by Esther Ahmad
My veil covered everything but my eyes, so I had to rely on my voice to convey the warm smile I adopted as I spoke. “Well, it would be very good if you accepted Islam. Did you know that Islam is the superior religion all over the world? Wouldn’t you like to belong to the very best of all religions?”
The man behind the desk scrunched up his face, as if a bad smell had just entered the room. “What can your Islam possibly give me?”
I ignored his rudeness and kept smiling beneath my veil. “Anything at all! Whatever you want, Islam can give you!” Perhaps if I could take him to see my father, he would understand what I was talking about. If he could see my father’s wealth and meet some of the mullahs, he’d understand what it means to live a good Muslim life.
“Can your Islam give me salvation?”
“Yes,” I shot back immediately, even though I was not completely sure I understood what salvation was. Was it something like hope? “Anything you want, Islam can give you.”
He held my stare for a moment, and then he snorted, dismissed me with a wave of his hand, and returned to his work. “I think you haven’t read your Qur’an. Go away and read it properly from now on.”
It was impossible to continue to be polite in the face of such rudeness. I gave in to my anger and jabbed a finger at him.
“You’re wrong! I’ve been reading the Qur’an since I was young. I’ve read it many times.”
“Oh really? Have you read Surah Al-Ahqaf?”
“Of course I have,” I said, sneering. Everyone had read that section. This man was clearly a fool.
“And you read number 46, Surah Al-Ahqaf?”
“Yes.”
“And you are sure that you read verse 9?”
“Of course!”
He said nothing for a while, then shrugged and went back to his papers.
“What?” I said. “You don’t believe me?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t think you’ve read your Qur’an at all, especially not that verse. It describes Allah instructing Muhammad to say, ‘I’m no new thing among the messengers [of Allah], nor know I what will be done with me or with you. I do but follow that which is inspired in me, and I am but a plain Warner.’ And you’re telling me that Islam can give me salvation? How can it, when even Muhammad admitted that he didn’t know what would happen after death?”
I hated to admit it, but his words bothered me. I knew Christians had changed the Bible to remove Muhammad from it. Could it be that this sneaky man had also changed the Qur’an to plant a doubt in my mind?
“Write down the Surah and verse for me,” I said. “I’ll go home and look it up in my Qur’an. And give me your phone number so I can call you if it’s wrong.”
He did as I asked and handed me the piece of paper.
“If it’s not the same, will you become a Muslim?”
“Yes,” he said. And then he gave me a smile of such warmth and confidence that I had to look away. “If the words are the same,” he said, “will you become a Christian? It’s a bold step to take, but I promise you won’t regret it.”
“No.” I shook my head, thinking of the dream and the burned page of the Bible and the jihad camp that was awaiting me. It was all so confusing, but one thing I knew for sure: what he suggested was never going to happen. “That would be impossible. I could never turn my back on Islam. Besides, I’m 110 percent sure you’re trying to trick me. There’s no way that verse is going to be the same in my Qur’an.”
†
My bleeding had stopped that morning. As soon as my mother and I arrived home, I hurried to carry out my cleansing rituals and head to the prayer room. A few minutes later I sat cross-legged on the floor, my Urdu-language copy of the Qur’an open on my lap. The verse was the same as the man at the hospital had said. Word for word.
I felt as though my lungs had been torn from my chest.
All my life I had been brought up to know that Muhammad and Muhammad alone could save us from the wrath of Allah. Yet here was proof that Muhammad didn’t even know his own fate, let alone the fate that awaits the rest of us. How could that be? And if Muhammad could not save me, then who could?
The man in the lab had said something to me before I left, and the words came back to me in the prayer room: “If a leader doesn’t know what lies ahead, then why follow him? That’s like following a blind man down a well.”
I went downstairs, told my mother that I was calling the hospital to check on her test results, and pulled out the piece of paper where he had written the verse, his phone number, and his name.
“Is this John?” I said quietly when he answered. “I want to see you tomorrow.”
“Ah,” he said. “So you read the verse.”
“Yes, I read it.”
“And was it the same in your Qur’an?”
“Yes, it was.”
“You can come tomorrow afternoon. It will be quiet then—we can talk.”
The next day in class, I carefully avoided contact with Azia. When the lectures began, my mind was distracted. At times I tried to imagine what John might say to me. At other times I felt fear grip me tight as I wondered what Allah would make of my meeting a Christian. I stumbled through the lessons, my mind a million miles away. It was only when I saw my lecturer in Islamic studies in the courtyard after class that I woke up.
I mentioned to her that I had been reading my Urdu translation of Surah Al-Ahqaf, number 46, and was troubled by verse 9. “What does it mean when Allah tells Muhammad to tell others that he doesn’t know what will happen to him?”
She looked at me kindly. “My daughter,” she said, “don’t read translations of the Qur’an. People who read those translations in search of the true meaning of the words often get confused. Some are even led astray from the right path. It’s better to stick to reading it in Arabic. You know that learning each word of the Qur’an in Arabic carries thirty times as great a reward as any other language, don’t you? Think of judgment day! Stick to Arabic, and increase your rewards.”
A month or even a week earlier, her advice would have spurred me to learn as much of the Qur’an in Arabic as I possibly could. But not now. With John’s words ringing in my mind, I found myself unsatisfied by her advice.
As soon as my classes were finished, I made the twenty-minute walk to the hospital. I was glad to see that John was alone in the lab.
I did not bother getting into an argument with him about greetings; instead, I got straight to making my request. “Can I have your book? I want to read it. But don’t think I’m going to become a Christian—I just want to know what it has to say.”
He sat back in his chair and spread out his hands in front of him. “Well, first, you may not call it ‘your book.’ It’s the Holy Bible. Second, I’m sorry, but I can’t give you my Holy Bible. You’ve made it clear that you have no intention of following Christianity. So please go back home and read your Qur’an properly. Learn how to ask questions of it. Come back when you’ve done that, and perhaps then I’ll be able to give you the Holy Bible.”
For a moment I considered arguing, but when I spoke, there was no fight in my voice. “What kind of questions should I ask?”
“Think about everything you’ve read and learned in your Qur’an until now, and ask yourself, Am I walking on the right path? No one else will be answerable to God on your behalf on judgment day.”
In that moment the air turned stale, and I felt my chest tightening. Was he talking about me and jihad? Was there any way he could know about that?
“You’re clearly an educated person,” he continued. “Educated people have brains to think with, ears to hear with, and feelings to aid them as they make their decisions. Educated people can better understand and differentiate between right and wrong. Surely someone who asks questions and doesn’t rest until they find answers will find the right path.”
Something inside me warmed as I listened to John. With the exception of a few teachers, I’d never had someone speak so openly and confidently to me befo
re. To hear an educated, professional man talk to me this way was something entirely new.
“You know that you can’t say to black that it is white or to night that it is day. You know that you can never follow the blind, because the blind can’t show you the way. Like all educated people, you work hard to discern what is true and real. I’m sure you will also do this as you examine the Qur’an. Will you take this challenge?”
“Yes,” I said. I liked that he saw me as educated, and I wanted him to know that I was not afraid to examine my faith. Perhaps when he saw me explore the Qur’an, it might even sow a doubt or two in his mind about his Holy Bible.
I was just getting ready to leave when he made his final comment.
“I’m not against Muslims, and I’m not against your faith and beliefs. We are cousins, remember. Prophet Abraham had two sons from different wives: Ishmael and Isaac. We both descend from their lineage.”
As I walked home that afternoon, the sense of peace I had been feeling grew even stronger. I’d been so convinced that John would say yes when I asked him for a Bible. After all, I hadn’t even asked Azia for Christian books or tapes, and she had given me a bag full of materials.
But John was different.
He wasn’t at all like the Christians I’d heard described in the madrassa, and he did not fit my mother’s description either. He wasn’t cruel or full of hate; he was friendly and courteous. The more I listened to him, the more I could feel myself wanting to trust him. He didn’t want me to go on the wrong path; he hoped I would find the right one.
Surely, I told myself, if I do what he says, all this confusion will fade away.
12
Azia and John were the first Christians I’d ever spoken to, but they were not the first I’d seen. One afternoon before my father had fallen in with the radicals, back when he wore tight Western pants and bright shirts, he received a visitor. My mother was out of the house, and my father told my older sisters to prepare some tea and snacks and to knock on the door when they were ready.
I watched from the window, my face pressed against the glass alongside my sisters, as he greeted a stranger in the courtyard. He was dressed just like my father, but when he came into the house, the difference between them became apparent. The stranger was wearing the most exotic cologne I had ever smelled, and it seemed to me that the air was filled with mystery.
I was too young to know what business this man had with my father, and I didn’t think to ask my sisters. I just followed them down to the kitchen and let my nose pick out the strange, sweet scents he introduced.
Soon after my sisters had performed their duties, my mother returned to the house.
“Who’s here?” she asked.
All of us girls shrugged and told her that we didn’t know who the visitor was. She left us in the kitchen, but from there we could hear her open the door to the drawing room. We heard raised voices, and shortly after, the front door opened and then quickly shut again.
“Why did you do that?” my father asked my mother.
“Because I know who that man is.”
“He’s a business contact. Whenever he’s in town, I always meet up with him.”
“Yes,” my mother said, “and he’s a Christian, isn’t he?”
My father said nothing.
“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Yes,” he said quietly.
My sisters and I crept toward the doorway of the drawing room just in time to see my mother walk over to the tray that held the drinks and snacks my father had asked for. She picked up the cups and saucers—the best ones that we brought out only for honored guests—and turned to face my father. Then she hurled them to the floor, where they shattered into hundreds of pieces.
“Why?” My father stared at the floor.
“Because a Christian touched them. They were unclean.”
†
“Why?”
Whenever my mother looked at me intently like this, it made me nervous. I had rehearsed my answer a dozen times, but still the words were slow to come.
“Why?” she asked again, a little more gently this time. Was she trying to keep her emotions in check?
“I just want to spend more time with Allah,” I said. “I need to pray more.”
She looked at me carefully and then smiled. “Okay, I will call them.”
I waited on the stairs and listened to her half of the conversation.
“No, there’s no problem. She just says she needs more time. . . . Yes, she’s praying even more than usual, offering eight prayers a day. . . . She reads her Qur’an too. . . . No, she’s not scared. And she hasn’t changed her mind. She just needs time to be ready. . . . Yes, I will. As soon as she’s ready.”
My mother ended the call and walked over to join me on the stairs. She winced with pain as she bent down, but even though I protested and tried to stand up, she was determined to sit beside me.
“They say they’re confident you’ll be ready soon,” she said when she was finally seated. I could feel the silk of her dress on my arm. “I think it’s natural to want to wait awhile to make sure you’re ready. I’m so happy you’re spending time with Allah. You know, people are noticing how dedicated you are, and they’re impressed. I tell them that you and Allah are so close.”
I had nothing to say in return. Part of me felt relieved that I’d bought myself some time, but part of me was still deeply troubled. Everything felt fragile, as if a mighty storm were coming and I had suddenly discovered that the house was held up by thin sticks. It would only be a matter of time before everything fell down.
†
I set a task for myself: I would approach the Qur’an with the eyes of a scientist. In fact, I wouldn’t limit myself to the Qur’an; I’d study the hadith as well, weighing the historical accounts of Muhammad’s life and asking questions the way John had suggested.
Like any good scientist, I was testing my hypothesis—that the Qur’an was true and trustworthy, and that the verse John had shown me had somehow been twisted and used incorrectly. I still believed in Muhammad and I still believed in Allah, and once I found the evidence to back up my position, I could go back to John and expose his devious Christian lies.
I was in trouble almost from the very start.
I turned to a story in the Qur’an about a man named Dhul-Qarnayn.[1] He was traveling one day and reached a place where the sun was setting in a muddy spring. The text didn’t say that it was setting behind a muddy spring, nor did it say it appeared to be setting in a muddy spring. According to the hadith, the sun itself had reduced to a minute fraction of its actual size and heat, entered the earth’s atmosphere, and landed in a puddle. This struck me as ridiculous. How could the book of Allah have something so scientifically wrong in it?
I continued my search in the Qur’an, hoping to remind myself what it taught about the history of Allah’s people. Like most Muslims, I had been encouraged to read a few verses here and there, jumping from place to place without ever starting from the beginning and reading all the way through. We relied on the mullah to explain the words for us, and we were not encouraged to read more than a few verses for ourselves.
I decided to see what the Qur’an had to say about Abraham and Joseph, two men whose stories I had loved hearing about from the mullahs when I was growing up. I discovered that Abraham’s story was only partially told, the verses scattered like petals in a hurricane. There was no logic to it, no coherent structure for me to follow.
At least Joseph’s story was all in one place. The problem was that there was so little to it. The Qur’an starts by explaining that Joseph was so beautiful that when he walked by some women peeling potatoes, they stared at him and accidentally cut their hands. Then I read that Potiphar’s wife wanted to marry Joseph, but he refused because he was Allah’s faithful servant. I was curious to find out what happened to him next, but the story ends abruptly there.[2]
Jonah’s story is scattered like Abraham’s. The Qur’an says he was a mes
senger and talks about the whale and Jonah’s message to the people of Nineveh. But in various places, Jonah is described as being in the belly of the whale for one, three, seven, or forty days.
I started to wonder who wrote the Qur’an. I knew it wasn’t Hazrat Muhammad, because he was illiterate. From what I could tell, after Muhammad’s death, as his successors battled for control, people were invited to submit any stories they remembered about the Prophet. Some wrote on goatskins; some wrote on stones. In all, seven copies of the Qur’an were created. Then at some point, six of the copies were burned, leaving just one behind.
I wondered why.
†
Testing the trustworthiness of the Qur’an was a slow process. It is not an easy book to read, even in translation, and for weeks I tried to decode the pages, following the narrative as it jumped from place to place. Gradually the text came into sharper focus, and as it did, I found myself looking at Muhammad in a new light.
I had never questioned him before. I’d never doubted him. I’d never had any cause to think of him as anything other than the last and greatest Prophet. Never in my life had I uttered his name without adding the words “peace be upon him.”
But now I started to wonder about Muhammad himself. Stories that had delighted me as a child suddenly left an unpleasant aftertaste. So when I read about him fighting and taking prisoners, I no longer rejoiced in his power; I recoiled at his cruelty. I felt even worse when I read how one of those prisoners was a beautiful girl. She was taken to Muhammad, who said that if she married him, he would set her free. “It’s good for me to die in prison rather than be your wife,” she said. She was sent back to jail, where she died.
There’s also a story about an old widow who approached Muhammad and asked if Muhammad would marry her. Writing in the hadith, the narrator describes the way Muhammad looked at her from head to toe, saw she was old and not beautiful, and said to his followers, “Whoever will marry this person will go to heaven.” One man agreed but explained that he had no money to give her for a dowry. “Do you have a shawl?” Muhammad asked. “Give that to her.” The man did, and the two were married.
