The Bookseller of Kabul 11.24. 08

In my most recent readings, the bad side of Sultan's personality has truly come out. Fazil, Sultan's nephew, has worked for Sultan most of his young, eleven year old life. One day however, Sultan grew tired of his nephew, who was a hard worker and needed to work for his uncle as a way to help his mother look after the family. Now living back at home in the outskirts of Kabul, he attends school but suffers quite painfully in his religion class. Despite the fact that religion is or seems like it would have to be a huge part of every Muslim's life in Afghanistan, little Fazil just can't seem to get a grip on it. Everyday he is assigned more homework about God.."God is the creator, God is eternal, God is almighty", etc. During the class he is asked similar questions.."Can God Die?, Can God talk?, Can God see?". Yet, no matter how much he studies, he just can't seem to obtain the courage to speak up and share the correct answer. His failure to comply with the teacher's requests makes him more shy and unfortunately, a victim of punishment. He is even threatened to discontinue the class if he can't learn everything. This strict demand for all, big and small to follow Islam and be completely aware is understood in such a conservative country but makes me sad to see such a young boy pressured to understand something so huge. I wonder how this will shape him as he grows, hopefully I can find out soon before the book ends, whether or not his is even still a Muslim. Did this painful and stressful time push him away from this religion?