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Habibi provides examples of:
- Anachronic Order: The story often switches between different periods of both Dodola and Zam's lifetimes.
- 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.
- 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.
- As the Good Book Says...: Various quotes from both The Bible and the Quran.
- Bittersweet Ending: As is normal for Thompson's work. 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 caravans and her first husband. 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. However, the rest of the characters' fates are left ambiguous. The Hijras, with their main moneymakers gone, have their fate left up in the air (though the glimpse Zam got of them shows they're on their last legs). And atop that, the Sultan of Wanatolia is a Karma Houdini who gets away with everything.
- The Bluebeard: The Sultan regularly drowns his wives when they become too old.
- 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. Ultimately, the destruction of his water purifier destroys all of his optimism, before the recovery of Dodola helps cheer him back up.
- The Caligula: The Sultan. A debauched, hedonistic monster who regularly has his concubines murdered en masse when they inevitably become too old for his taste.
- Deadly Decadent Court: The Sultan's court, with an emphasis on the first two words. Neither women nor children are safe. Perhaps best exemplified by the fact that the Royal Gardener also doubles as the Royal Executioner.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: A 9-year-old Dodola is married to a much older scribe but the latter is portrayed as a nice man.
- Exact Words: Dodola turns "a jug of water into gold" by trading the jug of water for an empty gold one with a thirsty Sultan.
- Doorstopper: The book is 672 pages long.
- Fantasy Gun Control: Despite taking place in the future, nobody is shown having guns, not even the Sultan's soldiers. Thompson wanted to depict a clash of the old world and the new while avoiding depicting guns or warfare.
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Played with. Dodola when she finds out that she's pregnant asks her maid to have an abortion. She changes her mind later when she realizes that she won't be reunited with her adoptive son.
- Hate Sink: The Sultan is not only gross and perverted but also treats women as disposable objects.
- Lack of Empathy: How does the Sultan react when Dodola announces that their son just died and thus doesn't want to have sex? He gleefully declares that it's time to make another one and proceeds to rape her.
- Karma Houdini:
- The Sultan imprisons Dodola, keeps her as his sex toy for several years, and the last we see of him he's ordering the execution of perhaps dozens of courtesans because he's bored with. The book ends without so much as a hint of remorse or retribution on the Sultan's part.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Dodola's husband when he realizes, after having sex with her, that she's still only a child and not ready for that, from there on he never does it again.
- Not Blood Siblings: Dodola and Zam end up together despite the former having raised the latter as her son and brother. However, they don't consummate their relationship as during his adolescence, Zam became a eunuch but they have non-penetrative sex.Noah: Uh... you two have a unique marriage.
- Parental Substitute: Dodola for Zam. Zam was originally named Ham like Noah's son. Dodola saved him when men were about to kill him.
- Puppet King: Toward the end of the story, the Sultan is implied to be this, with the corporation owning the Wanatolia Dam implied to be the real rulers of the country as they manage the Sultan and keep him happy through their allies in the Sultan's court; Zam's boss likens him to "surface decoration." The Sultan himself is too steeped in his hedonism to know or really care about his true status.
- Qurac: The book takes place in a country called Wanatolia, at first it looks like a grimdark take on "Arabian Nights" Days, but then it is revealed to be set in the modern era. It is hinted already at the beginning when Dodola's husband is shown to have a motorcycle.
- Rape as Drama: One day, Dodola refused to sleep with a man who then raped her as Zam watched the whole scene. The Sultan also rapes her a few times.
- "Rashomon"-Style: Dodola mentions the account by different religions about the Biblical stories. For Jews and Christians, God asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac but for Muslims, it was Ishmael his first son. For Jews and Christians, Noah's wife was on the ark but for the Muslims, she wasn't allowed to enter it because she was an unbeliever.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: King Solomon and Queen of Sheba Bilquis are identified with the protagonists of the Song of Solomon. He repeatedly asked her hand but she had to stay a virgin to keep her royal status. After she left, Solomon became a polygamist out of bitterness.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Dodola's trick to "turn water into gold" by having the Sultan give her gold in exchange for water is quickly denounced as a trick.
- The Pollyanna: Noah, the fisherman who saves Dodola and Zam after they escape the palace has an unfailingly cheerful disposition, though the world is practically crumbling around him. Giving all he has, including food when he's starving and letting dozens of people stay in his house to use his purified water. His hopeless optimism sometimes goes into Sanity Slippage territory as his faith is tested(at one point laughing and wishing he could take off his dirty skin or doing an ablution with mud, commenting on how he now looks like Zam.) Eventually, it seems like he finally loses his kind streak when a homeless man he gave charity to dies and he's forced to give him a burial at sea(really the polluted reservoir)and the numerous guests in his place destroy his water purification tank and his shack, abandoning him, that Noah tells Zam and Dodola to clear off. His next leaving for the reservoir has him cold to every person he passes and leads to him abandoning his boat, only to return home and become invigorated, his faith renewed through Dodola's stories. The pair help him rebuild his home and Zam swims out and recovers his boat so he can continue fishing. He ends up discovering a gigantic fish skeleton, crowing about how he's the luckiest man in the world as the pair leave, his optimism restored.
- Womb Horror: Dodola's pregnancy seems to be healthy and normal. However, she is pregnant by the sultan. She feels totally imprisoned, and regards her pregnant body with disgust. In her imagination, the child appears as a monster, like his father.
- Would Hurt a Child:
- Slave traders considered killing the three-year-old Zam before Dodola claimed it was her brother.
- Dodola's son Rajab is killed in his sleep.
