Nün

She sits opposite me. There is no power and there is nothing to do. We have not talked for a while.
An incomplete, incoherent philosophy changed her life.
My legs swing from the charpai. I think my impatience is well-disguised. As always.
"You know..ive just never..believed. When we were children and Mama made me pray, i just couldnt come up with an image..something up there.." She's saying,almost apologetically.

So it is as I thought, you are using a school of philosophy to make an excuse, to justify your disbelief. The intellect is not even involved. Whatever fits your preconcieved notions becomes your way of life? What of investigation, of contemplation, of exploration?
I am monotone, seemingly detached.

Tell me, according to existentialism..how would you punish a man for killing another? What would you do in a court of an existentialist state? What would Sartre say about capital punishment? Is murder wrong? I ask. The sickness at the bottom of my stomach seeps to my throat and i know my voice wavers.

She falters to my satisfaction,expectation. She tells me she is not sure, she cannot say there is only one way to look at it, different existentialist philosophers would have different views..
She doesn't know and doesn't care, she just loves the way it makes her feel. It makes so much sense. It frees her. To draw,to feel, to create art.She always felt this way and then she found out an entire generation had verbalised it. She is reading more and more. Being and Nothingness at least 4 times. She laughs with joy as she tells me its her Bible now.

I feel helpless.

We continue to talk untill i hear the Adhan.
Ive lectured, ive questioned, ive listened. I have pretended to understand. I have tried not to preach. I have tried to understand the completely irrational reasons, the emotional reactions behind her new belief system.

Little does she know how we will never be the same again. To me. She is an alien. The Other.
My own flesh and blood.
Little does she know i died a little inside that day.

As i look back with honesty, alone in candlelight,my self-righteous indignation is shed,discarded with my clothes. Who is responsible for this? An infant, born into the Truth not believing,not desirous of knowing?
I change and bend my head in a tearful prostration, a sinner like any other.
Subhana Rabiyul-Allah. Subhana Rabiyul-Allah. Subhana Rabiyul-Allah.

I pray to the Creator she doesn't believe in.
I slam my fists against the prayermat.
Almost enraged at the God who never gave her faith.