Richard Francis Burton (1821-90) was a British orientalist, soldier, spy, diplomat, and explorer best known for his travels in Arabia, Africa, and India. He was born in Torquay, on the southern coast of England, and was raised in France and Italy. It was there that he began to show his exceptional talent with languages by learning Latin, Greek, Italian, and French before he was 20. After two years at Oxford, he was dismissed on disciplinary grounds. He went on to join the British Army in India, where he served as an intelligence officer. Disguised as a Pashtun Muslim and supported by the Royal Geographical Society, in 1853 Burton undertook a hajj journey to the two Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina. His two-volume Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to el Medinah and Meccah recounts that journey. Burton spent years in preparation, mostly during his time in India. The journey first took him from England to Alexandria in Egypt, and further to Cairo, Suez, and Yanbu. From there he travelled to Medina and Mecca. Although Burton was not the first non-Muslim to perform the hajj, the accuracy of his well-documented account, including his measurements of the Kaaba in Mecca and his Victorian-era observations on Muslims (especially his copious notes on manners), brought him immediate fame. Burton begins the first volume of his work with a famed line of verse on cavalierism by the Arab poet al-Mutanabbi (915-65 AD): "I am well known to the night, the steeds, and the desert / the sword and [the guest], the paper and the pen." A controversial figure during his lifetime and a prolific writer and translator, Burton left behind 43 volumes of writing on his journeys and 30 volumes of translations, including of sensual books such the Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana, The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui, and the Arabian Nights. He died in Trieste, in what was then Austria-Hungary.

Posing as a wandering dervish, Burton gained admittance to the holy Kaabah and to the tomb of the prophet at Medina and participated in all the rituals of the Hadj (pilgrimage).

On the trip of a lifetime, Adam and Zayneb must find their way back to each other in this surprising and romantic sequel to the “bighearted, wildly charming” (Becky Albertalli, New York Times bestselling author) Love from A to Z that’s a “contemplative exploration of faith, love, and the human condition” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). Adam and Zayneb. Perfectly matched. Painfully apart. Adam is in Doha, Qatar, making a map of the Hijra, a historic migration from Mecca to Medina, and worried about where his next paycheck will come from. Zayneb is in Chicago, where school and extracurricular stresses are piling on top of a terrible frenemy situation, making her miserable. Then a marvel occurs: Adam and Zayneb get the chance to spend Thanksgiving week on the Umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia. Adam is thrilled; it’s the reboot he needs and an opportunity to pray for a hijra in real life: to migrate to Zayneb in Chicago. Zayneb balks at the trip at first, having envisioned another kind of vacation, but then decides a spiritual reset is calling her name too. And they can’t wait to see each other—surely, this is just what they both need. But the trip is nothing like what they expect, from the appearance of Adam’s former love interest in their traveling group to the anxiety gripping Zayneb when she’s supposed to be “spiritual.” As one wedge after another drives them apart while they make their way through rites in the holy city, Adam and Zayneb start to wonder: was their meeting just an oddity after all? Or can their love transcend everything else like the greatest marvels of the world?