serious. Even good colleagues start to look for ways around it. They don’t come right out with it, of course. They say something like, Islam is the only way to resist Western decadence.’ He threw his head back and laughed. ‘What kind of a statement is that?’
‘They are afraid,’ said Rania, ‘that if they don’t conform they will be persecuted.’
‘Persecuted by whom?’ asked Makana.
‘By society,’ Sami’s glasses glinted with defiance. ‘The point is not about whether or not I am a Muslim, but whether you have the right to call yourself a better Muslim than me.’
All of this was beginning to sound a little too familiar. ‘I met someone today,’ Makana said, setting down his glass. ‘The wife of Ridwan Hilal.’
‘You met her?’ Rania’s eyes widened. ‘How?’
‘She’s connected to a case I’m working on.’
‘Now that’s enough, habibti. He can’t talk about his work. He would have to kill you.’
They all laughed. Sami, leaning forward to scoop a handful of peanuts up from the bowl on the table, went on. ‘His wife has reason to be worried. Sheikh Waheed recently repeated his statement about Hilal being an apostate. That lot won’t be happy until he is dead or in exile.’
‘Sheikh Waheed, the television imam?’ asked Makana. ‘I remember it as a disagreement about theology.’
‘It was nothing to do with theology,’ Rania corrected him. ‘It was much more simple than that. It’s about personal jealousy.’
‘You see how we agree about everything?’ Sami grinned.
‘Ridwan Hilal applied for the post of Professor of Arabic Studies at the university,’ Rania explained. ‘He had to submit his work to a faculty board for approval. Well, two of the board recommended him for promotion, but the third was Professor Serhan, who turned down the request. The decision had to be unanimous. Nobody understood. Hilal was highly respected and clearly deserved the post. He protested the decision and the matter was referred to another seven-man committee. By then the story had gone public. The television got hold of Sheikh Waheed and decided to stir things up.’
Sheikh Waheed was a controversial imam with the following of a pop star. The media loved him for his provocative declarations. Waheed enjoyed shocking people. It made for good viewing.
‘Waheed is a government man,’ said Sami. ‘He makes them look like they are more Islamic than the fanatics. With him on their side no one can accuse them of not being religious enough.’
Rania continued the story: ‘When Waheed pronounced his verdict in his televised sermon one Friday afternoon after prayers, that was pretty much the end of it. Nobody dared go up against someone like Waheed. Not even government ministers disagree with him, and certainly not the university committee, which naturally voted to deny Hilal the post.’
‘Waheed then filed a civil case against Hilal,’ Sami went on, ‘accusing him of apostasy and of turning his back on Islam to marry a Christian woman. It was not just the end of his career, it was almost the end of his life.’
‘Once they smell blood, they go in for the kill,’ Rania concluded.
‘It was what you might call a lynching,’ offered Sami. ‘Hilal was a specialist and widely regarded as quite brilliant in the field of Arabic studies.’ His voice trailed away as he went into the kitchen to fetch more beer.
Makana thought about Meera and her clandestine existence at Blue Ibis Tours. Every day she carried with her the memory of how her husband was made an outcast and how their marriage was condemned publicly. No wonder she wanted to keep her identity secret. It also explained the horror she must have felt on opening those letters for the first time. Naturally she assumed those words were meant for her.
‘No one dared stand up for Hilal,’ Sami was saying. ‘He was tried by silent complicity.’
There was a ring at the door announcing the arrival of their food. A young man in a baseball cap appeared. While Sami paid him, Rania carried it through to the kitchen and unpacked it onto plates. In the old days, Sami would have served it directly from the boxes it came in, but times had changed and plates were now in order. Soon a small feast was arrayed before them on the low table. Roast chicken, kibba and taamiya rissoles, along with a range of salads. For a time the talk was restricted to comments on the food, and the merits of one takeaway service versus another. It was a conversation Sami and Rania appeared to have had before.