Praise be to God, my father is fine. Sometimes he complains of joint pain, but he is fine.
-email from Soliman KhairAllah, April 25
KhairAllah must have mounted his camel thousands of times on the Darb, each iteration a series of forward and rearward articulated jolts to the human spine. He no doubt remembers the many additional dismountings and remountings that we Khawajas required of him. A loose saddle girth to be tightened, a dropped whip to be retrieved, a herd halt for his Maghrib prayer, when it was we who wanted to stop.