American Dervish

Nathan calls Mina after dinner every night the following week; both Mina and Muneer insist she enjoy these calls in private. Mina’s parents call one evening to tell her they have found a potential husband for her, and Hayat hears her screaming in protest. She stays in bed until the following day. 

That evening, Hayat visits Mina’s bedroom in anticipation of studying the Quran with her. Mina says she wants to tell him about dervishes instead. The word reminds Hayat of Mr. Gurvitz, a janitor from his former school. Mina says a certain dervish gave up everything, including his home and family, for Allah, but still sensed something separating him from God. He sat on the road, but when two men threw orange peels at him, the dervish suddenly rejoiced to see the peels hit him and then fall on the ground. Mina explains that the story shows the dervish realizing his oneness with the dirt, since Allah created both. 

Hayat, in the middle of a frustrating game of chess with Imran, answers the door one evening. It is Nathan, whom Hayat greets as Imran runs past them crying. Nathan trips and drops a box of scanned brain images on the rug of the living room. Hayat helps him collect them, and Nathan gives Hayat the novel The Call of the Wild. Muneer thanks Nathan for the gift to her son. 

Muneer asks the still-crying Imran to open Nathan’s present. Hayat complains about Imran’s chess performance, and Muneer tells Hayat to fetch his father. When Hayat returns with Naveed, Imran has just thrown the toy car Nathan gave him at Nathan’s eye. Naveed concludes the injury is not serious. Naveed takes Imran aside to speak to him, and Muneer blames Hayat for upsetting the boy. 

Hayat retreats to his room and is stirred by the portion of the Quran he is memorizing. 

The same evening, the family and Nathan share an uncomfortable dinner, with Mina remaining quiet while Nathan and Naveed attempt to cheer her. The new couple cannot enjoy time together afterwards, since Imran cries loudly. Hayat watches Nathan and Mina say goodnight in the driveway. 

Hayat tries to occupy Imran with visits to a tree house or baseball games whenever Nathan visits Mina. However, Imran still causes uproars whenever he sees Nathan with his mother. Naveed decides to take Hayat and Imran out of the house every Sunday so Nathan and Mina can be alone. 

One Sunday, Naveed takes the boys fishing. Nathan has brought Imran toys, and the two play with them peaceably after dinner. A few days later, Nathan returns, but Imran erupts in constant screams. Hayat asks his mother why Mina and Nathan stay at the house for their dates. Dating is against Mina’s religion, so Muneer needs to monitor the couple during their time together. 

Muneer visits Hayat’s bedroom one evening and climbs in bed with him. Muneer says Mina has become concerned at the serious nature of her courtship with Nathan, since he is Jewish and she is Muslim. Muneer approves of Jewish men’s honorable treatment of women. She contrasts this with Muslim men’s disrespect for women and says she tries to parent Hayat to be more like a Jewish man. 

Muneer venerates Jewish people as her father once did. Hayat’s grandfather befriended Jewish people when he studied in London, admiring their lively intellectual engagement with their faith. Muneer, in her fascination with Jewish people, frequents a kosher butcher. After learning about Yom Kippur from the butcher, she once decided to celebrate the Jewish Day of Atonement and keep Hayat out of school. When Hayat told his teacher Mrs. Ike, she expressed surprise, mistakenly assuming Yom Kippur was also a Muslim holiday.

Years ago, Hayat observed a fraught conversation about Judaism while at dinner at the Chathas’. The devout Ghaleb Chatha spoke with Hayat’s father, Sonny Buledi, a man named Majid, and another named Dawood in his living room. Sonny admitted that his children celebrate Christmas, but not for its religious significance. The men discussed the commercial tone Christmas has taken on, and Dawood mentioned Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in which Weber depicts the Christian religion as a guise for capitalist interests, but Sonny argued that Protestant Christians followed capitalism by investing and saving money. 

Chatha countered that Weber is wrong and that Jewish people invented the practice of collecting interest via investments. When Naveed asked how Chatha justified buying his pharmacy on a loan with interest, Chatha replied, “among the jahils, we have to live with their rules” (125). Sonny said Chatha might thank Jewish people for interest, since he had profited from it. 

Majid wanted Jimmy Carter to lose the upcoming presidential election because of his foreign policy, particularly regarding Pakistan. The men discussed American relations with Israel, Pakistan, and other neighboring nations. Chatha disapproved of Jewish people living in Israel, arguing the trouble they cause will not dissipate until another mass extermination. Sonny, horrified, asked for clarification. Chatha argued the Quran prophesied Hitler’s mass assault on Jews.

Chatha’s wife Najat asked if the men wanted tea. Sonny handed the Quran to Dawood, who read about future retribution upon the “‘children of Israel’” (129), a verse that justified to Chatha Jewish people’s past and future troubles. Defiant, Sonny told Dawood to read another verse this one expressing God’s favor upon Jews and Christians. Chatha argued the two verses couldn’t be incompatible, since the Quran is infallible.  

Listening to all of this, Hayat considered his Jewish friend from elementary school, Jason Blum, an avid tennis player. Hayat learned one afternoon during fourth grade that Jason’s given first name was Yitzhak—Jason was named for his grandfather, who died during the Holocaust. Jason pointed out how they were anomalies among their primarily Christian classmates; he also dismissed Jesus as a madman.

The following week, Hayat discovered that several boys had tied Jason to a tree and were urinating on him, since Jason had criticized Jesus in front of them. Hayat attempted to stop them. After a meeting with the principal, the bullies were suspended and Jason left the school for good. 

