The Language of Secrets by Ausma Zehanat Khan Page B

Irish-American student in an ongoing cross-border affair.
    At twenty-two, Ruksh hadn’t wanted to know.
    Khattak had hoped that time would mature his sister, lessening the pain of that early betrayal. He hadn’t expected that she would still blame him so many years later.
    She rushed in to defend herself.
    â€œIt’s not what he did, or the fact that I was young and stupid. It’s what you did, investigating him. I never asked you to do that.”
    To this day, Ruksh didn’t believe that Esa had simply stumbled upon her fiancé with his other girlfriend. Esa had accepted the anger and the blame, knowing that Ruksh needed an outlet that wouldn’t hurt quite as much.
    Her brother was a safe target because Esa would always love her.
    Though sometimes, he found it hard.
    â€œSamina would have hated your chauvinist attitude.”
    Khattak blanched at the mention of his wife.
    â€œStaying at the house when Mum leaves the country, checking up on us. Samina never let you treat her that way—the all-knowing Inspector Khattak. She led you around by the nose.”
    â€œYou don’t know anything about Samina,” Esa said quietly. “What she thought of me, how she saw me. She would have expected me to be involved in your life. That’s what family does. If you’re planning to be married, I would like to know. I would like to meet him.”
    Ruksh had the grace to look ashamed. She sank down on the bed, sending the magazines to the floor in a slithery heap. A book of poetry appeared at the top of the pile.
    Rooms Are Never Finished.
    A collection of poems by the great son of Kashmir, the poet Agha Shahid Ali.
    Khattak studied his sister.
    â€œHe wants to meet you, too,” she said at last. “We haven’t decided anything. We’re still—just talking.” She shuffled one of the silks with her foot. “I’m probably getting ahead of myself.”
    â€œHow did you meet?”
    â€œAt a halaqa.” Her eyes lit with excitement. “Esa, his poetry is beautiful, transformative. You won’t believe it.”
    She rummaged through the pile of books until she found a loose sheet of paper. She passed it to Khattak, who read it through. The last few lines of the poem made him pause.
    Reclaim me in promise
    Of victory sweet.
    O homeland,
    O heartache,
    When shall we meet?
    Did Ruksh see what he saw? The poem followed a well-established tradition of Arabic poetry, conflating the personal with the political.
    In this case, the markedly political.
    Did the poet mean Jerusalem, the eternal homeland, the longest exile of contemporary history?
    Where shall we fly when all else is lost?
    Or did he mean Iraq?
    A land that promised us wheat and stars.
    And if it were the latter, he could no longer deny to himself that his sister was speaking of Hassan Ashkouri.
    He gathered his thoughts, returned the poem to her.
    â€œThe halaqa was on poetry?”
    Ruksh frowned at him. “Not exactly. I mean, it was a proper halaqa—on theology, and historicity. It wasn’t lacking in any way, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
    It wasn’t. He was intrigued by his sister’s use of the word “historicity.” In Khattak’s experience, most amateur scholars of the Qur’an chose to treat it as an ahistorical text, or as a fixed articulation of principle, disconnected to seventh-century social conditions. Any attempt to make use of context to modify meaning or to extract an ethical reading of scripture from the prevailing conditions of the day was generally met with condemnation. Innovation in matters of religion was considered unlawful and destined to lead to misguidance, regardless of the poison that spilled forth in the name of purity, disguised as fidelity to the past.
    Khattak had never heard of a halaqa where anything other than primary or secondary religious texts were studied—poetry was far afield. In most mosques, any