58 pages 1 hour read

American Dervish

Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2012

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Book 4-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 4, Chapter 14 Summary: “Sunil the Absurd”

During dinner at the Chatha residence, Mina meets Chatha’s recently divorced cousin Sunil. Mina seeks out the withdrawn and depressed man and shares about her own divorce. She singles him out later by serving dessert to him in front of the other men in attendance. 

Hayat’s father has forbidden further Quranic study. His mother asks him to keep his religious study to a minimum and not to bring up Nathan again. Hayat looks at Mina’s Quran and tells her that his father burned his copy. Crying, Mina says Naveed told her not to study the Quran with Hayat anymore and that she intends to obey him. 

Naveed’s drinking and bad temper worsen once Nathan takes a new job in Boston, ending his neurology partnership with Naveed to heal from his grief over Mina. Hayat hears his parents fighting more, and his father stays away from home with increasing frequency. Hayat overhears Mina telling his mother she should move out. Hayat attempts to interject, but his mother sends him out of the room. 

Hayat listens over the phone as his mother speaks with Ghaleb Chatha about Sunil and Mina. Chatha coldly asks to speak to Naveed for his blessing over Sunil’s proposal. Naveed will not talk to Chatha, who instead calls Mina’s parents in Pakistan for their blessing. Mina will marry Sunil, and Chatha will finance the wedding and fly her parents from Pakistan. 

Hayat picks up the phone to find Sunil’s lilting voice, “making every phrase sound like it was a question” (259), on the other end. He asks for Mina and is eager to meet Hayat in person. The boy is grateful to learn that Mina’s marriage will safeguard her and Imran from her ex-husband’s threats. 

Hayat now prays by sitting quietly and expressing devotion to Allah. His oft-repeated prayer is, “I give myself to You” (260). He also uses a translated copy of the Quran from his school library and memorizes it during recess. To steel himself in his study, he considers the eternal value of this practice. 

One morning Hayat observes his father furious—Naveed is upset about Mina’s engagement. Naveed has vacated the house in anticipation of Sunil’s visit that day. Muneer scolds Mina, who looks drawn and underweight, for not eating her breakfast. Mina is afraid of what Najat Chatha, Ghaleb’s wife, will think when she learns Naveed is not present. She says she has misrepresented herself to the Chathas as more conservative than she really is to secure their trust. When Muneer asks if she is sure about marrying Sunil, Mina says it is for Imran’s sake. 

Hayat meets the rodent-like Sunil as Mina wears a head-covering hijab for the first time in Hayat’s memory. Sunil asks about the boy’s Quranic study, and Mina is shocked to learn Hayat has memorized one third of the holy book. Hayat tells her about his study during recess, and the adults compliment his commitment. Sunil asks to hold Hayat’s hands in his own and tells him that his young nephew is already a hafiz

Mina shows Hayat her large diamond engagement ring. Sunil holds Imran on his lap, and the boy says, “I love you, Dad” (268). Sunil tells Hayat he will soon be his uncle. Muneer shoos the children outside to play in the neighborhood tree house. She tells Hayat not to provoke Imran. 

Hayat feels unsettled and jealous of Sunil’s nephew the hafiz as he and Imran walk to their neighbors’ home. Imran climbs up to their tree house. Hayat declines to join him and blames it on his broken wrist. He surveys the gray weather and feels the emptiness of oncoming loss. 

Book 4, Chapter 15 Summary: “The Farewell Begins”

The Chathas plan a large, lavish wedding for Mina and Sunil at a local hotel ballroom. Mina is upset by Ghaleb Chatha’s extravagance, but Muneer tells her to enjoy the luxury and let go the elements that bother her. Mina tells her the Chathas dislike Naveed and Muneer, whom they call “‘harebrained’” (272), a word Muneer doesn’t know. 

Hayat visits Mina in her room that evening and finds she has been crying. She is reading Nafahat, a book in Persian. The main character is Ansari, a Sufi poet learning complete devotion to God. Mina cries, and Hayat holds her. She says Sufis know the purpose of life’s hardships is to draw us to God, although Hayat does not understand what she means. 

Mina continues to lose weight and refuses to eat. Doctors say her problem is not physical but psychological. Mina’s parents, Rafiq and Rabia Ali, come to the house. Hayat notices physical similarities between Sunil and Mina’s father Rafiq, including that both men blink excessively.

