He’s Human After All

Throughout the first part of the book, we see how the family views Ahmad as a God, and how the author to a certain extent portrays Ahmad as a God. The author shows us how Ahmad is loved and respected by so many people. Everyone in the family fears Ahmad, and he feels that’s how it should be because as Javi mentioned, “he thinks really highly of himself”; thus, he thinks his family should fear and respect him. In a sense he feels that if they don’t fear him, then they won’t respect him. As Lauren says, “His entire life is based off the fact that the things she does for him are done out of her fear for him.” Ahmad behaved so strict with the family because he fears that if he’s nice with them, then they will no longer fear him, and he will lose control. He wants to continue to be almost worshiped by the family.

But in the last section of the book, we finally see an Ahmad that’s human, and isn’t so perfect and powerful after all. He’s in denial for a long time, but he comes to realize that he is not all-powerful. When he’s forced to help fill the hole with dirt by the English soldiers, Ahmad says talking to himself first and then to God, “Your body’s powerful and strong and can take it, despite being impaired by the evening’s inebriation…O God, preserve us…I’m not meant for this…not meant for this. God vanquish those who doubt Your power…We are weak…I’m not meant for this” (448). Here we see Ahmad first trying to convince himself that he was strong; he wants to make himself believe that he can take all the work because he it a tough man. But he admits after being put through so much work that he is not God; he comes to see that he can’t take it because he is weak, because he too is human.

Here for the first time we see Ahmad come to this realization. He was always so cocky before. He always wanted things to be his way because he had the control. He always had the power over everything. When the officer wanted to marry Aisha, he said that “no daughter of mine would marry a man until I am satisfied that his primary motive for marrying her is a sincere desire to be related to me…me…me…me” (157). He feels so important and powerful. He wants everything to have him at the center, and he knows that at least in this case he has the power to make that decision. Another time when we see that Ahmad feels so highly of himself is when he tells Fahmy, “The only word that counts here is mine. Mine, mine, mine…” (425). But when he is filling the whole, we see a completely different side because for the first time he doesn’t have power over the situation; for the first time, he can’t have the final say. We see that he finally realizes that only God has the power over everything, that he is only human just like everyone else.

It is in this later part in the book that we see him accept it himself, and for the first time, we see him suffering and about to break down. When he finds out that his son died, Ahmad takes out his human side completely. We see how human, how sensitive he truly is. He thinks when he gets the bad news, “How can I have a home without him? How can I be a father if he’s gone?” (495). I mean here we see that basically Ahmad is saying that he can’t have life without his son; he can’t be a father without him. Before getting to this part, we would have never thought that Ahmad would think this way because we always get a different attitude from Ahmad. Here he’s humbled by the situation and he finally touched the ground and sees that he can feel pain too because he isn’t God, as he and other people in the family saw him as.