An earlier version of this article stated that a rape occurred in a madrasah. This is not what was described in the book and the sentence has been amended.

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird. Her long slender bare legs were delicate as a crane’s and pure save where an emerald trail of seaweed had fashioned itself as a sign upon the flesh. Her thighs, fuller and softhued as ivory, were bared almost to the hips where the white fringes of her drawers were like featherings of soft white down. Her slateblue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some darkplumaged dove. But her long fair hair was girlish: and girlish, and touched with the wonder of mortal beauty, her face.
She was alone and still, gazing out to sea; and when she felt his presence and the worship of his eyes her eyes turned to him in quiet sufferance of his gaze, without shame or wantonness. Long, long she suffered his gaze and then quietly withdrew her eyes from his and bent them towards the stream, gently stirring the water with her foot hither and thither. The first faint noise of gently moving water broke the silence, low and faint and whispering, faint as the bells of sleep; hither and thither, hither and thither: and a faint flame trembled on her cheek.

“Children of Dust” provides some insight into the humanity of one American Muslim. By telling his own personal story, with all the painful experiences, Eteraz humanizes and contextualizes the otherwise one-dimensional “American Muslim” that most Americans read about but never get to know.
America needs to hear more stories about young Muslims with the same boldness as Eteraz’s “Children of Dust”. Americans want to really know Muslims and especially those living in America. “Children of Dust” gives Americans a great insight into the mind of a somewhat typical American Muslim. That is an invaluable resource.

Yes, because obviously that was Ali’s purpose….to write more apologia for al-Islam.

Wallah, do you have so little faith?
al-Islam is a process, it is real and eternal. It doesn’t need “reform”…it can’t be “reformed”…… people like Omar and people like me are part of the process.
The whole frackin’ ummah is part of the process.

wa yuzhira bihi sirrahu ilayhi
it reveals through it its secret to it……literally.

ya-haqq!