White Mosque. A World That Survived. Where the Silk Road Leads

Before you is a story that is as real as it gets. The mother of Sofia Samatar, the author of this book, is an American of Swiss descent from North Dakota, a Christian, a Mennonite, and her father is Somali, a Muslim. They met in Somalia, where Sofia's mother came as a missionary to teach English, while her father taught newcomers the local language (although he himself was a shepherd in the desert). They fell in love, moved to America, and Sofia was born.
Many years later, a successful writer, professor of English, African, and Arabic literature, Sofia Samatar will receive as a gift the book "The Great Migration of Russian Mennonites to Central Asia, 1880–1884" (the Mennonite movement originated in the 16th century as a result of the Reformation in Europe; Mennonites were forced to emigrate, including to Russia), and she will discover an incredible story of which she knew nothing.
And now she sets off on a journey to Uzbekistan, through Tashkent, Samarkand, and Khiva, retracing the path taken by her fellow believers in the late 19th century.
The story of the migration of these religious exiles to Central Asia, their sincere belief that the Savior would come to the very settlement they were heading to, the fact that the Muslim Uzbeks allocated them a small white mosque so that the Mennonite Christians had a place to pray, and later the Mennonites built their own temple, which the locals called "the white mosque" — all of this is as unusual as Sofia's own origin. Perhaps that is why she embarked on this adventure, traveling halfway across the world for it.