Vengeance by Saima Mir

Author:Saima Mir
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oneworld Publications

CHAPTER 27

‘I’m losing my faith,’ the imam admitted.

Jia had needed counsel, advice about Ahad, from whom she felt estranged, life and other things to do with faith. As it turned out, so did he.

They were sitting opposite each other in the centre of the prayer room, as their fathers would have done, under a stained-glass dome made of intricate geometric patterns in various shades of blue and green. Shafts of coloured light fell on to the maroon carpet.

‘Not in Islam, so much, but in an omnipotent creator, maybe,’ he went on. ‘So much of what I see doesn’t sit right and the more I try and untangle it, the more the knots tighten.’

Jia related to the imam’s sentiment. But his life was built on the foundation of being an imam: to lose his faith would mean the dismantling of all of that.

‘I see injustice around me, and I’m at a loss. Even the work that you do, Khan sahiba, I hear things…’

‘Speak plainly,’ she said.

‘I am not judging your work, as it makes sense to me. But perhaps that’s the rub. If it didn’t, then everything would be fine, as I would know what was wrong and what was right.’ He paused. ‘Faith is hard, but religion is harder. Our scriptures have been interpreted in so many ways.’

Jia listened carefully. She needed him in her Jirga. Her people needed belief in the world to come in order to live in this one, for good and evil only balanced where an unseen afterlife existed. She couldn’t advise the imam about his faith, but she could show him his place in her world and his importance to her. She brought the conversation back round to her problems.

‘My son, I don’t know what to say to him,’ she said. ‘He has his whole life ahead of him. What do I tell him? We were raised in a world where he is regarded as an abomination. When I lived in London, I became friends with people who were gay, or queer as Ahad described himself. I loved those friends as my family, and I questioned and rejected what I had been taught. But I don’t know what to tell my son about all of this, because while I can live with a fragmented idea of my faith, I cannot pass that on to him.’

Jia could see the sadness and understanding in the imam’s eyes. His face was soft, his unlined hands sat in his crossed lap. He had never done a day’s physical labour in his life, and yet here he was, trying to shore up the edifice of community. He was bright, brilliant and honest. But some would see their conversation as a danger to the status quo of society.

Jia needed men like him behind her though.

Disruption required one to stand in the wilderness of faith and family, to risk losing it all, while daring greatly. People like the imam were rare; men like him were rarer still. She hoped he was strong enough.

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