. . .

. . .

~

"It was thanks to Allah's mercy that you (Oh Muhammad) were gentle to them. Had you been rough, hard-hearted, they would surely have scattered away from you. So pardon them, and pray for their forgiveness, and take counsel from them in matters of importance. And when you are resolved on a course of action, place your trust in Allah; surely Allah loves those who put their trust (in Him)". — Qur'an (3:159)

~

On her day off, after a peaceful sleep filled with dreams of dark-eyed, dimpled men, Zoya gets ready and leaves her house. She settles in her car and places sunglasses on her head. Her phone is thrown onto the passenger seat, the lock screen lighting up with notifications that she knows are from her board of directors about the press having released the news. They're going to be wild with glee at people's reactions, and her employees will finally put two and two together and understand why there have always been international agents meeting in Zoya's office.

Her board of directors will also carefully be observing Zaki Ahmed's reaction. Because the CEO of Paki Enterprises — Zameer's number one rival company — will be losing his chill when he sees Zameer's shoot to success.

She grins. "Time to treat yourself, Zoya." She makes her way onto the highway with her windows rolled all the way down, pressing on the gas aimlessly, navigating through the lanes and yelling at various drivers before taking her exit.

When she's stopped at a red light in the local area to her favorite restaurant, she drums her fingers on the steering wheel. Memories of last night replay in her head over and over again.

A single voice stands out.

Was it necessary to humiliate him in return?

Haven't you heard that an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, Ms. Zoya?

I'm sorry, but this isn't fair.

And then afterwards, the pained, I'm straying off the path.

The light turns green and Zoya presses down on the gas. Suddenly, a strange sound begins to come from her dashboard. Furrowing her brows, she ignores it at first but becomes increasingly worried as the insistent, rhythmic thrumming becomes more pronounced with each passing minute.

"Kya hai, yaar?" She pats the dashboard in annoyance after five minutes. "Please don't create any problems for me."

As if in reply, a loud, guttural noise releases from the engine and several signs light up above the speedometer, alerting her of potential danger. Her eyes flick to the rear view mirror, which showcases the small cloud of smoke rising in the back. A honk follows from the car behind her — probably somebody advising her to take caution. She panics and pulls over on the side of the road.

"What the hell, yaar?" Zoya whines, banging her head against the steering wheel. "Why?"

She pulls the key out of the ignition and sits there expectantly. "What the hell am I supposed to do?" Having never witnessed her car breaking down, Zoya is overcome by confusion. She opens her door and walks around to the front. Popping her hood as everyone does in the movies, she pushes strands of hair away from her face and stares down at the machinery.

"What the hell are all these?" she cries out, scrunching her face as she fingers the tubes running along the length of the engine. "What are these, worms? And what the hell is this?" She points to what looks like a white bottle nestled into all the machinery. "What is this, water?"

After several minutes of poking around at the machinery, Zoya is forced to resign helplessly and phone a towing service. She yells at them when she hears their towing price and then, after having negotiated it, turns the phone off angrily.

"This was supposed to be my one-day vacation. I was supposed to celebrate the look I'm going to see on Zaki Ahmed's face," Zoya whines, back in her car. "Now I've got to sit here for hours, waiting for these idiots to come take my baby away." She pats her dashboard. "Why, oh, why? Couldn't you breathe for a bit longer? You've never given me issues, so why now?" She gives the steering wheel an accusing glare.

Zoya grabs her phone and dials her driver's number. He picks up on the fourth ring. "Hello?"

"Raheem, where the hell are you?"

Pause. "At the dealership . . . ?" His tone suggests that this is obvious information.

"The dealership?" Zoya huffs. "What the hell are you doing at — " Oh. She smacks her forehead, suddenly remembering. What a great time for me to have demanded a newer car. "Salaam."

Throwing her phone aside with a groan, she turns to observe her surroundings.

There is a cluster of buildings nearby, one of which is a mosque. Zoya immediately looks away from it.

When the time for dhuhr comes, Zoya is tense, knowing there is nowhere to pray around her car. By the time she gets home, the time for prayer will probably be extensively delayed. Praying inside her car will be cramped and uncomfortable and there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to pray near this busy road.

Unless she's willing to risk being hit by a car.

She can already envision the headlines. CEO Zoya Zameer: Bulldozed By Car.

