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white-turbaned mullas is marching down the street. The loud threats of these holy men offend ‘Abdu’llah, who finds violence abhorrent. Though designated an honorary mulla, due to his teaching activities and calls to prayer at the mosque, ‘Abdu’llah finds many of the mujtahid’s teachings illogical and radical. While Mulla Ibrahim for years has ranted against women’s education, ‘Abdu’llah married a literate woman and encouraged her to continue education. His wife, Nadja, is a celebrated poet—celebrated everywhere, that is, but in Bushruyih, where her works are unknown.
    ‘Abdu’llah watches the band of mullas charge past the shop. What frightens him most is the glint of steel; the clerics are marching with swords and knives drawn. Blood will flow! ‘Abdu’llah steps from his shop and falls into the swelling throng that trails the mullas. Some of these people, too, are now cursing the evil that has entered the village. No one knows what that evil is, but everyone is certain that it will be excised by the clerics.
    And then ‘Abdu’llah hears words that darken his heart. In the name of Ali Qasim! Has some harm come to his son’s friend?
    ‘Abdu’llah quickens his pace. He begins to look for his son, Jalal. Weren’t the two boys together this morning? If harm has befallen Ali, what of Jalal? The emotion of the crowd begins to excite ‘Abdu’llah. Fear overtakes him. Obviously some great peril has been unleashed. He imagines the worst—murder, abduction, an accident. Who would harm a youngster? Please, Allah, if it be Your will, allow Jalal to be safe. Soon he finds himself shouting with the crowd. Without understanding why, but with great intensity, he shouts: In the name of Ali Qasim!

Chapter 5
    Mirza Hasan Qasim, pear-shaped and thick-bearded, will be thirty-five years old tomorrow. He is the nephew of Fath Ali Shah, Persia’s Qajar ruler. Even though he is only a capillary in the dynasty’s bloodline, Qajar nepotism has rewarded him with a major position in a village that is but a flyspeck on the shah’s map. As kelauntar of Bushruyih, he oversees village security, civic governance, and tax collections, making sure the shah’s due is quickly forwarded.
    An ever-shrinking government salary stimulates Hasan’s creativity in financial management. Tax overages and bribes of every kind find their way into his bottomless purse, allowing for a lifestyle far above the other local desert dwellers. The lifestyle has grown more expensive, however, and the normal spoils of the office have recently fallen short of his obligations. For six months he has short-changed the shah—a dangerous game, but in such an obscure little hamlet who would notice?
    Unfortunately, the vizier—who pays attention to such matters for the governor of the province—has an eye for detail and a nose for felony. And like so many in the government, the vizier also has no detectable code of ethics. This is what has brought the vizier to Bushruyih where he sits in the back corner of a teahouse with the kelauntar and discusses the financial dilemma over the steaming brew.
    The kelauntar is a bitter man. For seven years he has lived in a wilderness that even Allah surely has forgotten. He sees his appointment as a life sentence in hell and curses his father’s name. If his father, the shah’s brother, had not jealously competed for the throne, Fath Ali Shah may have shown mercy on his wretched sibling and given his nephew a job in some bearable place.
    The kelauntar does not understand moderation. The Qu’ran allows a man four wives, and he has the maximum, plus six concubines. Though alcohol is strictly forbidden for Muslims, the kelauntar surreptitiously imports cartloads of fine Shirazí wine and drinks it alone by the bottle.
    He has one other passion: his son, Ali Qasim. His only son. Three wives have born him seven daughters, but only Anisa, a slave-girl purchased from the Turkoman, has given him a son. Anisa is a