Worshipper Blinded by Love and Fear

The family adores Ahmad in a very extreme way. I feel like everyone in the family blindly follows his lead, even when he is wrong. No one dares to speak against him because the fear incited by his power is intimidating. Even more than the intimidation, the affection they feel for Ahmad makes the family look at him as something close to a god. We really get a sense of this affection, loyalty and fear for Ahmad when the author describes the feelings Aisha had when her father decided that she wouldn’t get married before Khadija, thus denying Aisha from the opportunity of marrying the officer she had fallen for. The author writes:

Although she was hurt, angry, and resentful, these emotions could not touch her father. They fell back impotently like a wild animal stopped by its trainer, whom it loves and fears. Aisha was not able to attack her father, not even in the depths of her heart. She continued in her love and devotion for him. She felt sincerely dutiful to him, as though he were a god whose decree could only be received with submission, love and loyalty. (160-161)

Here we see that the love and fear she felt towards her father was much too strong to allow Aisha to let any of the negative emotions be against her father come out.

The words the author uses to convey the feelings Aisha against her father are powerful; the author uses hurt, angry and resentful, which are all very strong emotions. Here we start to see the pain her father has made her go through by not allowing her to marry. We understand through those words what’s going on in her heart.

When the author says, “these emotions could not touch her father” (161), one can interpret that she couldn’t allow her father to see how she felt or that she wouldn’t allow herself to feel those emotions against her father. After reading the next two sentence that say that her emotions “fell back impotently like a wild animal stopped by its trainer, whom it loves and fears,” and that “Aisha was not able to attack her father, not even in the depths of her hear,” I came to the conclusion that despite the strong emotions she felt she wouldn’t allow her self to turn those emotions against her father. The fear and the love she had wouldn’t even let her think of feeling the hurt, anger, and resentment against her father even in the secrecy of her heart. Her conscious wouldn’t let her feel that way about her father. Not even the other strong emotions she felt could erase the deep love and great fear her father incited in her.

Then the author closes the passage by telling us that Aisha obeyed her father “as though he were a god whose decree could only be received with submission, love and loyalty” (161). This last sentence proves my last point that Aisha, and even the rest of the family saw Ahmad as a god. They obey him without question because they love and fear him.

The author uses Kamal to show as another example of someone who sees Ahmad as a god. When having a conversation with his mother, Kamal asked if his father feared god, and then commented that he couldn’t “imagine [his] father being afraid of anything” (67). Here we see how high Kamal holds his father as to think he doesn’t even fear god.

The fear and love caused by Ahmad’s character make his family hold him in a very high esteem almost as high as God’s. As I wrote about this topic I began to wonder several things. For example, does Ahmad mean to cause these feelings and their result? Is it his vanity that leads him to want to be like a god, or does he behave how he does unconsciously or with another intention? Does the family see how close to god they see him? How contradicting is for the family, specially the Amina, to hold Ahmad as high as they do and yet believe God has control over everything?