Arak, Iran
Most of the plot takes place in a large (36-room) house attached to the Friday Mosque in Senejan, three hours by train from Qom, a fictionalized version of Senjan, now a district of Arak, Iran. Kader Abdolah was born and grew up in a similar house in that city. In the presentation of real historical events, many names and locations are altered, so that the novel does not pretend to be an accurate description of the historical situation. The main character is Aqa Jaan ("Dear Master", a title often given to the male head of a household in Iran). Shahbal, the son of his blind cousin who is the muezzin of the mosque, personifies the author (Shahbal is called the "narrator" of the story in the cast of characters). Like Shahbal, Kader Abdolah was active in leftish underground political movements in the time of the Shah and of Khomeini, and fled Iran in 1985 to settle in the Netherlands. Unlike Shahbal, the author did not kill anyone, but instead avenged the murders of his brother and sister with his pen. For example, before fleeing Iran, Shahbal killed Khalkhal, a fictionalized version of Khomeini's "hanging judge" Sadeq Khalkhali, but the real Khakhali died of old age in 2003.