Marjana Shibli stumbles upon her genealogy along with several old papers and letters. Living in a house named Madinah eponymous of her great grandmother, she falls in line of several people like her great grandfather Shibli Zafarabadi(1877-1971) who moves at three different places but remain forever in pursuit of a place they can call their Madinah(home). The novel is set in several places the various protagonists move around like Samarkand, Lakhnauti, Jaunpur, Jabalpur, Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Sylhet, all yearning for homeland.
The main story goes about Shibli Zafarabadi and Marjana Shibli while in the backdrop it discusses Muslims advent in Samarkand through Abbasids βMarjana Shibli's family; a massacre of a family along Jaunpur highway running from a Seth in Badlapur. Her great grandfathers journey of life from Jaunpur-Jubbulpore-Karachi, three minor protagonists from era of Al Mansur, Harun ur Rashid and Mustassim Billah, the Caliphs of Abbasid dynasty; Invasion of present-day Bangladesh by Bakhtiyar Khilji in 1200 and separation of East Pakistan(Bangladesh) from West Pakistan in 1971. It also shares story about Amal Sadia who was killed in 1971 Sylhet in the separatist's movement while her six kids were saved by a Bengali woman.
Marjana herself who loathed Karachi moves two different places to know how much she belonged to Karachi. She moves to become a CSP officer, who unravels an illicit network working in Pakistan India and Bangladesh. She also discovers about the history of her friend Guncha hailing from remote area of Baluchistan, who commits suicide while training to be an officer. Marjana who also finds herself between horrendous killings in Baluchistan, fights a personal battle and survives through depression and suicidal thoughts.