From the Bookshelf of Around the World in 80 Books…

“So the stories aren’t just stories, is what you’re saying. They’re really secret knowledge disguised as stories.”

“One could say that of all stories, younger brother.”

“Maybe you should stay here until this has blown over,” he said. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

“I

“So the stories aren’t just stories, is what you’re saying. They’re really secret knowledge disguised as stories.”

“One could say that of all stories, younger brother.”

“Maybe you should stay here until this has blown over,” he said. “It’s going to be dangerous.”

“I know. That’s why I wore sneakers.”

“What do you mean, words whose meanings evolved?” asked Alif. “That doesn’t make sense. The Quran is the Quran.”

Vikram folded his legs—Alif did not watch this operation closely—and smiled at his audience. “The convert will understand. How do they translate ºyw in your English interpretation?”

“Atom,” said the convert.

“You don’t find that strange, considering atoms were unknown in the sixth century?”

The convert chewed her lip. “I never thought of that,” she said. “You’re right. There’s no way atom is the original meaning of that word.”

“Ah.” Vikram held up two fingers in a sign of benediction. He looked, Alif thought, like some demonic caricature of a saint. “But it is. In the twentieth century, atom became the original meaning of ºyw, because an atom was the tiniest object known to man. Then man split the atom. Today, the original meaning might be hadron. But why stop there? Tomorrow, it might be quark. In a hundred years, some vanishingly small object so foreign to the human mind that only Adam remembers its name. Each of those will be the original meaning of ºyw.”

Alif snorted. “That’s impossible. ºyw must refer to some fundamental thing. It’s attached to an object.”

“Yes it is. The smallest indivisible particle. That is the meaning packaged in the word. No part of it lifts out—it does not mean smallest, nor indivisible, nor particle, but all those things at once. Thus, in man’s infancy, ºyw was a grain of sand. Then a mote of dust. Then a cell. Then a molecule. Then an atom. And so on. Man’s knowledge of the universe may grow, but ºyw does not change.”

“That’s . . .” The convert trailed off, looking lost. “Miraculous. Indeed.”

" ... Tell me more about your work. At what point will I be able to write an e-mail to my grandson in Bahrain merely by thinking it?”

“Thinking it?” Alif smiled contemptuously. “I expect never. Quantum computing will be the next thing, but I don’t think it will be capable of transcribing thought.”

“Quantum? Oh dear, I’ve never heard of that.”

“It will use qubits instead of—well, that’s kind of complicated. Regular computers use a binary language to figure things out and talk to each other—ones and zeroes. Quantum computers could use ones and zeroes in an unlimited number of states so, in theory, they could store massive amounts of data and perform tasks that regular computers can’t perform.”

“States?”

“Positions in space and time. Ways of being.”

“Now it is you who are metaphysical. Let me rephrase what I think you have said in language from my own field of study: they say that each word in the Quran has seven thousand layers of meaning, each of which, though some might seem contrary or simply unfathomable to us, exist equally at all times without cosmological contradiction. Is this similar to what you mean?”

Alif looked up from his work, surprised.

“Yes,” he said. “That is exactly what I mean. I’ve never heard anybody make that comparison.”

He turned down an alleyway that smelled of ozone; air conditioners working hard in the apartments above dripped Freon on his head.