During tea, Rafiq explains his and Rabia’s many troubles during their flight to Wisconsin. During a long, unplanned layover, the airline served vegetables to the passengers. When Rafiq found out the vegetables contained pork pieces, the Muslim passengers panicked. Rafiq comments on Mina’s haggard appearance. She says she has been ill, and Rafiq dismisses this excuse since fortune has favored her with a good man. 

Mina snaps at Rafiq to “Stop it” (278) and he glares at his daughter in surprise as Sunil tries to soothe the tension. Sunil gives Mina a biscuit to eat, and Rafiq challenges her to obey Sunil. Afterward, Muneer is annoyed at Rafiq’s bullying his daughter. Muneer explains Rafiq’s Napoleon complex to her son, alleging that he is power-hungry to compensate for his short stature. 

Naveed enters, fuming, after speaking with Sunil outside. Sunil thinks Mina has learned insolence toward men from Muneer. Naveed leaves just before Sunil enters. Muneer asks Sunil if he needs to talk with her, and Sunil says no. Muneer declares she is Mina’s “sister in spirit. Which is stronger than blood’” (282). She urges Sunil to remember this. 

Rafiq walks around, enjoying the large, clean American town. Naveed makes disdainful comments when Rafiq admires American values. At a funeral home, Rafiq sees an embalmed corpse, her face covered with makeup. Rafiq challenges Naveed about this peculiar American custom of putting cosmetics on the dead. 

Muneer sinks into sadness as Mina’s wedding approaches. Both Sunil and the Chathas obstruct Muneer’s attempts to participate in the wedding, and Sunil even tells Mina not to say Muneer’s name to him. Muneer asks for his forgiveness, but Sunil stands by his decision. Muneer calls Najat Chatha to request that Sonny Buledi receive a wedding invitation, since the family has concluded he was not responsible for the telegram. Najat refuses to talk to Muneer and tells Mina that Sonny Buledi will not receive an invitation. Najat also suggests that Muneer can skip the wedding as well. 

Muneer stays home on Thanksgiving Day as the Chathas gather with Mina for a pre-wedding celebration. Mina and Rabia encourage Muneer to attend. Rafiq says Muneer should not go but comforts her with loving words about her place in his family. Mina cries, as do Muneer and Rabia. The three women hold each other, and Rafiq comforts an upset Imran. 

Hayat sees the fracturing of his family as Mina prepares to leave them. His mother goes to bed, and his father drunkenly rakes leaves, telling Hayat to stay inside. Hayat attempts to do homework, but instead listens to every sound in the house until only silence remains. 

Book 4, Chapter 16 Summary: “Nikah”

At the Atwater Hotel, Naveed meets Mirza Hassan and his son Farhaz. Hayat recognizes Farhaz’s name: He is Sunil’s teenage hafiz nephew, but looks much less distinguished than what Hayat envisioned. Incredulous, Hayat asks Farhaz twice if he is a hafiz. Mirza gives Naveed his business card. Sunil enters, greeting the group, and is delighted that Farhaz and Hayat have met. Naveed states that Hayat no longer memorizes the Quran. Sunil departs to meet with Chatha and Souhef, both standing nearby, before his wedding ceremony, or nikah

Mirza rejoices in the match between Sunil and Mina, considering Sunil’s difficult divorce. A hotel staffer tells them to vacate the lobby, referring to them as “you people” (292). Naveed challenges these words. He sends Hayat with Mirza and claims he needs to make calls. 

Hayat enters the splendid hotel ballroom as people busily prepare for the wedding, setting out place cards and food. Mirza tells Farhaz to ask where they should sit and discusses his son’s intensive Quranic study with Hayat. The three walk to their table, but Mirza soon departs. In a detached tone, Farhaz asks about Hayat’s memorization. Cursing, Farhaz speaks ill of his years of study. 

Farhaz invites Hayat to explore the hotel with him. In the hall, Farhaz greets his cousin Hamza. The three boys sit on the ballroom’s staircase, and the older boys talk about their friend Zakiya’s physical appearance. Farhaz tells Hayat in crude tones about sexual intercourse and the differences between male and female anatomy. Hayat pretends he already knows these details, but the boys can tell he is lying. 

