A Prophet's Hair

The meaning of life and the way it is played out is different for everyone. For some, life is all about doing what is right, living an honest life and living it morally. Some believe that life is a perishable item and it must be cherished. And for others, life is all about themselves. The more they have the better they feel. No one thing is enough for them and must seek out more at any cost despite the outcome. In the short story “The Prophet’s Hair” in the novel East, West by Salman Rushide, Hashim is a wealthy moneylender who stumbles on a sacred silver vile that contained a piece of hair from the Prophet Muhammad, and instead of doing the right thing and return it, greed takes over and then negative repercussion start to happen.

Hashim is a wealthy moneylender who has a wife and two children: Atta, his son, and Huma, his daughter. Hashim was a man who thought he was doing a great service to the people he was lending money to. He lends his money to people at the rate of over seventy per cent and justifies it by proclaiming that he is teaching “these people the value of money” (41). If he succeeds, he will put himself out of business. One day before stepping into his boat, a silver cylinder caught his eye. It happened to be the scared hair of the Prophet Muhammad which was stolen the night before. Instead of returning it to its rightful home, he feels that he has the right to keep it for himself. After obtaining this scared relic, Hashim become very strict and demanding about his family’s religious practices and become a violent and abusive person.

Hashim has now demanded that his family read out of the Qur’an at least two hours a day and pray five times a day for the first in his life. Atta and Huma have agreed that his hair has done nothing but bring evil into their lives and it needed to be returned. After it was already stole once out of Hashim house by Atte, he now watched over it with passion. Huma hired a thief to come in a steal the hair from Hashim. Upon doing so, his cover was blown and Hashim ended up stabbing his daughter in the mix of all the turmoil and then turn the sword upon himself. The thief escapes with the hair but is later shot by Hashim brother, the Deputy Commissioner.

In turn, greed is the root to all evil. It makes people do thing they normally don’t. As seen with Hashim, his greed to keep the scared hair caused him to become a violent person and ended up killing him and his family. Religious relics are meant to be cherished in a scared religious domain for benefit of anyone who wants to visit and worship it. Happiness can't be found through greed.