The room is small and windowless, buried deep in one of Washington D.C.'s labyrinth office buildings. The man delivering the sermon at the front of the room is Arab, in his late fifties, and grey-haired from the top of his head to the tufts on his knuckles. “Nowadays you have all these feminists, but you see them and they do not practice the modesty,” he is saying. “What does the Qur'an say about the adultery? It does not say 'do not do the adultery'. No. It says 'do not come close to the adultery'. And how do you come close to the adultery? Through immodesty...”

In the front row, a young man is staring glassy eyed at the khateeb while his fingers nimbly manipulate his prayer beads. Off to the side, a long-faced man with a jet-black beard is slumped against the wall and has fallen asleep with his arms crossed over his chest. A trio of men in expensive suits eye the door and the minutes hands on their platinum wristwatches. And in the shadowed compartment toward the back, two young women see their own thoughts reflected in the other's face, and for a moment the hardness in their eyes softens as they share a silent, commiserating smile.

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