Hayat is dismayed. He realizes the boys are truthful when they describe semen, which he was shocked to find in his underwear in previous months. Farhaz and Hamza mock Hayat’s ignorance and describe oral sex to him. Hayat asks Farhaz if he has dreamed of the Prophet. Farhaz says he has not, and Hayat says he has. 

Zakiya approaches. Farhaz tells her they are educating Hayat about sex. Farhaz takes Zakiya with him and sends Hamza and Hayat to walk around the hotel alone. Hamza proposes they go to the hotel’s lake. The boys walk through a crowd of wedding guests as the staffer Hayat encountered earlier tries to usher the crowd to the proper area. 

At the lake, Hayat sees a blonde woman he recognizes but cannot place. Hayat shivers in the autumn chill, and Hamza asks about his dream featuring the Prophet. Hayat describes the dream, impressing Hamza, who says his father thinks the Prophet would dominate Israel if he were alive. Hayat, still cold, asks Hamza about the oral sex Farhaz mentioned earlier. Hamza further describes oral sex, adding to Hayat’s distress. 

Naveed and the blonde woman are standing at the hotel bar. Hayat watches his father kiss the woman, whom he now recognizes as the nurse who greeted him after his wrist surgery. Naveed runs after Hayat as he and Hamza hurry away. 

Mina feels ill and asks for cold air and cold water. Muneer fetches ice and returns to find Mina suffering from a panic attack. Mina repeats that she must get out and tries to climb out the window. Rabia and Muneer restrain her, and Najat gives her a Valium for her anxiety. 

Mina’s mood improves as she dresses, and Chatha enters to tell the women the imam is ready for the private wedding ceremony. Mina sits across from Sunil and Imran as Souhef leads the brief nikah. Muneer, Najat, Chatha, and Mina’s parents stand by as witnesses. Sunil offers an envelope full of cash, and the couple speaks their wedding vows to each other. They sign their marriage contract and enter a bedroom together in private. Rafiq takes the twenty-five thousand dollars Sunil offered and nods at Chatha in thanks. 

Guests approach Mina and Sunil on a dais in the ballroom, congratulating them and giving them money. Muneer finds Hayat and asks where he was. She also asks where Naveed is, and Hayat lies. Muneer commands her son to find Naveed, and Hayat reluctantly exits the ballroom. Farhaz and Zakiya approach, holding hands, and Zakiya says she must return to her parents. Hayat speaks with Farhaz coldly before the older boy walks away. 

In the ballroom, at the walima, Imam Souhef describes the importance of husbands loving their wives. He prompts Sunil to take Mina’s hand twice before Sunil does so, and the crowd laughs. Muneer again asks Hayat where his father is and sends him to the men’s seating area. Souhef continues his words of wisdom and blessing over the newlyweds. 

Sunil whispers in Souhef’s ear. The imam calls Hayat and Farhaz to the stage, and Hayat nervously approaches. The imam asks Hayat how much of the Quran he has memorized, and the crowd applauds. Souhef says Sunil would like both young men to recite from Surah An-Nisa. Hayat is alarmed at first, unsure if he knows this surah but realizing that he has in fact memorized the passage. 

Farhaz begins reciting the selection in Arabic. Hayat feels guilty for judging Farhaz and observes the audience admiring the other boy’s accomplishment. In the distance, Hayat sees his father watching. Hayat begins reciting the An-Nisa in English. Souhef stops him, asks if he knows the original Arabic, and then tells the surprised crowd that Hayat only knows the English translation of the Quran. He sends Hayat and Farhaz to their seats. 

Farhaz mocks, “You’re a moron” (317). Hayat asks Souhef if he can still be a hafiz, and Souhef replies that he must learn the Quran in the holy language of Arabic. Hayat imagines laughter in every ambient noise, even as Rafiq congratulates him and Chatha stares silently at him. He retreats to an empty table at the back of the room and finds that his father is no longer standing at the door.  

