Mrs. Qureishi

Mrs. Qureishi, Mishal Akhtar’s mother and the wife of a state bank director, moves from outspoken defender of her daughter to uneasy pilgrim and, finally, witness to the event at the Arabian Sea. Her course through the story brings domestic conflict into contact with Ayesha’s religious authority: she first challenges Mirza Saeed Akhtar’s control of Mishal, then supports Mishal’s decision to follow Ayesha on foot, even as the physical and emotional costs of the journey test her resolve.

Identity and Family Position

Mrs. Qureishi is a socially established woman, married to a senior banker and accustomed to the comforts of city life. The narrative presents her as sophisticated and forceful, but also as someone whose judgments about Mirza Saeed are shaped by a long-standing suspicion that he is ungenerous. Her daughter’s marriage places her close to the household at Peristan, where Mishal and Mirza Saeed’s relationship becomes entangled with Ayesha’s arrival and the proposed pilgrimage.

When Mishal decides to remain at Peristan and observe purdah, Mrs. Qureishi comes to stay with her so that her daughter will have company in the women’s quarters. She arrives prepared to rebuke Mirza Saeed for imposing the arrangement. Her intervention is complicated, however, by Mishal’s request that she not oppose him. Mishal has understood his explanation as an intimate game and hopes that staying in Titlipur may help her conceive; she therefore asks her mother to let the arrangement stand. Mrs. Qureishi respects that request even though she disapproves of the restrictions.

Challenging Mirza Saeed

Although she initially holds back for Mishal’s sake, Mrs. Qureishi confronts Mirza Saeed in the garden. She objects to his keeping his wife shut away and argues that his wealth should enable the couple to go out together rather than confine Mishal at Peristan. Her rebuke turns into an impromptu proposal that he take Mishal on a holiday. Mirza Saeed, momentarily without an answer, promises to consider it. The episode establishes Mrs. Qureishi as someone who speaks directly against the restrictions placed on her daughter, even when her challenge does not immediately change the household’s arrangements.

Her later response to Ayesha is more complicated. When Mirza Saeed, enraged by the news of Mishal’s illness, attacks Ayesha and orders her away, Mrs. Qureishi denounces his conduct. She calls him a blasphemer and condemns his treatment of the woman who has entered their household with visions. Afterward, when Mishal refuses to see her husband, Mrs. Qureishi stands between them at the doorway and passes him Mishal’s written request to see Ayesha. Mirza Saeed gives his consent and withdraws. In this exchange, Mrs. Qureishi acts as both protector of her daughter’s wishes and intermediary between estranged members of the household.

Mishal’s Illness and the Decision to Walk

Mishal’s medical examination confirms that her cancer is advanced and inoperable, with only a short time expected before further pain. Mirza Saeed is away when the diagnosis is given, having refused to accompany Mishal and her mother to the city. Mrs. Qureishi helps relay the news to him. After he learns it, Mishal asks to see Ayesha, and Mrs. Qureishi carries that request to him. The diagnosis changes the stakes of the household conflict: the question is no longer simply whether Mirza Saeed will accept Ayesha, but how Mishal will spend the time she has left.

As the people of Titlipur prepare to leave on foot for Mecca, Mirza Saeed bursts into Mishal’s room, alarmed by the departing villagers and determined to stop his wife from joining them. Mrs. Qureishi explains the immediate reason for Mishal’s resolve: Ayesha has said that Mishal’s cancer will disappear if she completes the pilgrimage. Mirza Saeed offers a faster journey by plane, but Mishal insists that they have been commanded to walk. Mrs. Qureishi’s account makes clear that the proposed pilgrimage is tied, for Mishal, to the hope of a cure and to the form of the journey itself—not merely to reaching Mecca.

The road also exposes Mrs. Qureishi’s own divided response. When her husband arrives by motorcade, she has lost twenty-five pounds since the start of the walk. She tries to brush the dirt from her clothes and arrange her hair before facing him, then breaks down under his reproach. Mishal embraces her and tells her father to stop bullying her. After learning about Mishal’s cancer and the promised miracle, Mr. Qureishi offers to fly his daughter to Mecca. Mishal refuses, saying that only the faithful can bring the hoped-for outcome about and that her mother will care for her.

Mr. Qureishi remains with the procession for a time in his limousine, sending a servant on a motor scooter to ask whether Mishal wants food, medicine, or a soft drink. She declines his offers. After three days he returns to the city, leaving a servant to help the women. The day after his departure, that servant abandons his scooter and joins the pilgrims. Mrs. Qureishi, meanwhile, begins to regret the comforts she has left behind. The brief contact with her former life revives thoughts of parties, cushions, and iced lime soda; walking barefoot now seems incompatible with her social position. She approaches Mirza Saeed sheepishly and asks whether he hates her. The episode records a genuine wavering, without establishing that she abandons the pilgrimage.

The Sea and Her Testimony

At the end of the journey, Mrs. Qureishi is among those standing at the water’s edge as the villagers enter the sea. She is distressed for Mishal, crying out over her daughter as the procession moves away from the shore. From that position she sees the villagers continue into the water rather than turn back. Her presence at the edge places her between the marchers and those who remain behind, watching and trying to understand what they are witnessing.

Afterward, investigators hear accounts from several people who say that the Arabian Sea divided. Mrs. Qureishi gives the same central account in her own words, insisting that she is repeating what she saw. Her testimony matters in the story not because it resolves the disagreement over what happened, but because it adds a further witness to claims the investigators cannot easily dismiss as a shared fabrication. The woman who began as a practical defender of her daughter’s freedom thus ends as a witness to an event that exceeds the limits of ordinary explanation.

Narrative Role

Mrs. Qureishi’s role is defined by acts of mediation and resistance rather than by control over the events around her. She challenges Mirza Saeed’s attempt to restrict Mishal, carries messages when husband and wife will not meet, explains the pilgrimage’s promise to the skeptical husband, and remains with her daughter on the road. Her changing responses—protective intervention, loyalty to Mishal’s choice, longing for familiar comforts, and insistence on her own testimony—keep the pilgrimage grounded in the pressures of family life even as Ayesha’s claims and the sea’s apparent transformation draw it toward the miraculous.