Fortress of the Forgotten Ones

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Fortress of the Forgotten Ones

by
Fahmida Riaz

general information | our review | links | about the author

Title:	Fortress of the Forgotten Ones
Author:	Fahmida Riaz
Genre:	Novel
Written:	2017 (Eng. 2026)
Length:	225 pages
Original in:	Urdu
Availability:	Fortress of the Forgotten Ones - US
	Fortress of the Forgotten Ones - UK
	Fortress of the Forgotten Ones - Canada

	from: Bookshop.org (US)

	directly from: Open Letter

Urdu title: قلعہ فراموشی
With an Introduction by the author
Translated by Sana R. Chaudhry
Armory Square Prize, 2024

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Our Assessment:

B : colorful presentation of a fascinating slice of history -- though more than Riaz can comfortably handle here

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

Fortress of the Forgotten Ones is an historical novel, based on the real-life figure of Mazdak who lived around 500 AD in the Sasanian Empire (centered around what is now Iran but extending, at its height, considerably beyond Iran's present-day borders). As author Fahmida Riaz notes in her Introduction, very little is known about Mazdak -- but: "Since we were young, we had heard Mazdak's name regarded as the first socialist revolutionary in history".
Riaz also writes in her Introduction about her novel, that:

Alongside Mazdak's revolution, this story also became a tale of the origin of a culture and tradition from this region whose ancient roots spread far and wide in past centuries, and whose legacy continues in our present moment.

       She is referring to the dominant -- basically: state -- religion, Zoroastrianism, as, also, Mazdak was: "A respectable mobed" -- a Zoroastrian priest -- who: "had committed the Avesta to memory" (the Avesta being the text-corpus of Zoroastrianism) -- though he was also: "a rebel, drawn to Mani's teachings". Helpfully, Riaz also presents a list of the sources she relied on in re-creating this world and Mazdak's story, describing what she took from each, from The Avesta to Ferdowsi's classic epic, The Shahnameh (which includes: "a few pages devoted to Mazdak and his socialist revolution"), to also the Internet.
       While relying some on various accounts and background material, both scholarly and otherwise, for foundation, Fortress of the Forgotten Ones is nevertheless very freely imagined around the limited facts that are known; Riaz offers a work of fiction.
       The novel opens in a time of severe drought when: "A ghastly famine gripped the kingdom". In fact, there is no real shortage of food:

Today, there is such an abundance of grain in the capital that every citizen could eat his fill for a year. But where is it ? Locked away in the godowns of nobles and mobeds. Most of it will likely rot, or be sold off to the Romans.

Even though the ruler, the King of Kings, Qobad, is kept away from all commoners -- "The King was not supposed to meet anyone from the common public -- only nobles" -- he is sympathetic to their plight, which even he can't help but be aware of. He urges the wealthy to share their holdings, but these rentiers have no interest in doing so -- and the ruler seems largely powerless against them, as:

Qobad may indeed be king, but it was the mobeds and nobles who were the kingmakers.

       Indeed, there's soon a plot by the "aristocracy and scribes" to overthrow Qobad and install the more like-minded Zarmeher -- "a noble of the highest rank -- a wicked, greedy man who flayed farmers alive on his countless estates" -- on the throne, but it is thwarted.
       Meanwhile, Mazdak -- then still known as Mazdad -- realizes the obvious: "This is a system built on injustice", and challenges the common folk: "Why not take back what's rightfully yours ?" He manages to get the ear of Qobad and make his case, urging the king to: "Open the doors to the nobles' warehouses", to give the commoners access to the sustenance they so desperately need. Qobad agrees, and it is done.
       If things get out of hand for a while, Mazdak makes adjustments to the official policies to see to it that justice prevails (even for the aristocrats and nobles, who aren't to be entirely dispossessed) -- explaining:

Farmers, craftsmen, miners ! You must stop looting immediately ! Plundering will only ensure that the powerful end up with al the property and grain. King Qobad's army is collecting grain in the official godowns. It will be delivered to your houses each month as needed.

Mazdak also institutes other reforms, such as forbidding the torture of prisoners -- common practice until then -- as well as ... releasing all the aristocracy's 'subordinate wives'. (While Mazdak insists already early on that: "A woman is no one's property", they often do seem to be treated as such; Mazdak himself has: "several čagar wives" ("a 'dutiful wife' or 'subordinate wife'"; see also e.g.) and these: "could be offered to friends and relatives for a short while when need", suggesting rather complete (and unconscionable) control over them. They seem to have some agency -- Mazdak's favorite, Yaqutdokht, gets engaged (to the gardener), without asking his permission -- but, while Mazdak doesn't stand in the way of Yaqutdokht's marriage (and even promises to arrange it), he does tell her: "Today, I free you", suggesting that until then she ... wasn't so much .....)
The nobles and intellectuals don't take all this sitting down and manage to dethrone Qobad -- sending him then to the 'Fortress of the Forgotten Ones' of the title, a place: "Used to detain those political prisoners who were meant to be erased from public memory". Here:

To speak the names of those imprisoned in the fortress had always been strictly forbidden. This tactic proved so effective that their names had faded entirely from the memory of the people.