Book 4, Chapter 17 Summary: “The Long Unraveling”

Muneer, Hayat, Rabia, and Rafiq take a taxi home. Muneer stews over Naveed’s unexplained absence as Hayat ruminates on the shame of his recitation at the wedding. He sleeps on the living room couch, and his father wakes him. Hayat smells alcohol on Naveed’s breath as he explains that he left the wedding “disgusted by what they’re doing to your auntie, and what they did to you. Those people are idiots. Idiots. And she’s letting herself become one of them” (319-320). 

Naveed is not the fool Muneer makes him out to be—the true fools are the Pakistanis who attended Mina’s wedding. He compares Hayat to himself, explaining that his son does not need to follow the Quran but rather find his own path. He shakes Hayat, asking if he understands. He holds his son and weeps. 

Mina and Sunil come to the Shah house the following day to collect the rest of Mina’s belongings. Imran and Hayat watch television, and Imran embraces him. Hayat cries, “I wasn’t a good big brother to you” (322), but Imran disagrees. Mina says a tearful goodbye to Hayat and explains that true faith is more important than earning the title of hafiz. As the families say their goodbyes, Muneer and Mina share a long, emotional embrace. Mina thanks Naveed for his hospitality, and Naveed hands Imran over to Sunil. Imran says goodbye to Hayat, adding that he will always remember the moment in their castle keep. 

At school, Hayat returns the school library copy of the Quran that he has studied during recess. On his way, the school janitor Mr. Gurvitz pays him a compliment. Hayat drops off the Quran to the library and will not read it again for a decade. Mina and Muneer speak on the phone every day until suddenly no one picks up Muneer’s calls. Sunil has beaten Mina for asking a question about his career path. Muneer is incensed at Sunil’s abuse, but Najat supports husbands beating wives, reading a verse from the Quran to Mina to justify spousal abuse and revealing that Chatha abuses her as well. 

Haunted, Hayat prays that Sunil will no longer beat Mina. Mina refuses to leave her new husband; Sunil will move them to Kansas City so he can resume his ophthalmology practice there. Muneer worries that Sunil’s abuse will escalate and wonders if he abused his first wife too.

A friend of Sunil’s first wife tells Mina that he beat her, belying Sunil claims that his first wife left him for another man. Sunil’s jealousy and controlling behavior escalate in Kansas City. He forbids Mina from speaking with other men and launches into a frenzy when she glances at any man. Once Mina becomes pregnant, Sunil forces her to remain home. 

Muneer, distraught over her friend’s misfortune, develops stomach ulcers and falls into a deep depression. Hayat is racked with regret and befriends a Jewish boy in his class to assuage his guilt. 

Hayat grows older, but his pain over Mina remains. He is grief-struck upon seeing a woman at an ice cream shop who appears to have covered her bruises with makeup, as Mina did. Many times, he apologizes to Mina on the phone for condemning Nathan in front of Imran. As he grows, he resists thinking about and speaking to Mina, but his mother’s tether to her friend keeps Mina’s memory alive in their home. 

Sunil’s financial and professional troubles lead him to overdosing on Mina’s Valium. He recovers, but his behavior grows rasher. He threatens his wife with a gun and directs it at himself when Mina commits even petty infractions. Naveed contacts Chatha, who threatens to withhold financial support from Sunil if he continues to use the gun. Sunil gets rid of the gun, but asks Mina to stop communicating with Muneer. 

Mina argues with Muneer, dismissing Muneer’s recommendation to leave Sunil, and accusing Muneer of spreading her depression to the people in her life. Muneer asks Hayat if Mina is right, and he tells his mother she brings him joy. The women fight over the phone again, and when Sunil finds out, he ends their contact for good. 

Sunil calls to tell Muneer that Mina has developed serious uterine cancer and that he blames himself. Mina, however, disagrees and deems the cancer as God’s will for her. 

Hayat visits Mina two months before she dies. Sunil, visibly aged in the eight years since Hayat saw him last, picks up Hayat and his mother at the Kansas City airport. Sunil speaks of Mina’s assured place in Paradise and laments his mistreatment of her. In Mina’s hospital room, she and Hayat catch up about his college life. 

Hayat stays in Mina’s hospital room all night. In the morning, she reads him a quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald, who writes about the challenge of maintaining paradoxical beliefs. Hayat expresses regret at his hateful words about Nathan. Mina says she chose her path and that he should not dwell on it anymore.

