On 9th June 2026, the London Muslim Centre’s first floor hall was packed with serious sci-fi gamers and the curious for the launch of a sci-fi fantasy book Tales of Khayaal and an associated interactive video game series, the work of a talented duo, author Rehan Khan and designer Peter Gould. It was their effort at “the intersection of storytelling, leadership and deeper lessons in virtue” – a journey into the realm of spiritual imagination to appeal to a younger generation.
Rehan Khan, an established author in the historical fiction genre, explained that it was ‘edutainment’ and for him, in the Tolstoyan tradition of making art serve an ethical purpose. He referred to a Muslim tradition of story telling with a moral purpose, citing Hayy ibn Yaqdhan written by Ibn Tufail in twelfth century Andalusia, said to have inspired Defoe’s story of Robinson Crusoe, or Farid al-Attar’s ‘Conference of the Birds’. The Muslim link with this art form had been broken by Colonisation.
Both Rehan and Peter Gould considered their work different, because rather than building a sci-fi world with tokenistic, orientalist-type connections to Muslims – dwellers of the desert, or swashbucklers ready to draw the sword – in the world of Khayaal, the characters’ actions embody the faith, such as virtue, respect of tradition and the sacred, and a sense of community. Peter Gould was at pains to point out it was not “preachy”, and that the book and video game segments released thus far had received positive feedback from across the world from all faiths. In Rehan’s powerful message to the appreciative largely Millennial and Z-generation audience – with the odd septuagenarian present – was that their work was an application of the imagination to convey journeys in the seeking of a life purpose: “what does it mean to be human in a techno-scientific age?”.
The Khayaal adventure video game is set in a fictional planet in the distant future, created in painstaking detail by an Indonesian-based software team working off story boards. For Peter Gould, the human input is in creativity, while AI’s role is “generative”. Book 1 was on sale at the event; Book 2 due out soon.
For Tales of Khayaal Book 1, click here
For game taster, click here
For Youtube video , click here.
For Youtube video , click here.
JS