DISCLAIMER: This is NOT a commercial project. I do NOT intend to publish this in any way commercially. The images used in this project were all downloaded from Google, but I made sure I mentioned every single creator on the last page. Needless to say, without these images, I would not have been able to create such a lovely book, hence I thank all the artists for working so hard. Please be assured, I will NOT make this a commercial project, I will NOT use your artwork in ANY WAY commercially for my benefit.
IF I DO, I SHALL CONTACT YOU FIRST TO TAKE YOUR PERMISSION AND MAYBE TALK ABOUT WORKING TOGETHER.
BUT I'M SURE I WON'T.
HOWEVER, BESIDES THE ARTWORK USED, EVERY SINGLE THING ABOUT THE BOOK IS MY ORIGINAL WORK, INCLUDING THE TEXTUAL CONTENT, AS WELL THE IDEA ITSELF. COPYRIGHTED © 2019 WAJEEHA IFTIKHAR
ABOUT THE PROJECT
The year 2019 brought me many sweet memories and some very ambitious and interesting projects (for my courses). In the InDesign course, our professor gave us the task to create a book - any book at all, be it a storybook, a diary, a magazine, absolutely anything - his only condition was that it should be as creative and as new as possible.
The project gave me extreme excitement and I was motivated to follow my dream of turning the fantasy epic tale of my region, South Asia, called "Tilism-e-Hoshruba". Tilism is Persian word that means magical land. Hoshruba is also Persian, a combination of two words, which means "stealing senses".
When this project came up, I wanted to create a book that would cover Hoshruba as a game, detailing the characters, their attributes, capabilities, etc. However, the idea of the game was only an idea at the time, and I had no clue how to go about making a "game biographical book" (I do not know what else to call it). So I created an Illustrated Storybook instead. Much like Akbar did. (For more info on this, see the last section of this page, where I've given more details about the origin of Hoshruba).
Creating the layout of this book did not take as long as it did to find the absolutely perfect illustrations for it. Originally I had intended to create my own illustrations. But after trying a few paintings, I realized digital art took a lot of practice, patience, and time, and I did not have any of those at that time. So I had to use illustrations made by other people. I did not forget to credit them however, and the last page of my book includes all their names.
All the text is my own, I was very passionate about the project to copy and paste articles. Feel free to read all of it, you'll find it very interesting. Every page was well thought out, it was really difficult to decide what to include and what to exclude in the book. The fonts are all also very exclusively selected, matching the whole cultural idea and the fantasy theme. As well as the background pages, the watermark, the logo, everything is original and my own creation.
Besides the online pdf and the printed copy, there was also the task of creating an "interactive" file. So sound effects, music and other effects were also included, and the project was a lot of fun, though it gave me a lot of sleepless nights, it was well worth it.
I also created a "jacket" for the book. Of course, there is one printed copy of the book with me, but this is only because it was a requirement of the course to print our projects. I would add, boy does it look absolutely ravishing in print. :)
Oh, and these are all full size "spreads", meaning they are complete double pages, not single ones.
This is the full jacket of the book, with the inserts on the front and the back sides. As you can also see, the artist of the art has been credited.
This is the first page of the book, which is usually "glued" to the hardcover
About the origins of the epic tale.
Some details about the different narrators of the epic.
In the interactive publication, these clouds move aside, each to the right and to the left, like a theatre curtain, to reveal the following image.
Some information about the types of magic and alchemy.
About the King Afrasiyab, his wife, the Queen Malika Heyrat, and Zahir, Batin, Zulmat, the three "districts" of the land of Hoshruba.
The following pages detail some of the "cities" of the land of Hoshruba and their rulers - Princes and Princesses, all under the single rule of King Afrasiyab.
Following are some of the things covered in the story related to magic.
The following pages tell about the actual story of the "prediction" made about the land of Hoshruba, which is basically the whole story "Tilism-e-Hoshruba" 's epic is all about.
MORE DETAILS ON HOSHRUBA AND IT'S ORIGINS
The tale is a fantasy epic, a continuation of sorts of the tales of "Amir Hamza", known as "Hamzanama". The character of Amir Hamza is based on Hazrat Hamza (RA), the uncle of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW). Since Hazrat Hamza was a formidable opponent in wars, and a powerful, most fierce and lionhearted, valorous warrior that everyone was afraid of, he was an ideal protagonist for these stories.
At the time, fantasy was something really new, it was the reign of the Mughal King Akbar, who promoted such things with all his heart. Though the stories originated in Lucknow in the time of his grandfather, Mughal King Babar, or before, they finally reached the palace in the reign of Akbar, and he commissioned his court workshop to create an illustrated manuscript. The book was bound in fourteen volumes, took fourteen years to complete, is in an unusual paper size, and consisted of 1400 miniature Mughal paintings. However, the pages were dispersed at some point, and there are only over a hundred pages left, 61 of which are in the Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. More information about this can be found on Wikipedia, under "Hamzanama".
After Hamzanama became too old and used up, Tilism-e-Hoshruba was born, a tale of crazy magical adventures of the companions of Amir Hamza, mostly covering the cunning and clever Amar Ayyar, the one man army against all evil wizards, giants, sorcerers, and everything magic-evil.
As a child, I had read short 20 page stories of Amar Ayyar, known as "Umroo" Ayyar on those stories (I do not know why), which were all in Urdu. I used to love reading them and as I grew up and saw around me as the passion for reading started to decline, and the interest in Urdu books declined even more, I wanted to do something that would not only make the generations of this region be interested in our own literature, but also deliver to the world the most interesting and fascinating epic fantasy story to the whole world!
As a matter of fact, a lot of things in the Hobbit series and Harry Potter originate from these two series, the Adventures of Amir Hamza (Hamzanama), and Tilism-e-Hoshruba.
