The book tells the story of Selma Rauf Hanim, granddaughter of the Ottoman Sultan Murad V, from her childhood when the Turkish nobility is expelled from the country and scattered on the shores of the Mediterranean.

Lack of money obliges her to agree to an arranged marriage with a Shiite Indian prince.

The heroine who does not resign herself to the weight of tradition, but moves to Paris in the middle of the Second World War.

No one seemed to know what colour the buttons were on the uniforms of the Sultan's guards so Mourad spent some time finding that detail out.

[5] After further research in India, Mourad, continued the story of her family in Les jardins de Badalpour, published in 1998 and subsequently translated into twelve languages.