You know how much easier things are for me since I changed my name?
In this passage, Abe defends himself for having changed his name after Amir teases him for no longer going by Hussein. The passage is significant because it speaks to how 9/11 led to increased surveillance of Muslim individuals and communities in the United States in the name of counter-terrorism efforts. To obscure his Muslim background, Abe changes his name, thereby avoiding prejudice and discrimination due to his religious beliefs.
Islam comes from the desert. From a group of tough-minded, tough-living people. Who saw life as something hard and relentless. Something to be suffered…
During their heated debate on the merits of Islamic tradition, Amir pushes back against Isaac's and Emily's embrace of traditional Islamic art forms by reminding them of the religious beliefs that he sees as undergirding the religion. The passage is significant because it reveals how sharply Amir has turned away from his Muslim upbringing. Amir's views are ironic because they align with the mainstream white American prejudice against Islam that characterized the post-9/11 era. Like conservative politicians, Amir believes Islam is a wholly negative force and that Isaac and Emily are naïve in their embrace of certain cultural products.
I went to talk to him in prison. And the man spent an hour trying to get me to pray again.
As Emily tries to convince Amir to support Imam Fareed in his case, Amir expresses frustration over what happened when Amir went to visit the imam in prison. Despite having been locked up for four months in a case of allegedly funding terrorism, the imam spent the entire meeting trying to convince Amir to start praying again. The passage presents an instance of situational irony: even though the man desperately needs Amir's help, he is more concerned with Amir's lapsed faith than his own legal case.
ISAAC: It’s the earnestness. The lack of irony. It’s unusual…
EMILY: Irony’s overrated.
ISAAC: Can’t say I disagree with that.
EMILY: But?
ISAAC: You know what you’re going to be accused of…
(Off Emily’s silence)
Orientalism…
I mean, hell. You’ve even got the brown husband.
In this exchange, Emily and Isaac discuss Emily's embrace of Islamic traditional art forms in her paintings. Because she is a white artist, Isaac believes she will be accused of orientalism—representing Asian/Middle Eastern tradition in a stereotyped way that embodies a colonialist attitude. Isaac also sees Emily's marriage to a Pakistani-American as further evidence critics could use against her, implying that her orientalism may be seen as influencing not just her art but her sexual preferences. The exchange is significant because it builds on the major theme of Orientalism. Emily, however, rejects the idea that she is fetishizing Islam, justifying her embrace of the culture as a sincere effort to reconnect with an influence that has always existed in Western art.
That’s why Jews were doing it. And then mergers and acquisitions became all the rage. And guys like Steven and Mort became the establishment. We are the new Jews.[...]That firm will never be ours. It’s theirs. And they’re always going to remind us that we were just invited to the party.
After worrying that the revelation of his Muslim background is jeopardizing his chances of making partner, Amir tries to convince Jory that they should quit the firm and start their own. He justifies the idea by explaining his belief that the Jewish-run firm will never allow people of color like himself and Jory to have an equal role in controlling the company. The passage is significant because it touches on the themes of antisemitism and identity politics. There are shades of anti-Jewish prejudice in Amir's words, but his view is complicated by the idea that Steven and Mort are prejudiced against him and Jory not because the bosses are Jewish but because Jewish identities have become subsumed into the mainstream American establishment; as the establishment, Steven and Mort, Amir believes, are disinclined to cede power to minorities even though they were considered minorities themselves when they started practicing law.
Thank you. It’s like one very long hate-mail letter to humanity.
While discussing the Quran, Isaac admits he hasn't read it, and what little he can remember of the Muslim sacred book is the anger expressed within it. In this passage, Amir thanks Isaac for supporting his point, and likens the Quran to hate mail addressed to humanity. The passage is significant because it further reveals Amir's embrace of Islamophobic interpretations of the religion.
ISAAC: See, this is the problem I’m having… You’re saying Muslims are so different. You’re not that different. You have the same idea of the good life as I do. I wouldn’t have even known you were a Muslim if it wasn’t for the article in the Times.
Pause.
AMIR: I’m not Muslim. I’m an apostate. Which means I’ve renounced my faith.
Continuing their long debate on the merits of Islam, Isaac touches a nerve when he brings up the New York Times article that implied Amir represented Imam Fareed. In this passage, Amir pushes back against the idea that he is Muslim, explaining that he has renounced his faith. The distinction between a Muslim and an apostate is crucial to Amir's identity, but the decision evidently means little to Isaac, whose ignorance is on display as he assumes Amir's support of the imam must mean he is Muslim. The passage is significant because it shows how nuances within Islam can be inscrutable to white Americans who see no difference between religious background and ethnic identity.
The Quran is about tribal life in a seventh-century desert, Isaac. The point isn’t just academic. There’s a result to believing that a book written about life in a specific society fifteen hundred years ago is the word of God: You start wanting to re-create that society. After all, it’s the only one in which the Quran makes any literal sense. That’s why you have people like the Taliban. They’re trying to re-create the world in the image of the one that’s in the Quran.
Deepening his negative opinion of the Quran, in this passage Amir explains that his rejection of Islamic tradition is because of the antiquated context in which the Quran emerged. Amir believes the Quran was written to make sense of a society that is long forgotten, and he argues that this archaic quality is what prompts fundamentalist groups like the Taliban to attempt to recreate the past by enforcing brutal laws that restrict the freedom of citizens in the areas they occupy.
To be Muslim—truly—means not only that you believe all this. It means you fight for it, too. Politics follows faith? No distinction between mosque and state? Remember all that? So if the point is that the world in the Quran was a better place than this world, well, then let’s go back. Let’s stone adulterers. Let’s cut off the hands of thieves. Let’s kill the unbelievers. And so, even if you’re one of those lapsed Muslims sipping your after-dinner scotch alongside your beautiful white American wife—and watching the news and seeing folks in the Middle East dying for values you were taught were purer—and stricter—and truer… you can’t help but feel just a little a bit of pride.
In this passage, Amir concludes his argument against Islam with an ironic twist: Even though he has argued against human rights abuses carried out by religious fundamentalists, Amir admits that even he, as a lapsed Muslim, is not immune from feeling that the pure and strict values of those fundamentalists are truer than the values he has adopted in America. The passage is significant because it complicates Amir's Muslim-American identity. Despite rejecting Islam and its tenets, Amir maintains that something deep in himself wants Islam to shape the world in its image.
ISAAC: Did you feel pride on September Eleventh?
AMIR (With hesitation): If I’m honest, yes.
EMILY: You don’t really mean that, Amir.
AMIR: I was horrified by it, okay? Absolutely horrified.
JORY: Pride about what? About the towers coming down? About people getting killed?
AMIR: That we were finally winning.
After Amir reveals that he still has stirrings of pride when he sees Islamic fundamentalists fighting for their rights in the Middle East, Isaac asks how Amir felt about 9/11. Undermining his guests' expectations, Amir confesses that he felt some pride in addition to his feeling that it was horrifying. The passage is significant because it marks the climax of Isaac's and Amir's argument. To support his claims about the pervasiveness of Islam's evilness, Amir uses himself as an example of how the hateful spirit he sees in the religion lives in people, even lapsed Muslims such as himself. In doing so, Amir presents a paradox for Isaac, who does not know what to make of the contradictions bound up in Amir's Islamophobic view of himself.
