The stoning of an abandoned infant outside a mosque interrupts the Ayesha Haj and turns a moment of communal worship into a crisis of moral authority. After the Imam identifies the child as demonic, the crowd kills it; the pilgrims do not throw stones, but the death brings their march to a halt and sharpens their challenge to Ayesha’s leadership.

Discovery at the Mosque

On Friday, Ayesha agrees to pause the pilgrimage so its participants can attend prayers. Mirza Saeed Akhtar, who has forgotten much of the Arabic he once learned by rote and is unsure of the gestures of prayer, stumbles through the service with growing self-disgust. As worshippers begin leaving the mosque courtyard, a commotion at the main gate draws him through the crowd. On the lowest step sits a basket, with an infant inside.

The child is described as about two weeks old and abandoned. Those gathered around it are uncertain how to respond; the narrative makes plain that the baby’s prospects are already precarious, without making the crowd’s confusion a resolution of that uncertainty. The discovery stops the pilgrimage’s ordinary rhythm: the worshippers are leaving the mosque, but the basket and the child’s cries draw them back to the entrance and gather them into an impromptu public assembly.

Judgment and Killing

The mosque’s Imam appears at the head of the steps, accompanied by Ayesha, whose reputation as a seer has spread through the city. The people make way for them as they approach the basket. The Imam examines the infant briefly, then declares that the child was born in devilment and belongs to the Devil. His pronouncement supplies the crowd with a religious classification at the precise moment when the child’s abandonment has left its future unresolved.

Mirza Saeed calls out to Ayesha and asks what she thinks. Her reply does not identify the infant’s parentage or explicitly endorse the Imam’s judgment; instead, she says that everyone will be called to account. The crowd takes this as sufficient invitation, and the infant is stoned to death. The distinction between the Imam’s declaration, Ayesha’s oblique response, and the crowd’s action remains important: the killing follows a public judgment, but Ayesha does not spell out a direct command. The narration also specifies that none of the weary villagers on the pilgrimage picked up or threw a stone.

The March Breaks Down

The killing changes the pilgrims’ mood into something close to mutiny. They refuse to continue the journey. Mishal Akhtar, already gravely weakened by her illness, cannot rally them; Ayesha, as on other occasions, does not argue with them directly. She warns that turning away from God may leave them abandoned in return, but the pilgrims do not take up the march again.

They gather in a corner of the mosque, whose exterior is lime-green and interior bright blue, with multicoloured neon tubes for lighting. Rather than respond to Ayesha’s warning by setting out, they turn their backs to her and huddle together. The scene’s setting remains a place of prayer, but the congregation has divided: the group now physically withdraws from the figure around whom the pilgrimage has formed. The pause that began as an observance of Friday prayers becomes an open break in the journey.

Authority and Responsibility

In the aftermath, Mirza Saeed confronts Ayesha about how she receives and communicates the information attributed to the angel. He points out that she offers interpretations rather than the angel’s precise words and asks why she does not quote directly. Ayesha answers that the angel speaks in clear, memorable forms, but this does not settle Saeed’s demand for a more exact account. His questions are sharpened by his estrangement from Mishal, her worsening condition, the hardships of the march, and his desire for Ayesha; the narrative identifies these pressures as part of what he brings to the challenge.

The episode makes the consequences of religious interpretation immediate and irreversible. The Imam’s declaration names the infant as evil; Ayesha’s response shifts attention to accountability without specifying who must act; the crowd turns those words into violence. The pilgrims’ refusal to continue does not undo the killing, but it shows that the event has unsettled their allegiance to the journey and to its leadership. By connecting the stoning to Saeed’s subsequent questions about the form of Ayesha’s revelations, the narrative leaves the authority behind such judgments under pressure rather than presenting the crowd’s act as an unquestioned expression of faith.