You taught us to love: to love those discoveries that bring unexpected joy, to love those moments that press us to the brink of new discoveries, to love those beings who make each moment burn and crackle with the promise of illumination. You said that it’s precisely there, in these moments, that true poetry resides.

I love someone like that—beautiful, wise, brave, strong. In their presence the universe reveals its hidden beauty, in their presence the universe shines with a new light—

Isn’t someone like that worthy of love? Isn’t love like that worthy of our deepest gratitude?

18

The city sinks into the night.

Blessed Sleep, quiet defender of the still midnight: Close, with your careful fingers, our gloom-beleaguered eyes. Protect us with your watchful attentions, lest the fugitive day slip in and even at our pillows inflict many wounds. Save us from ravaging consciousness that roams ready, with sabers drawn.

Seal us in. Root out treachery. Expel from us our treasonous minds.

19

Imam Zia speaks: How magnificent the universe is, my brothers and sisters. So vast that no human being can take full measure of its vastness, so beautiful that no human eye can perceive its every beauty, so mysterious that no human mind can comprehend all its mysteries.

Yet every part of the universe—from a massive galaxy to a minute neutrino—follows every law that has been prescribed for it by the creator, Allah, the Exalted in Might, the All-Knowing. Every part of the universe submits to the will of Allah, which is the essence of Islam, and thus every part of the universe is Muslim.

The stars are Muslim, the sun is Muslim, the moon is Muslim. Does not the Quran say, “The sun runs his course for a period determined for him: that is Our decree. And the moon—We have measured for it mansions to traverse till it returns to its withered state, like a stalk of date. It is not permitted for the sun to catch up to the moon: each swims along in its own orbit according to Our law”?

And here on earth, every mountain is Muslim, every ocean is Muslim, every river is Muslim: they all follow the natural laws that have been laid down for them. Every animal is Muslim, every tree is Muslim, every bird is Muslim: from birth to death every organ, every tissue, every cell in their bodies follows the laws that have been designed uniquely for them. Can the nightingale sing any other song than has been ordained for it? Every note that it sings has been written for it. It can no more change its song than it can shed its wings.

But what of man? On the one hand, every man is born Muslim, because every part of his body, from the nails on his toes to the hair on his head, is regulated by Allah’s laws. His heart is Muslim, his brain is Muslim, his tongue is Muslim: his body is bound to follow every law that Allah has decreed.