Grumbling, she grabs her purse and makes her way to the mosque. "It'll just be for ten minutes," she chides herself. "I'll be in and out."

Although it doesn't look like it from the outside, the mosque is extravagantly decorated on the inside. This, however, doesn't lift Zoya's mood in the slightest. She slaps her shoes onto the rack and begins to walk upstairs, where a small placard indicates the sisters' musallah.

Please don't let anyone be here.

Unfortunately, her fears come true when she enters the musallah and finds several women scattered about. She immediately averts her eyes and secludes herself to a corner, wanting to avoid as much interaction as possible. But she doesn't miss the way two women reading the Qur'an look up at her when she enters, their eyes raking over her outfit: a simple white dress and jeans, along with a sequined dupatta. A Zameer dupatta, of course, because she never leaves the house without at least some form of Zameer apparel.

A neon board at the front of the musallah indicates that they will be starting dhuhr in a few minutes. Zoya pulls out a less transparent dupatta from her purse and wraps it around her head.

Suddenly, a heaviness settles in her chest. She tries to control the short spasms that plague her breathing but to no avail. Zoya presses her head into her hands. All of it — the mosque, the extravagant decor, the shoe rack, the twirling ceiling fans, the women scrutinizing her with beady eyes — is too much. She is brutally elbowed back into that capsule of time where she was under similar ceilings, a similar environment. Around similar beady eyes.

The adhaan begins and Zoya lets out a sigh of relief. The sooner the prayer starts, the sooner she will be able to leave.

The women begin to form two rows and Zoya reluctantly stands to join their congregation, ignoring the silent, watchful woman next to her. The prayer begins.

All throughout the prayer, an extreme sense of discomfort plagues Zoya. Having gone almost five years avoiding congregational prayers, she wants nothing more than to break hers and back away from these women, who make her feel like a puppet attached to strings. Her breathing becomes more laborious and when the prayer finally finishes, Zoya hurriedly steps into the row all the way at the back to complete her sunnah and nafl prayers.

Once done, she grabs her purse and is ready to dash out when a woman clad in a long abaya and a voluminous scarf approaches her. "Assalamu 'Alaikum, sister," she says gruffly. It is the same woman who had been praying next to Zoya. She holds a tasbeeh in her hand.

Zoya panics. "W-Wa 'Alaikum Salaam."

The woman raises her eyebrows. "I have not seen you here before. Are you from around here?"

Zoya shakes her head. "No. My car broke down so I had to stop here." Otherwise believe me, I'd rather fly to the moon and pray there. "I better be going. My towing service might be here."

The woman extends a hand to stop her and Zoya blanches, slowly removing herself from the woman's grasp. "Sister, I just wanted to tell you that your prayer is not accepted in this condition." Between snippets of conversation, she moves beads along the tasbeeh and whispers prayers under her breath.

Zoya furrows her brows. "In what condition?"

The woman gestures to Zoya's attire, tasbeeh dangling from her hand. "In these clothes."

Zoya looks down at herself, then back up at the woman. Her blood begins to boil. I should never have come here. I should have prayed on the busy street, risk of being run over included and all. "What's wrong with my clothes?"

"Sister, have some hayaa, please," the woman scoffs. "Do you really believe Allah will accept your prayer when you traipse around in fitted jeans like this?" She gestures to Zoya's legs.

Zoya clenches her jaw and fires a question of her own at the woman. "Do you really believe you know who Allah accepts and who he doesn't?"

"Astaghfirullah. Hold your tongue, sister," she responds sharply.

Zoya shakes her head. Her tongue itches to spit out more to quell the fire erupting within her heart. The fire that has been dormant for so long and has suddenly been revived after coming to a masjid of all places.

But it isn't worth it.

"I really need to get going," Zoya snaps.

"You see that girl over there?" The woman continues, pointing to a woman around Zoya's age. "She's just like you. But she's wearing modest clothing, you see? Her skirt falls to her feet and her scarf hides all of her hair." She speaks harshly, eyes disapprovingly lingering over Zoya. Their conversation has caught the attention of several other women around them.

