Three Daughters Of Eve

Azur’s seminar syllabus describes how the class will tackle “questions of growing relevance” without promoting or propagating any one religion (205). Objectives include promoting empathy and critical thinking, with reading lists and assignments individually tailored to students. The rules permit eating in class, prohibit bullying or hate speech of any kind, and instruct only “seekers” to attend this class: “Those who are willing to be a beginner every single morning” (207).

In the narrative present, the businessman’s wife presents her guests with chocolate truffles produced by a brand she owns. Each chocolate is named after a famous city. She has decided to name a yet-christened one after Oxford, inspired by Peri. Peri tastes the lemon and cherry zest, reflecting on how the flavors, “tempting and deceiving in a single bite” (211), remind her of Azur’s seminars.

During Easter break from Oxford, Peri joins Mona and her cousins from America as they travel to the Welsh countryside and stay in a rented cottage. One night, Peri and Mona discuss religion. Mona asserts that Allah is in charge of the world, and one must have faith in Him. Peri screams out that night, caught in one of her nightmares, and a startled Mona prays that whatever demons possess her release their hold on her friend.

Peri spends the holidays at the end of her first year at Oxford back in Istanbul. Toward the end of her holiday, she is stunned, along with the rest of the world, as she watches an airplane crash into the World Trade Center buildings in New York. Peri speaks to Shirin, who rants about people killing in the name of God and how this will cause Muslims all over the world to be vilified. She reveals she is going up to Oxford to talk to Azur. Later that night, Peri prays for all the people killed in the attacks and their loved ones; she also prays to be let into Azur’s class so she can learn more about God.

In the first week of the new term, Peri receives a note from Azur informing her of her admittance into his seminar. Peri arrives at her first class and is surprised to discover Mona there as well. Azur arrives and asks the group of 11 to rearrange themselves into a circle. Every student introduces themselves and states their reason for interest in God.

The students come from different backgrounds: Islam, Judaism, different sects of Christianity, Hinduism, and even those who hold atheist, Marxist, and pagan beliefs. Overwhelmed by everyone else’s eloquence, Peri simply states that she is not sure why she is here. However, Azur appears impressed by Peri when she recognizes a line of poetry he quotes that Emily Dickinson penned, as well as when she later pushes back on his suggestion that emotions and knowledge are inversely related.

Azur instructs the class to make two successive drawings: what God looks like and what God is not. For the former, Peri simply draws a question mark. He then gives the class their first assignment, which is to pen an essay on the connection between their two drawings.

On Friday evening, as Peri is reading in the library, Troy approaches her again and warns her about Azur. He believes that Azur “doesn’t teach God. He believes he is God” (232). When Peri eventually leaves the library, she runs into a group of students holding a vigil for the Srebrenica massacre victims. Mona is among them, and she invites Peri to join; Ed, a boy from Azur’s class, is there, too.

On Peri’s questioning, Ed reveals that he took Azur’s seminar because Azur changed his life. Azur mentored and counseled Ed through a rough patch in the latter’s relationship during the previous year. Although Ed and his girlfriend eventually broke up, he understands and appreciates what Azur was trying to do. Peri, however, feels uncomfortable, wondering if Azur is experimenting with his students. Later that night, she contemplates the two opposing views she has received so far of her professor.

At the dinner party in the present, the businessman’s wife comments on how she sees religious Muslims changing: She recently took her dog to the vet and was surprised to find several headscarf-wearing women in the waiting room, all with their dogs. This disregards an Islamic belief that angels would not enter houses with dogs. The conversation changes direction into who is truly oppressed: the religious Muslims or the modern elite. The businessman proposes that capitalism is the only solution to all of society’s problems.

The doorbell rings, announcing the psychic’s arrival. In the ensuing commotion, Shirin sees a new message on Adnan’s phone from Selma. It lists Shirin’s phone number.

Back at Oxford, Azur arrives at class with pillows for each of his students and a CD player on which he plays the sound of a crackling fire. He invites everyone to lie down and rest their heads as he describes how they will be visiting the land of dreams, a place Rene Descartes often visited. Azur describes three dreams that the philosopher had and how they led him to believe that God wanted him to marry science and knowledge with philosophy and wisdom. Azur invites his students to create their own “marvellous science,” the way that Descartes did to study God. At the end of the class, Peri feels a shift within herself. Drawn to a third way of looking at God that is devoid of the duality she grew up with, Peri begins to grow infatuated with her professor.

In one of his classes, Azur bemoans “The Malady of Certainty” in contemporary times (247), as certainty kills curiosity and promotes arrogance and ignorance. He invites his students to shed their cloaks of certainty before asking them what the one thing each of them would like to tell God. Most students express they’d like to be reassured of God’s love or peace on earth; Peri, however, demands an apology for all the injustice done to both her and the rest of the world. This triggers Azur, who claims seeking justice through God is what leads to bigotry and fanaticism.

Mona consoles an upset Peri after class, and Peri resolves to drop the class. She is further convinced when she sees Mona and Bruno, a student from the class who is anti-Islam, working together on an assignment that Azur set for them. Peri sees this as a calculated move on Azur’s part. However, a day later, Peri receives a handwritten note from Azur praising her intensity and seriousness and urging her not to quit. He insists that knowing oneself involves destroying and building oneself anew.

At the party, the psychic arrives, and all the ladies flock to him while the men break away to make conversation together. Wanting the company of neither, Peri steps out onto the terrace and dials Shirin’s phone number on Adnan’s phone. When Shirin doesn’t pick up, Peri leaves a voice message, stating she needs to speak to Azur and know if he has forgiven her. Peri immediately feels unburdened.

At Oxford, Shirin prepares to visit home for Christmas. She reiterates her invitation to Peri to join her during the break. Peri demurs and Shirin leaves in a limousine, promising that they will move out into a house of their own once Shirin returns after the break. Peri anticipates this move warily, not wanting to be in Shirin’s doubt, but she is also excited at having a place of her own.

Peri works at the bookshop during the break. On the day before New Year’s Eve, Azur and his dog, Spinoza, arrive at the store to sign some copies of his books; he is surprised to find Peri there. Azur learns that Peri can’t travel home for the holidays and invites her home for an informal dinner on New Year’s Eve, as he doesn’t want her to be alone.

As Azur is about to leave, Peri engages him in a conversation about faith. She stresses how women like her mother find security in their faith, but Azur labels all absolutism as weakness. He asserts that one must consistently break apart dualities by bringing “irreconcilable ideas and unlikely people together” (267). Azur insists that humans are wired for complexity over simplicity and must work against reducing people into single identities. As he leaves, Peri feels her stomach grow weak, and she recognizes this as the moment she falls in love.

Peri rejoins the women, and the psychic offers to read her future. Peri declines, but the psychic mysteriously claims that she misses someone whose name begins with “A.” He writes something down on a napkin and hands it to her. Peri walks back onto the terrace and discovers the psychic has sketched three female figures: “Under the first one was written: ‘She Saw Evil.’ Under the second: ‘She Heard Evil.’ And under the third were these words: ‘She Did Evil’” (271).