The Black Persian belongs to a series of novels in which Karl May explores the Islamic world of the late 19th century. The German scholar Kara Ben Nemsi and his Arab friend Hadji Halef Omar continue to try to solve the mystery of the murdered Frenchman whose body they discovered in the first novel of this series In the Desert. This volume ends in the death struggle between Kara Ben Nemsi and his archenemy whose identity holds the key to the entire Islamic cycle. The dramatic action of this series takes the reader through many countries and offers an excellent introduction to Islamic culture, customs, and religious beliefs. Of all popular writers on the subject, May presents perhaps the most fascinating view of the Near East as it was at the height of Western imperialism. Karl May"s interest as a storyteller was always in the symbolic meaning of time and place, and he was almost obsessed with the cradle of the three great monotheistic religions. Many of May"s most distinguished admirers, such as Franz Werfel and Albert Einstein, have considered his Islamic novels, like The Black Persian, to be his best. They are unique in their combination of fairy tale, detective story, heroic myth, and historical reportage. The author, a German who specialized in adventure stories (think about a German G.A. Henty), wrote in the late 19th century for the most part. He was prolific and extraordinarily popular in his day, and was a favorite of a broad range of readers including Einstein, Hesse, Schweitzer, and, of all people, Hitler. The book is part of a series placed in the decaying Ottoman Empire.