Zoya laughs mirthlessly, having reached the height of her patience. "This is the problem with you religious people. You walk around decorating your mosques and inviting others to Islam, yet you don't have the decency to speak properly to people. You keep prayers on your tongue and run around with tasbeehs in your hands, but you have the audacity to openly shame others. You love making comments about other people's dressing or their outward spirituality. You point fingers and make judgments, trying to play the part of God." Zoya shoulders her purse in disgust. "A piece of advice: Please fix your own attitude before you decide to walk around making assumptions about anyone else."

The woman opens her mouth to say something else but Zoya shakes her head and rushes out of the musallah. Footsteps follow her but she pays them no heed, flying down the steps in an attempt to leave the masjid as quickly as possible. Her feet are not quick enough, however, as the footsteps approach her from behind and tap her shoulder.

She hurls around. "What?" It comes out as a spit.

It's the other woman. The one around Zoya's age. She stares at her in amazement. "Sorry, I just wanted to ask you something."

"Yes?" Zoya says curtly, one hand on the door handle of the exit.

"You're Zoya Zameer, right?"

Zoya is surprised by the question. She nods.

"I knew you looked familiar!" She exclaims. "I was really surprised when I saw you come in. I didn't expect to see you here."

Zoya clenches her teeth. "Why? Am I some spawn of Satan who can't enter a masjid to pray one of my daily prayers?"

"No, I didn't — "

"I know exactly what you meant. Please keep your lousy opinions to yourself. You'll probably never see me here again anyway, especially not since I've realized bringing me here causes me to encounter people like you." Zoya pushes open the door to the exit. "So thank you for ripping the temporary blindfold off my eyes. I thought I could spend ten minutes of peace in here to pray, but I guess I was wrong." She huffs out an angry sigh and exits the masjid, leaving the woman behind, looking shocked and hurt.

Zoya stomps towards her car. "Don't know who they think they are," she mutters loudly, capturing the attention of several passersby. "'Have some hayaa' — you and your mom need to have some hayaa. Acting like I'm some spawn of Satan who doesn't know anything about her religion." Zoya huffs out an exasperated breath. "'You see that girl over there? She's just like you — oh, for God's sake, give me a damn break. I should never have come here. Next time I really will pray on the road. I don't give a damn."

This past half hour has rudely pushed her back to that time, around different people with the same attitudes. Zoya always tries her best to ignore any place that reminds her of him, yet somehow finds him hiding in nooks and crannies everywhere, waiting for the perfect opportunity to jump out and unsettle her.

She is in a very foul mood after that. When the towing service arrives, she yells at the poor guy for taking such a long time. He listens without fighting back, and it makes her even angrier as she storms off into her Uber driver's car. A last resort — otherwise she doesn't trust any driver but her own.

Fuming silently along the way, Zoya eyes her jeans. As soon as she gets home, she's going to rip them off her legs and throw them into the fireplace. She does not want any reminder of that mosque.

The driver stops for gas and Zoya exits the car to get some air. She regrets it immediately, however, when a cameraman and reporter with a mic approach her from the car behind. Were they following me?

"Zoya Zameer!" He greets her cheerfully and she throws him a smile through clenched teeth. "How are you?"

"Perfect, Alhamdulillah, and you?" I want to shove your camera up your nose.

He smiles. "Great! Would you be willing to answer a few questions?"

Her first instinct is to say no, but after realizing this is inevitable, she nods tightly.

"Just last night, Zameer announced that they will be expanding internationally. What brought on this decision?"

Hopefully, somewhere out there, my father will see it and be proud of me. "I have always envisioned overseas expansion for my company as our products have been met with significant approval and success. By expanding internationally, Zameer will be able to broaden its scope in order to cater to a wider demographic and thus become even more involved in the business sphere."

"Fantastic. Now, Ms. Zameer, there have been speculations that your company scheduled this news to be released at a time when the press was attacking your personal life. People have speculated that in order to cover this news up, you —"

The reporter's words fade into the distance. It's all too much. Her car, the masjid, the reporter's questions brutally hammering her already thinning patience. Zoya cuts him off. "I do what I do because I feel that it's necessary. Not because anyone has prompted me to do so. Thank you very much and have a great day." Placing her sunglasses back on her eyes, Zoya opens the car door and slides inside, leaving the reporter standing there with a baffled expression on his face.

"Drive," she orders. The car speeds away with Zoya's heart hammering wildly in her chest.

. . .