The Quran took care to distinguish between the pre-Islamic Arabs who were pagan polytheists, worshipping idols at the Kaaba, and the Ahl-e-Kitab, or People of the Book, possessors of the Torah and the Bible. “When it comes to Jews and Christians, we respect them, because of their scriptures,” Akram once assured me. “They don’t belong to the same community, but that’s fine.”
