongols indicate their ingenuity in utilizing military equipment. Their agility on horseback, and the fact that they trained children at a very young age to ride horses, gave them superiority in combat. Not only did they hire or force into labor scientists and engineers, chemists, and craftsmen of conquered lands, but they also resorted to fantastic strategies and maneuvers that to this day are taught at military schools around the world.
As a child growing up in Iran, I wondered why people named their children after Genghis despite the destruction and pillaging of the county by his hordes. My father, son of a scholar who taught English literature in India’s universities, came to Iran when he was 29 years old and there he met and married my mother. I still recall my father’s nighttime stories about his adventures, hunting in the jungles of India. He became an animal lover later in life and let me keep pets as wild and varying as my imagination would allow. He also introduced me to the beauty and eloquence of classic English literature. I recall how I would memorize passages I hardly understood as a preschooler and relate them with great animation to an audience of relatives who had no knowledge of the language, although they admired the fact that I could speak in a foreign tongue.
I was sent by my Muslim parents to a Christian school for the first two years of my education, and then to a primarily Jewish one until ninth grade, for they offered English courses. The last two years of high school before obtaining my diploma and heading to the U.S. for graduate studies, I attended a public school in Iran. After decades of living away from the Middle East, however, when the politics of the region leave me confused, I find it rather refreshing to place my focus on life during the 13th century.
My research on the Mongol era began during my studies at Johns Hopkins University, and I recall that for a long time I felt overwhelmed not only by the magnitude and complexity of the information regarding the Mongols but also by the contradictions that existed between the different narratives.
I knew that the Mongols had hired Persian, Chinese, and Armenian historians to chronicle their victories and legacy in a manner that pleased them. Having knowledge of the Persian language had enabled me to study the impressive works of Persian historians. Reading the writings of Juvayni and translated works of other historians, I noticed how at times, truth emerged cloaked within words that the Mongols did not find offensive.
I remember complaining to my professors at school that I felt as if I had swum to the middle of the ocean where there was no turning back and no going forward. The era seemed just as dark and deep. Eyewitnesses to the events who were hired by the Mongols to chronicle their victories were probably too fearful of their vengeful masters to give true accounts. In some areas, I could not even find consensus among modern historians, such as Morris Rossabi, Jack Weatherford, James Chambers, Rene Grousset, and the works of Charles River Editors. Reading countless articles and online sources about the era failed to give me the clarity I sought.
I decided to try seeing the world through the eyes of both the Mongol rulers and the inhabitants of the areas they conquered as Genghis Khan and his sons trampled rich and poor under the hooves of their horses all the way to the gates of Vienna. Visualizing life in the 13th century was difficult. Roads and transportation, dwellings, palaces, lifestyles, and even the flowers that grew in different parts had to be meticulously researched. I felt hindered and frustrated, but I had invested so much time and energy that I could not set the work aside and begin another. Finally, one sleepless night, for the first time after months of confusion, I began to see the world of the 13th century as diverse and magnificent, from the colorful turbans of the Muslim caliphs to the metal attire of the knights and the leather garments of Mongol warriors.
My new outlook toward the era allowed me to put the pieces of this complicated puzzle together, although many a time rewriting some sections became necessary. For example, the reason why Genghis Khan decided to choose an heir while he was still living had puzzled some historians. After all, this went against the Mongol tradition. But then reading about Genghis’s childhood and how unexpectedly his father was killed, leaving him and his mother and siblings at the mercy of nature, made me realize he had every motive to select an heir while still powerful and of sound mind.
Also, the accounts of Genghis’s death varied as did his place of burial. Originally, based on one account, I wrote that he was buried in a region of China, where he was struck by an arrow and died. But I was not comfortable with that account. His followers revered him and would not leave his body at the disposal of his enemies. Whatever it took, they would most certainly carry his remains back to Mongolia for proper burial, very possibly to the area near the holy Burkhan Khaldun Mountain where he was born.
I found the innovating tactics of war used by the Mongols fascinating, but my intention was not to write a book of horror but one resembling “One Thousand and One Nights” that would be enjoyable to read. But how would I tell a tale filled with brutality in a way that places the focus on the humanity of the heroes and heroines that allowed life to continue under the most taxing conditions? Tolstoy came to my rescue, and after re-reading “War and Peace,” I learned how to fade the accounts of war, leaving the blood and gore of the era in the background, while bringing to the fore the interactions of the characters in the story. I avoided direct references to the carnage and placed true accounts beneath a veneer of storytelling focused on survival.
A major issue that has baffled historians of the Mongol era is the profound transformation the Mongol rulers underwent in a relatively short period of time with each generation becoming much more sophisticated. I have reached the conclusion that the children of Genghis and his sons were probably reared or were influenced by the well-educated women from other civilizations who were kidnapped or taken as prisoners of war and brought to the Mongol court.
The existence of a secret history of the Mongols is at times, mentioned in the works that I have studied. Research shows, however, that such a secret history exists but has been dismissed for being too pro-Mongol. I wondered if, among the many women taken as captives by the Mongols, there were those who actually wrote a secret history to be found by future generations.
The first personality I studied in this regard was Chaka, a Tangut Princess, about whom I found a few lines of information online. I also knew that women, probably high ranking ones, were taken from Persia. Thus the personality of Reyhan, granddaughter of the last Seljuk King, was shaped. I also learned, during the course of more than five years as I researched the Mongols, that two princesses of European origin were held captive within the Mongol court. The only information I had about them was that they were both called Mary and that the European courts disowned them once they were taken. The children of royal families of the time in Hungary and Poland were accounted for, but then I learned that the brother of Henry II had died. It was quite possible that the king had taken his brother’s children under his wings, and it was also possible that the two kidnapped from Poland were personalities like Krisztina and Zofia mentioned in my novel. Princess Sokhokhtani is a well known Mongol personality, and Lady Goharshad is a much revered historical figure, both of whom take on center stage in the novel.
One can only imagine how difficult it must have been for women, let alone princesses belonging to sophisticated courts, to be kidnapped and forced into conformity with the Mongol society and culture at the time. Most writings about this era depict the women taken by the Mongols as victims; however, my idea was to avoid such generalizations and show how women influenced the Mongols from within. I also wanted to portray the entire era of Mongol invasions in one book, and to this end, I am thankful to my professors at Johns Hopkins University who suggested that I place the focus on the main female characters and use the secret chronicle they shared as a medium that bond them.
Growing up, reading the original works of writers like Oscar Wilde and Sir Walter Scott, filled my pastime. A passion for reading has continued throughout my life. Books have been my mentors in hardship, my companions whenever I have felt lonely, and my advisors when I needed help. It is my hope that my novels would one day do for others as they have done for me, being the best friends one could ever have.
