religion one year at the hajj. One evening together, Amir and Jamal had watched the Al-Jazeera interview with chief executioner Abu Badr without moving or speaking. Finally Amir broke the silence. “That man is sick! See, Jamal, that is the problem with Islam. It hasn’t progressed for fourteen centuries. It’s in a permanent time warp. How can this butcher slaughter people each day and then go home and have dinner with his family? Has his conscience evaporated? And yet he’s some perverse kind of celebrity