An engaging old-fashioned adventure story, Zafir and the Seventh Scroll will take you to lands far away in time and place, as Bassam is called on to grow from a boy into a young man. The story begun in The Seven Secret Scrolls continues as Bassam rejoins his caravan, only to find his mentor, Zafir, gravely injured and facing death. Will Bassam be able to get him the help he needs – and will he ever learn what is in the seventh secret scroll, to complete his education and become the upstanding young leader Zafir sees in him?
We treated the book as a legacy project to connect the author with his grandkids—crafting original artwork and producing an audiobook narrated by a voice talent who’s worked with some of the biggest names in publishing.
After surviving bandits, betrayal, and the deadly sands of the Taklamakan Desert, young caravan apprentice Bassam ibn-Kateb believes the worst of his journey is behind him. He’s wrong.
In Zafir and the Seventh Scroll, the second novel in Paul B. Skousen’s sweeping Bassam Saga, Bassam’s desert trial has only prepared him for a far greater test. Under the guidance of Zafir—legendary trader of Abdali-ud-Din and Bassam’s mentor—the caravan pushes east toward the walled empire of C’ina and the edge of the known world. From the burning dunes of the Taklamakan and the stone spine of the Great Wall to bustling frontier towns, crowded markets, and ocean harbors, Bassam is pushed far beyond the life he once imagined.
Along the way he encounters Xiongnu horse-lords and C’ina engineers, scholars and wall-builders, healers who stop pain with needles, and rulers who claim godlike power while bleeding their people dry. Their worlds seem wildly different, yet everywhere Bassam sees the same struggle over freedom, justice, and power—questions that echo the teachings in Zafir’s ancient scrolls.
Those seven scrolls, carried across continents in a worn leather bag, hold the trading house’s deepest secrets: how a man should govern himself, deal justly, show mercy, and wield honor instead of force. When disaster strikes Zafir and the future of the caravan hangs in the balance, Bassam must finally face the last and hardest lesson—the Seventh Scroll—which reduces everything he’s learned to a single, uncompromising truth about honor and choice.
Rich with desert lore, navigation tricks, caravan politics, and the sights, scents, and dangers of the Silk Road, Zafir and the Seventh Scroll continues Bassam’s coming-of-age from eager boy to leader in the making. It can be read on its own or as the powerful bridge between Bassam and the Seven Secret Scrolls and the saga’s final volume, The Search for Rasha. For readers who love epic journeys, high-stakes moral choices, and immersive historical adventure, this is a story about what it really means to become worthy of the power you’re given.
Category: Fiction
Release date: November 7, 2016
Page size: 6″ x 9″
Word count: 87,914
Estimated page count: 276
After graduate school Paul worked for President Ronald Reagan in the White House Situation Room. In addition, Paul was an intelligence officer for the CIA. He received national notoriety when he preserved a large bag of shredded top secret documents, the so-called “smoking gun” from the Iran-Contra Affair, that he sold piecemeal as “shredded secrets from the White House.” Paul Harvey and other media outlets covered the unusual story.
Paul has extensive experience interviewing political and military leaders in Egypt, Israel and Jordan, including the former prime minister of Jordan, the political advisor to Egypt’s President Mubarak, and senior generals in the Israeli military.
Paul is the author of seven books including How to Save the Constitution, How to Read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the Bassam Adventure Series and The Naked Socialist. He has revised and edited several of his father’s books including Fantastic Victory, The Cleansing of America, The Five Thousand Year Leap Glenn Beck Edition, and The Majesty of God’s Law. He is currently writing the Biography of W. Cleon Skousen, among other projects, and is a frequent speaker and constitutional instructor.
Additionally, Paul has been a columnist for The Daily Caller, and currently teaches communications and journalism at Utah Valley University.
Zafir and the Seventh Scroll is full of warmth, humor, life wisdom, and shows that people can show courage and greatness throughout their lives even though they have flaws and make mistakes.
Still exploring? Great. Here are a few ways to get to know us better:
