Summary
The characters raise another toast to Emily’s inclusion, and Isaac says that Emily Hughes-Kapoor is a name to be contended with. Jory asks where in India Kapoor is from. Amir pauses before asking why she wants to know, quickly adding that Steven asked the same of him earlier that day. Emily says it’s a pretty common Punjabi name. Isaac says he is flying to Delhi the day after tomorrow for a studio visit with Sothi Sikander. Jory says she isn’t going along because Ezra has school. Isaac corrects her, saying she’s being polite. Isaac says he hates flying, which has been made worse by the hysteria around airport security. Isaac asks Amir what flying is like for him. Emily says Amir goes straight to the agents and offers himself up. Amir says he knows he is being profiled, so he figures he may as well make it easier for everyone involved.
Amir says the next terrorist attack is probably going to come from a guy who looks like him, and Emily disagrees, saying it will probably be a white guy who’s got a gun he shouldn’t have. Isaac suggests that if every person of Middle Eastern descent started complying in the way Amir does, it would allow people to be too comfortable in their suspicions. Amir chooses to interpret the statement as Isaac admitting to having suspicions, which Isaac pushes back against, claiming he meant the American public. However, Amir says he doesn’t blame Isaac for having suspicions.
Before Isaac can defend himself, Emily’s phone rings: it is Abe, calling her because Amir didn’t return his calls. Emily doesn’t answer. She tells her guests they are having fennel salad as a starter. Isaac makes disparaging, joking comments about Jory’s cooking until she goes to help Emily in the kitchen. Both women exit. Isaac apologizes to Amir if he brought up something sensitive between Amir and Emily. Amir explains that it’s no secret he and Emily don’t agree about Islam. Amir says he thinks it is a backward way of thinking—and being. Isaac suggests Amir’s comment is too broad and says Islam is one of the world’s great spiritual traditions.
Amir asks if Isaac is reading Rumi, and Isaac says he is, and Rumi is great, but that’s not what he is talking about. Isaac mentions Hanif Saeed, a devout Muslim sculptor whose pillar-like forms are testimony to the power of faith. Amir interrupts to ask if he has read the Quran, saying that when it comes to Islam, pillars don’t matter, paintings don’t matter—only the Quran matters. Emily and Jory re-enter with salad bowls as he speaks. Emily asks what he means by paintings don’t matter. Amir defends himself, saying that the Prophet said “angels don’t enter a house where there are pictures and/or dogs.” Amir’s point is that a few artists do not reflect the Muslim psyche. He says 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.
Isaac reminds Amir that Jews also suffered in the desert for centuries. Amir says Jews reacted differently, looking at things from a hundred different angles. Amir says that Muslims don’t think in the same way; they submit. He says Islam means submission, by the way. Isaac says the issue is not Islam, but “Islamo-Fascism.” Amir points out the hypocrisy of Isaac not having read the Quran but having read Martin Amis and Christopher Hitchens, who Amir calls “sanctimonious British bullies,” and then thinking he knows something about Islam. Jory and Emily interrupt and coax their arguing husbands to the table. Isaac concedes that he needs to read more of the Quran, which he read some of in college. He says he remembers the anger. Amir thanks him and adds that it is “one very long hate-mail letter to humanity.” Emily disagrees: she grants that the Quran sees humanity as stubborn and self-interested, but doesn’t believe the holy text is wrong to do so. Isaac says that there is a difference between religion and political use of religion. Amir says in Islam there is no division between church and state.
The couples pause the heated discussion to comment on the quality of Emily’s cooking. Isaac says Amir is saying Muslims are different, but Amir himself isn’t—he has the same idea of “the good life” as Isaac does. Isaac says he wouldn’t have known Amir was Muslim were it not for the Times article. After a pause, Amir says he isn’t Muslim, he’s an apostate, which means he has renounced his faith. According to the Quran, Amir says, this is punishable by death. Emily refutes the point, saying the punishment is unspecified, but has been interpreted as punishable by death.
Amir concedes the point, but brings up wife-beating, paraphrasing a passage from the Quran that depicts the angel Gabriel teaching Muhammad that men are in charge of women, and therefore obliged to beat them if they disobey. Emily says the root verb could mean leave, not beat. Jory says she has no problem with the French banning face coverings, saying one has to draw the line somewhere. Isaac says Jory has a Kissinger quote above her desk: “If faced with choosing justice or order, I’ll always choose order.” Jory defends herself by saying that you realize, when you pull yourself out of the ghetto, that order is where it’s at. Isaac says his trainer’s sister wears the veil as a point of pride and as a choice. Jory cuts in to say the veil is evil, saying that when you erase a face, you erase individuality, which doesn't happen to men.
Amir tells Isaac he still isn’t getting the point: Believing a book written about life in a specific society fifteen hundred years earlier is the word of God leads one to want to recreate the society in which the Quran makes any sense. This, Amir says, is what the Taliban is trying to do. And even lapsed Muslims in the West watch what they are doing with pride. Isaac asks if Amir felt pride on 9/11. Amir says if he is honest, yes. He was proud that “we” were finally winning—he forgot which “we” he was. He says the feeling is tribal, in the bones, because it was how he was brought up. Emily takes his glass and goes to make him coffee.
After a long pause, Amir suggests Isaac must feel similarly about Israel sometimes—the blush of pride he gets when Israel throws its military weight around. Isaac says he is critical of Israel, like a lot of Jews. Amir admits he sometimes likes hearing Ahmadinejad (former president of Iran) talk about wiping Israel into the ocean. He says it’s wrong, and the sentiment comes from Islam. Isaac disputes Amir’s generalizations, and Amir calls him naïve. Amir exits to the kitchen after Emily asks for him.
While Emily and Amir are off stage in the kitchen, Isaac vents his anger about Amir’s condescension, referring to him as an asshole and “a closet jihadist.” Jory tells him to shut up. Isaac says he’ll never understand what she sees in Amir. Jory says he’s off tonight and suggests he might suspect something about Jory having made partner at the firm. Jory says she wanted to tell Amir herself, but she has been bound by a confidentiality agreement with her employers.
Analysis
Evidently uncomfortable with the discussion of Emily’s portrait of him, Amir redirects the conversation in Scene 3 to Emily’s landscape paintings, which he says he prefers. Isaac refutes the idea that the landscapes were better, bringing the conversation back to the subject of Emily’s use of Islamic forms, which Isaac sees as rich and universal. The way Isaac talks about Emily’s art is more or less identical to the way she justified her practice to him in Scene 2, suggesting that Isaac has shed all of his previous skepticism and more or less based his new show around Emily’s work and her ideas. With Isaac’s radical shift in attitude, Akhtar foreshadows the eventual revelation of his and Emily’s affair.
The conversation about Emily’s work leads to a discussion of what it is like to fly in post-9/11 America. Isaac complains about the hysteria around flying, alluding to the heightened airport security measures that were introduced in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. While these security measures are a nuisance for a white person like Isaac, Amir reveals that he submits to airport agents because he knows he is being racially profiled and suspected of terrorism. The juxtaposition of the two men’s experiences reveals just one of many stark differences in how white Americans’ and Muslim Americans’ lives are affected by the U.S. government’s war on terror.
Isaac argues that Isaac’s submission to airport authorities suggests that there is something justified in racial profiling of people of South Asian and Middle Eastern descent at airports, saying that if others did what Amir does, it would allow people to become too comfortable in their suspicions. Instead of responding to the argument in good faith, Amir chooses to interpret the point Isaac makes as an admission of Isaac’s suspicion of Muslim men, further forcing Isaac into a corner by saying that he doesn’t blame Isaac for his suspicions.
When Jory and Emily are out of the room, Akhtar builds on the theme of Islamophobia by having Amir and Isaac discuss their polarized opinions of Islam. While Isaac argues that Islam is one of the world's great spiritual traditions, Amir calls Islam a backward way of thinking. As their argument goes on, Amir reveals more of his negative opinion of Islam and the Quran, and through the conversation, it becomes clear that Isaac has formed his idea of Islam through writers and artists who Amir believes do not reflect the “Muslim psyche.” Injecting a note of humor, Akhtar interrupts the argument by having Amir and Isaac’s wives politely move them to the table to eat dinner. But however much the group may want to avoid this uncomfortable conversation about “Islamo-Fascism,” Amir and Isaac’s discussion only grows more heated.
Amir manages to make Isaac concede that he has not read the entire Quran, Islam’s sacred book, and therefore Isaac has a limited understanding of Islam. What Isaac can remember from the Quran is anger, and Amir comments that it is “one very long hate-mail letter to humanity.” As the conversation goes on, Amir’s provocative statements become increasingly ironic, as he repeats what would be considered mainstream Islamophobic talking points. Although much of his family is Muslim, Amir sees nothing virtuous about Islam, and he supports his position by citing how the Quran advocates for cutting off thieves’ hands, beating disobedient wives, and punishing apostates (such as himself) with death.
The argument reaches a climax when Amir supports his opinion that Islam is a brutal and vengeful religion by saying that he felt a blush of pride on 9/11, despite having renounced the religion he grew up with. Despite his efforts to root out what he sees as the hateful aspects of Islam, he nonetheless was proud that “we” were winning, adding that he forgot which “we” he was. The controversial statement shows Amir in an uncharacteristic moment of vulnerability and helps the audience understand why Amir has harbored so much shame and secrecy around his Muslim background, fearing not just outside scrutiny but an inner, bone-deep hatred he attributes to the faith he was raised in.
While Amir’s confession complicates the play’s themes of Islamophobia, Muslim-American identity, Isaac is shocked and offended, calling Amir a “closet jihadist” when Emily pulls Amir off stage. Jory is less concerned with Amir’s comments and more concerned with the emotional state they suggest, worrying that Amir must know her secret. With this instance of dramatic irony, Akhtar makes the audience brace for the conflict that will surely erupt when Amir learns what Jory has been hiding.
