If the Oceans Were Ink: An Unlikely Friendship and a Journey to the Heart of the Quran

by Carla Power

I suddenly glimpsed the narrowness of my own vision of broad-mindedness. In my creed, sex, drugs, rock and roll, and any number of other explorations were fine, so long as nobody got hurt. Such tolerance derived from the assumption that this life is all we have, and that every individual has freedom. Akram’s tolerance came from a belief in just the opposite: in a God-centered universe, nobody has freedom, and nobody has the right to judge others. That is God’s job. The Quran is not merely a guide, but a means to broaden the mind. “Don’t look at this tiny world,” he suggested. “Things are much bigger than you can imagine. There’s a past beyond your past, and a future beyond your future.”