Of course, this is only effective if they can keep the prisoners imprisoned, and they fail miserably with Qobad, who escapes pretty quickly. He looks to make foreign alliances that will provide the support he needs to reclaim his kingdom, including with Roman Emperor Justinian I, who looks after Qobad's son, Prince Khosrow, for a while, while Qobad takes care of business.
Qobad also begins to look more fondly at Khosrow, who really should be second in line to the throne -- after Prince Kavus -- but is soon made crown prince, and Kavus is soon completely out of the picture. Unfortunately, Mazdak had hitched his wagon to the more sympathetic Kavus, while Khosrow thinks of him as nothing more than a: "lying, lowborn charlatan cloaked in the robes of a mobed from some ordinary fire-temple" and, worse, someone who had no regard for what Khosrow values above all:

He had always held Aryan ideals in the highest regard. Lineage and wealth ! he thought resolutely. These ideals are the foundation of imperial grandeur. They impressed the authority of empire on the minds of the subjects.

       It is Khosrow that eventually ascends to the throne -- and that's the end of Mazdak and his each-according-to-his-needs and social justice philosophy-theology. Invited to the palace, Mazdak and his followers are put on a trial of sorts, but the outcome is never in doubt. Readers of the Shahnameh will be familiar with the striking scene when Mazdak is shown what Khosrow has ordered done to Mazdak's priests in the garden behind the palace; getting to longtime nemesis Goshtap's cruel words at that display alone is worth the entire novel. Mazdak's own fate is somewhat simpler -- but even (or especially) in death he too is consigned to the 'fortress of the forgotten ones', Khosrow ordering: "let Mazdak be erased from the memory of man".
       As Riaz mentioned in her Introduction, the powers that be -- the victors who write history -- were pretty successful with that -- but what Mazdak stood for isn't so easily killed or suppressed, and Riaz ends her novel on a hopeful note, with a chapter that moves to the near-present-day, with a student at a girls' college reading The Communist Manifesto ..... (The line she first reads is quoted as: "Today, Europe lives in fear of a demon -- Communism"; the more traditional English rendering is, of course: "A spectre is haunting Europe -- the spectre of communism".)
       There's quite a bit more to the novel as well. Complications include Mazdak's love for Qobat's wife, the queen, Naindokht ("When he first laid eyes on Naindokht, it was as if his eyes had been struck by a bolt of lightning"), while other significant figures include a Jewish friend and supporter of Mazdak's, Joshwa (who falls in love with a Christian and converts and flees to Constantinople, seeing which way the wind is blowing for the Mazdakites ...).
       Historical events shape the course of much of the narrative, but much is only mentioned in passing or hurriedly; as a work of historical fiction Fortress of the Forgotten Ones is decidedly lumpy. (Riaz does take the time to amusingly get into the disputes between Christian theologists Justinian had to deal with.) Much of this is due to just how much history there was: Riaz has to pick and choose, and significant events and shifts have to be mentioned, but she can only devote so much attention to many of them. Chapters vary considerably in length, and there's a somewhat jerkily-episodic feel to the novel at times, rather than smooth continuum (though, yes, this also does reflect much of the course of the times, with its abrupt shifts).
       The invention -- how Riaz imagines the encounters and conversations -- is often very good, down to clever adventure-tales such as how Qobad is sprung from the fortress, but too much happens in isolation, without smooth connections or continuity in the individuals' stories. There's a lot to Fortress of the Forgotten Ones -- but Riaz struggles some in trying to fit it all in. Still it's a fascinating bit of history about a place, time, and events that most readers likely don't know much about; unlike Riaz, most readers likely will not have: "heard Mazdak's name regarded as the first socialist revolutionary in history" since they were young, but he and his story certainly should be better-known, and Riaz does a fine and colorful job of presenting him and it.

- M.A.Orthofer, 17 March 2026

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Links:

Fortress of the Forgotten Ones:

Other books of interest under review:

See Index of Indian and Pakistani literature
See Index of Real People in Works of Fiction
Other books from Open Letter under review

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About the Author:

Pakistani author Fahmida Riaz (فہمیدہ ریاض) lived 1946 to 2018.

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