Hayat confesses that he sent the telegram to her first husband. Though Mina is surprised, she says Hayat is not responsible for her life’s unfortunate circumstances. She says it was her choice as well as Allah’s plan, but Hayat disagrees. He says she should have done the right thing rather than try to secure a place in Paradise. 

Mina says she did just that, since she pursues God on the earth rather than working for the afterlife. Hayat challenges her excusing her own hardship as God’s will. Mina replies that a dervish named Chishti suffered extreme physical pain that he attributed to an experience of God’s presence. Mina concludes that God shows himself even through suffering. 

Epilogue Summary: “1995”

After college, Hayat moves to Boston with Rachel, now his girlfriend of two years. He interns at the Atlantic magazine and writes at a local Middle Eastern coffee shop on Saturdays. One day he spots Nathan in the coffee shop. Hayat nervously invites Nathan to join him and apologizes for creating discord between him and Mina. Nathan graciously accepts the apology. 

Hayat shares that his parents have not fared well in the years since Mina left. Nathan expresses affection for Naveed. Nathan already knows that Mina has died. After Mina’s marriage to Sunil, Nathan and Mina exchanged letters. 

Nathan says he begged Mina to leave her abusive husband and never healed from their breakup. A postal worker named Sheniqua, with whom Mina was friendly, helped deliver their letters in secret so Sunil never discovered them. Hayat asks if Mina and Nathan ever met again, but Nathan does not answer. Nathan says goodbye, and Hayat attempts to tell him about the telegram, but Nathan stops him before he can speak. Hayat ruminates over the conversation after Nathan leaves.

Hayat walks outside through the city, feeling reinvigorated. A passage from the Quran returns to his mind. Hayat sits beside the Charles River beneath oncoming rainclouds. He feels thankful and remembers the silence Mina taught him to hear as a boy. He asks why he feels gratitude and focuses on each ambient sound around him until all he can hear is his heart. 

Chapter 14-Epilogue Analysis

Having forsaken her beloved, Mina chooses a more traditional path that will appease her parents and protect her son from harm. In the Shah home, she has been free to practice her faith, pursue a career, dress the way she wants, and speak her mind. Now her husband subjects her to the same patriarchal tyranny that she once experienced under her father and her first husband.

Naveed, protective of Mina’s happiness, rages at her impending marriage to Sunil and drunkenly breaks down to his son in a rare moment of vulnerability. To Naveed, people like Chatha maintain needless contempt for those who don’t follow their ways. Naveed laments that Chatha and the community around him is shackling his friend Mina to a life of sorrow. 

The recitation at Mina’s wedding upends Hayat’s aspirations of becoming a hafiz after more than a year of tireless memorization. The hafiz he encounters only further highlights Hayat’s naiveté and contributes to his adolescent disillusionment. Farhaz has no interest in asceticism, unlike Hayat, who has pledged himself to a life of purity and resisted his sexual impulses for many months. His father consoles him, saying, “no matter what they made you feel tonight, you are not the fool. Those people are like sheep, following each other around, always waiting for someone else to lead them” (320). After the events of Mina’s wedding, Hayat abandons his study of the Quran.

Mina accepts her suffering as a means of spiritual transcendence, but she still expresses the pain of losing Nathan and marrying a man she does not love. Later, when Hayat visits Mina on her deathbed, the now college-aged narrator challenges Mina’s perspective, but reveals that he never grasped the greater meaning of her philosophy, even at the height of his religious devotion. She is a dervish, experiencing God through pain and possessing pure intention, which surpasses all ritual and custom. 

Nathan and Mina both experienced tragedy of different kinds after their breakup, their lives still in strange parallel. Also like Mina, Nathan has not let his suffering inhibit his magnanimous nature. In the Epilogue, he expresses no bitterness to Hayat for his wrongs and stops him from confessing he sent the telegram. Akhtar does not reveal whether Mina and Nathan saw each other again, but the moment between Hayat’s question and Nathan’s departure is a pause not unlike the mystical silence Mina helped Hayat find as a child.

Hayat’s former training returns to him as he walks by the river and, as Mina taught him, chooses silent reflection. He follows faith of a different kind than before, combining the wisdom of his father and Mina: He is following his own path but still choosing to connect with something higher than himself. 

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