She wasn’t ready. Panic tasted like copper in her mouth.
That night, Fatima didn't sleep. But she also didn't crumble. She recited the transliteration until the syllables became muscle memory. At 9 AM, she walked into the exam hall. Her professor asked a brutal first question. She took a breath, and in her mind, she heard:
Later, walking home under a grey London sky, she pulled out her phone. The search history still glowed: .
She answered. Not perfectly. But she answered.
“God — there is no deity except Him, the Ever-Living, the Sustainer of all existence...”
She had grown up hearing her mother recite the Verse of the Throne (Ayatul Kursi) in Arabic, a sound like honey and thunder. But Fatima, born and raised in Manchester, had never learned to read the script fluently. Tonight, she needed to hold onto the words in a language her heart understood, even if her tongue stumbled.
Fatima closed her eyes. She didn't say it perfectly. Her “q”s were too soft, her “gh”s too hesitant. But she said it.
The search results bloomed. She clicked on a clean, white website.
