Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
Enishte Effendi, the maternal uncle of Kara (Black), is reading the "Book of the Soul" by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, and continuous references to it are made throughout the book. Part of the novel is narrated by Elegant Effendi, the murdered miniaturist. Al-Jawziyya argues, in the same fashion as Islamic doctrine, that the souls of the dead remain on earth and can hear the living.