45

When they turn into the parking lot, all the lights are on, and the mosque glows from within with a purple-white light escaping through the frosted windowpanes. The newly applied paint has not fully dried yet but shimmers faintly, giving the mosque the air of a mirage. The mosque projects a serene but fragile grace, marred by the blotches of red on the ground, the only remaining witness to the previous night’s defacing.

They are late for isha namaz. “Did you do wadu?” Ismail asks, and Arshad shakes his head, embarrassed.

The entrance hallway is packed, as during Eid prayers: the mosque is overflowing today. Ismail leads Amina and Arshad along the walls to the washroom, skirting the praying men, who take half steps without breaking their namaz to let them through. When Amina and Arshad are done with wadu—Amina copies her brother’s actions, following whispered instructions from Ismail—they head back the way they came, and the men quietly make room for them, squeezing in slightly, so that Arshad joins one row and Ismail and Amina the row behind him.

Lo: as one, the congregation stands in qiyam, hands folded, and as one, bends in ruku, palms on knees, and as one, stands erect in qawma, hands by the sides, and as one, prostrates in sajda, head to floor, and then sits up in jalsa, hands on thighs.

There is a different energy in the mosque this evening from the other times Arshad has prayed here, as though the worshippers gathered today have altered gravity, so that the very air seems heavier, every action more deliberate to counteract it. Arshad and Amina, their eyes half open to make sure they are in sync with the congregation, murmur their prayers earnestly (with Amina whispering the little she knows, mumbling through the rest). They recite the takbir in unison with the congregation—Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.

Allah is great. Allah is greater. Allah is the greatest.

After the final thashahud and the salaams to the left and right, the congregation is on its feet, milling around, turning to neighbors and clasping hands, embracing, but with none of the gaiety of Eid or the other occasions Arshad has seen here. Instead there is the somber meeting of eyes, of hands, of necks and chests, as at a funeral.

46

All the seats in the conference room are taken. More men throng the back and sides, standing. Yet there’s little sound in the room except for Imam Zia reciting from the Quran.

He’s seated on the dais, a Quran open on the rehal before him. Though his eyes appear focused on the book, he doesn’t turn the pages, reciting instead from memory, as he always does. He glides over the words, swoops at them, hovers, drops. His entire body appears to recite. His chest lifts as he takes a breath before plunging into the cadence of the next ayat; the hull of his body rides each nasal ghunnah, vibrates with each quivering qalqala, with each ululating vowel. It freezes, motionless, at the crest of each soaring note.