Farid grew obsessed. The first page had given him jewels. What would the last page give? Riches beyond imagination? He scoured libraries, begged scholars, spent the sapphires to travel to an old hafiz in Lahore.

His hand shook. He wrote the next line. A tiny ruby. Then a sapphire. Then a raw diamond.

The hafiz looked at the printout and laughed softly. "Child, you have the first half—the dhahiri (outer). The last lines are not more jewels. They are the condition."

He began to write. The dua was a string of Names and luminous metaphors: "By the ruby of Your mercy, the pearl of Your forgiveness, the emerald of Your sustenance…"

But his empty ink pot filled with a light that never ran out.