Thus, it is clear that Ahmad’s admiration of and idealization of his absent father does not entail imitation, since he is a devoted believer and his interest in his father’s ethnic background does not exceed the domain of religion: “[H]is exploration of his Islamic identity ends at the mosque” (99). Ahmad thus occupies a peculiarly doubled position: sinister in that he cloaks his increasingly militant Muslim identity under the guise of his American one; innocent in that he is seduced from his American identity by a religious culture marked foreign. Thinking about his identity as an American Muslim, Ahmad finds contradictions: “He has asked that his paychecks…be made out to Ahmad Ashmawy, though he still lives with his mother. Because
