Also in 2018, Claritas Books published "The Savage: and other Islamic Short Stories". Regarding the genre of Islamic fiction, Hayward said in a June 2018 interview on his publisher’s website that the key "is to see that even within the Islamic tradition there are safe creative spaces into which one can insert fiction. But one has to remember of course, never to attribute to any prophet or esteemed personage something they never said or did. That’s where my background as a historian of Islam really helps. I know the sources. I know what they say happened. I therefore know the boundaries of fictional storytelling.