American Dervish

Mina teaches Hayat to study the holy book of Islam, the Quran, and gives him her copy. The book features prominently as a tool for Hayat’s spiritual and emotional development, as well as a cornerstone of the Muslim faith. Akhtar shows the reader many sides of the Quran through excerpts, which characters use to connect with God, learn morality, and understand the history of Islam, and support their own tolerant or hateful attitudes. Hayat’s journey in particular reveals that with an incomplete perspective, certain readings of the Quran can inflict great harm upon others.  

Mina takes a highly respectful approach to the text, yet she adapts its instruction to her life with “ijtihad, or personal interpretation” (66). Mina instructs Hayat to handle the physical book with respect, including kissing its cover, and to study its words for deeper meaning. For a while, Hayat takes Mina’s teaching seriously, memorizing the Quran in tribute to her. He starts with a single passage at age eleven and has memorized eleven juz, or sections, of the holy book, by the following year. 

Others use the Quran to justify hate. After Imam Souhef speaks about a controversial Quranic passage at the mosque, Hayat favors his venomous anti-Semitic take on the damnation of “Bani Israel” (194), or Jewish people.