Deliberate Values Dissonance: A 9-year-old Dodola is married to a much older scribe but the latter is portrayed as a nice man.

Ultimately, the destruction of his water purifier destroys all of his optimism, before the recovery of Dodola helps cheer him back up.

Break the Cutie: During their stay with the upbeat and selfless fisherman Noah, his attitude is repeatedly and heavily challenged by the reality of his home namely, the sight of a woman fishing corpses out of the water, or the death of an old homeless man he cared for.

The Bluebeard: The Sultan regularly drowns his wives when they become too old.

And atop that, the Sultan of Wanatolia is a Karma Houdini who gets away with everything. The Hijra's, with their main money makers gone, has their fate left up in the air(though the glimpse Zam got of them shows they're on their last legs). However, the rest of the characters fates are left ambiguous. Zam is a eunuch, but he and Dodola adopt a little girl who was being sold into slavery, hoping to save her from the same fates they went through and they have hope for the future. After many trials and tribulations, Zam and Dodola are romantically involved, though Dodola still was raped by many people, including the Sultan of Wanatolia, the man from the caravan's and her first husband.

Bittersweet Ending: As is normal for Thompson's work.

As the Good Book Says.: Various quotes from both The Bible and the Quran.One of the houses Zam visits with the Hijra's sees a girl forced into an arranged marriage with a man old enough to be her father.Arranged Marriage: At the beginning of the story Dodola’s parents sell their 9-year-old daughter to a scribe because of a severe drought.

Anachronic Order: The story often switches between different periods of both Dodola and Zam's lifetimes.

Their narrative is shown in parallel with tales and stories from The Bible and The Qur'an. The story is a drama about two children, Dodola and Zam, who struggle for their lives in a fictional Islamic country.

Habibi is a graphic novel by Craig Thompson published in 2011.

Habibi novel