At the Chathas’ home, Sonny left unceremoniously while Najat served tea, and the other men resumed talking. On the way home, Naveed was furious and silent after the evening’s events. 

Hayat’s family, Mina, and Nathan sit at a high school football field on the Fourth of July, waiting for the fireworks show. Imran is playing with a toy Nathan bought him, and the family eats a picnic of Pakistani food. Muneer hums “America the Beautiful” while she and Mina pour Nathan a cup of lassi. Mina delivers food to Imran, who throws it on the grass. Muneer becomes short with Mina for her over-accommodating parenting style. Naveed calls out his wife’s judgmental attitude, and she references two blonde women nearby that Naveed might like. He leaves and stands at his car’s open trunk while a tense silence persists between Muneer and Mina.

Muneer serves Mina dessert, and they break out in laughter as Mina playfully criticizes Muneer. Nathan takes food to Imran and plays with his action figure, which prompts the boy to eat. Nathan returns to the group, as does Naveed. Mina is touched at Nathan’s sympathy for her son’s hardships. She references a joke Nathan told her and asks him to share it with everyone. With repeated interruptions from Naveed, Nathan tells the joke. Naveed jeers at Nathan, and Muneer remarks that he is drunk. 

Nathan makes a joke that Naveed enjoys about a Polish person. Naveed tells one about a Jew, a Roman, and a Sikh describing the killer of Jesus Christ. Mina looks upset at Nathan for laughing, and the two argue over the events that preceded Jesus’ death. While Nathan believes the Romans killed him, Mina counters with the Quran’s account that Jesus did not die at all. Nathan’s incredulity at this story provokes Mina to anger. Naveed dismisses both religions’ stories. 

Mina doubts Nathan’s curiosity about her faith. The fireworks begin, and Hayat notices Mina’s detached demeanor despite Nathan’s attempts to make up. As the family leaves the field, Mina remains silent. 

At the house, Nathan is concerned about Mina’s reaction, but Naveed dismisses Jesus’ importance and says Mina was overreacting. In the trunk of the car, Hayat finds his father’s bottle of whiskey. He hides it in the garage as Naveed staggers past. He draws his son’s attention to the fireflies in the yard and says he used to catch them during his childhood in Pakistan. Naveed asks Hayat to catch them, but Hayat says no, afraid his father will find the hidden whiskey in the garage.  

Later that Fourth of July night, Hayat takes his father’s bottle of whiskey into the backyard, pours it out, and buries its shattered pieces in a hole. He asks Allah to forgive his father’s drinking. For days, Hayat agonizes over the prolonged torture awaiting his father in hell. During prayer, Hayat realizes that once he becomes a hafiz, God will grant salvation to his parents. 

Hayat memorizes a large section, or juz, of the Quran over three days and recites it to Mina. She is astonished at his extraordinary ability and recommends that he memorize the Surah Ya Sin next. She urges him to study the meaning of this text before memorization. She tells Hayat she and Nathan are considering marriage and that Nathan will convert to Islam. Hayat is distant and skeptical. A phone call from Nathan interrupts their conversation. Hayat picks up the book Mina left behind: Heart of Darkness, labeled with Mina’s ex-husband’s address in Pakistan. 

Later, Hayat’s mother tells him that Nathan must convert to please Mina’s parents. Hayat asks her if Nathan believes in the teachings of the Quran. His mother dismisses his question, saying Nathan is surrendering his family’s faith for love. 

One morning, Hayat wakes early with pain in his genitals. He breaks his commitment not to look at his nakedness and inspects himself to check for illness. After his morning prayers, his mother enters to find Hayat awake in bed. Hayat listens, confused, as his tearful mother explains that she and Naveed shared a tender moment followed by harsh words. Naveed criticized his wife’s mouth, an allusion Hayat struggles to understand. Muneer begs Hayat to grow up with a respect for women. She cries again, and mother and son fall asleep. 

Hayat drinks tea with Mina and Nathan that afternoon. He watches them flirt over a spoon of sugar. Nathan tells Hayat the story of Abraham, known as the first prophet Hazrat Ibrahim in Islam. Ibrahim grows up skeptical of his father’s trade of building idols. When Ibrahim encounters the true creator, Allah, at the top of a mountain, he smashes idols and his community punishes him by throwing him in a pit of fire. When he emerges unburned, Ibrahim converts the community. Nathan concludes that Ibrahim’s sons, Ishmael and Isaac, represent Muslim and Jewish people, uniting the three of them at the table.

Before dinner, Hayat builds a makeshift tent, which he calls a castle keep, for himself and Imran. Disgruntled, he teaches the five-year-old how to play chess and insists that Imran remember the present moment inside the keep. Mina crawls inside to tell them Muneer is making Lahori kidneys, Naveed’s favorite dish. 

Naveed relishes the kidneys at dinner and expresses admiration for Muneer, surprising Hayat after his mother’s tears that morning. As his parents go on a rare walk, Mina tells Hayat and Imran a story about the Prophet Muhammad ascending to Paradise on a magical creature called a Burak. He ascends through blissful areas of heaven to Sidrat al-Muntaha, the tree marking God’s abode. The Prophet witnesses God’s splendor all around him. Hayat asks Mina what Muhammad looks like, and she says a former teacher once saw the Prophet in a dream, which signifies holiness. 

Disturbed by the story, Hayat goes downstairs, where Muneer tells him to take out the garbage. He walks down the driveway experiencing mysterious pain. A car approaches and nearly collides with the boy. Hayat is perplexed at God’s distance from the world and realizes he does not want to go back inside the house.