Just by me sat a slab of marble and a thin blue chest in my flame. In front, an eagle. Splattered feather and gore on the cypress wall. In the Quran the sword of Omar curved in agony. Above: an invisible electric fan streaked breeze inconsequently and senselessly. And I was in the marble stone that soon took the birds broken bone and the Arabic book a celestial look. The writer is the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC