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Suddenly I remembered the fight we’d had the last time we listened to this song together. I recalled the comment Ziad had made then—“Shut up with your reformist nonsense”—and I realized that that had been the only time he’d ever been rude to me. I decided to bring it up. “I want you to be straight with me,” I said. “Fake it if you have to. Why did you get so pissed the other day when I said Bulleh Shah would be a reformist?”

“Doesn’t matter. Eat your camel.”

“Just tell me.”

“You want answers?” he said, arching his eyebrows like Jack Nicholson in his confrontation with Tom Cruise in the film A Few Good Men.

“I want the truth—Colonel Jessup.”

“Well, I was mad because you turned Bulleh Shah’s wisdom into a weapon. I didn’t like that.”

“You heard the translation I did. Wasn’t he clearly attacking Islamic orthodoxy and everyone else who turns religion into a series of rituals?”

“No.”

“Really?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “He says, ‘Prayer is for the weak.’ How about that? What about, ‘Only those make pilgrimages to Mecca that want to avoid daily chores.’ You don’t think that’s a direct critique of half the Wahhabis around you?”

“Don’t you think that’s a direct critique of you?” Ziad shot back.

I was stunned. “Me?”

“I’m just saying—you have the same relationship to religion as the Wahhabis. It’s all about appearance. Many of those verses apply to you: ‘Until you give up idolatry you will be a stranger to the Beloved.’ That’s just one example.”

“How does that apply to me?”

He pushed back from the little table with both hands, as if to put some distance between us. “Because you’re an idolater!”

I spat out the food I was chewing and stood up in a sudden burst of anger. Now it felt like the confrontation between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson for real. “What did you say?” I demanded through gritted teeth.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s just drop this.”

“Fuck that,” I shouted. “You can’t call me an idolater and not back it up. I didn’t realize you were a closet fanatic. Do you support theocrats and terrorists too?”

“Forget it, Ali, Amir, whatever you are.”

“No.” I flung my paper plate with its remnants of food off the balcony and it spun down. “You just declared me an idolater, which is like calling me an apostate. If the Wahhabis heard you, they’d throw me in jail and execute me. I’m going to defend myself, all right? That’s what I do. I defend Islam from people like you. People who judge other Muslims. Tell me, what’s my idol? Say it. Say it to my face.”

Ziad grew meek under my assault, cowering as if I’d hit him. His eyes filled with tears.

“Shit,” I said, suddenly regretting my harshness. “I’m sorry!”

I moved to touch him, but he shook his head and waved me aside. He rose and stepped away from the table, standing close to the wall. He wiped his eyes with his fingers and flung the tears to the floor like he was ashamed of them. After a while he mumbled something.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“You said something,” I repeated softly. “You can tell me.”

“Islam.”

“Islam what?”

“You wanted me to identify your idol, right? You worship Islam. There’s a statue in your soul to which you kneel. You call it Islam.”

I furrowed my brow. I figured that Ziad was just trying to get even with me since I’d made him cry. He was just trying to say something that would hurt me. I shrugged it off, figuring that nonchalance would be more irritating to him than anger.

“You were right about one thing,” I said placatingly. “Let’s just drop this. You’re obviously off your rocker with the idolatry stuff, though. Even when I first told you about the mannat at the Ka’ba you made fun of it. But it’s no use trying to convince you because for a large part of my life I didn’t buy it. I don’t expect you to understand my covenant, but you could at least—”

“Screw that. I think your covenant is invalid,” Ziad declared.

“Excuse me? I told you that my parents prayed in Mecca. You do know about Mecca, don’t you?