Whatever the way that Love’s camel takes, that is my religion and my faith.
-Ibn Arabi (1165-1240), The Interpreter of Desires
KhairAllah would have thought it crazy to let the camels, no matter how amorously pedigreed, choose the way. “The way they take is the way I tell them to take”, his flicking whip said. “I am Khabīr al-Darb, Master of the Way, all the way to Cairo.” I needn’t have reminded him that Cairo was full of Cairenes, liars, thieves, and scoundrels to the last, all straying from Sirāt al-Mustaqīm, as the Quran’s first verse puts it, The Path of the Upright.