Chapter 4 Summary

Gibreel Farishta's nightly dreams of being the Archangel Gibreel continue and he travels a great deal in this dream world. He travels to Kensington, in London, where he finds the Imam in a rented flat. The Imam is an exile, an ex-patriot of a land he calls Desh. In his bedroom, he keeps a portrait of his enemy, the Empress Ayesha, who has forced him into hiding. "On this island, the exiled Imam and at home in Desh, She. They plot each other's deaths." (pg. 206) The Imam lives with a retinue of bodyguards and helpers, including his son, Khalid. He lives behind closed curtains to keep out the lust, greed and vanity of London's depravity and also to avoid snipers and the enemies who seek the Imam. The Imam condemns the Empress to eternal damnation for drinking wine and in his daily radio...