Ensign Roskelley had been the first to ask, back when I was transferred to Captain Wilder's command. I'd been nursing a cup of coffee in the mess hall before starting my shift and reading my Quran. Coming up behind me with his tray, he had noticed the Arabic letters. "You believe it?" he asked, nodding toward the book.

"Yes," I simply answered.

"Huh." Sitting down across from me, he said, "All of it?"

"All of it."

He took a bite of omelet and chewed thoughtfully before asking, "The part about the 70 virgins for martyrs?"

I turned to Surah 55:22 and pointed to the words on the page, feeling foolish when I remembered he probably didn't read Arabic. "This line is commonly translated as 'and there will be companions with beautiful, lustrous eyes.' The problem with this translation is that the word 'companions' isn't in the text. The only noun is 'eyes,' but it's a homonym – it's one word that's spelled and pronounced the same but has two very different meanings. An example in English is 'bank.' You can have a bank where you store things like money or blood, or a bank like a riverbank, or there's also the verb 'bank' like where you bank a fire. It's all the same word and you have to go by the context to know which meaning to use."

Roskelley nodded slowly, so I hoped I hadn't lost him with my tangent into grammar. "So the word translated as 'eyes' is exactly the same word for 'springs' like springs of water. Traditionally, this line has been understood to be a reference to virgins given to martyrs, yes. But since the entire chapter is describing the delights of the garden of heaven - things like cool shade and fruit within easy reach and comfortable couches – others have claimed 'springs of water' is the more appropriate meaning. It seems to make more sense to me, personally."

"Beautiful, lustrous springs?"

"Another translation for lustrous is clear or pure."

"Ah." Roskelley eyed me curiously. "So where'd the idea of the 70 virgins come from?"

"The Hadith – sayings attributed to the Prophet."

He took another bite of his eggs, and after a second, asked, "So you don't believe the…what's it called?"

"They are called the Hadith. I believe the holy Quran to be the direct word of God, but no one claims that of the Hadith. Many of them are words of truth, spoken by God's messenger, but even the soundest are not of the same quality as the Quran."

"How'd you know all this?"

I shrugged. "My father was a university professor of theology before the rise of the Ayatollah in Iran. His views weren't orthodox enough and he and my mother sought asylum in the United States a couple of years before I was born."

Again he retreated into his breakfast, chewing while thinking about what I'd said.

By then my coffee was unpleasantly tepid, and I rose to my feet. "And Roskelley?"

"Yeah?

"Thank you for asking instead of just assuming."

...

For a few weeks after that, I'd get questions during every meal until eventually the novelty wore off and conversation turned to other topics. Captain Wilder did his best to accommodate my beliefs. When I could, I slipped away to an empty conference room to pray, but military life does not revolve around a prayer schedule, so sometimes I would have to tip my head to the east and silently offer my prayers, knowing that God is both cognizant and merciful. I worked every Saturday and Sunday, trading shifts whenever I could so that I would be free to worship on Fridays. It was not easy being one of only a handful of believers in the fleet, but it wasn't as hard as I'd feared it would be.

And then the world was attacked by aliens.

At first there wasn't time to really think about it in terms of my religious beliefs. The first couple of days I simply reacted, relying on my training to get me through first the battle and then its aftermath. Today had been the first real chance to ponder how this new reality affected my belief. I'd seen the aliens up close now, and I still wasn't entirely sure what to make of them. If their intelligence was artificial, it was centuries ahead of what we humans could program for our computers. And if it wasn't artificial – if they were genuine intelligences like us humans – how did they fit?

Before all this, I'd heard some people claim that UFO sightings were the results of evil, mischievous djinn trying to confuse and frighten people. The power of the evil djinn was always in their ability to mislead. Could the Autobots be djinn? Most of the stories about the djinn were from the Hadith or other traditional sources, and so I wasn't sure what exactly to believe about them.

It wasn't much of an issue until this last week. I'd simply accepted what was in the Quran and taken the rest with a grain of salt. It seemed a bit farfetched, for instance, that each human being had an assigned djinn who tempted him. It smacked too much of the Christian notion of guardian angels.

In some ways, though, the Autobots fit the mold of djinn very well. Like djinn, they could change their forms, they could be killed, they needed sustenance (we'd had to refuel them after the battle and I knew how long they took to top off), and they had very long lives. But djinn were created both male and female, and Mr. Witwicky had been adamant that we use the male pronouns for the Autobots, so that aspect didn't fit. The djinn also were said to be invisible and intangible until they took on the shape they wanted. These Autobots were always tangible, but in a sense, they were invisible when they were in their car forms. That was the root meaning of the word djinn – hidden.

It was also said that, like men and angels, djinn had free will and ranged from believers who were themselves Muslim to the devil himself. If these Autobots were djinn (or something similar), were they helpers to humanity or deceivers? And how was one to know? A whole chapter of the Quran was devoted to the subject of the djinn, and so when I finally finished my shift, I went to my bunk and opened my Quran to Surah 72. I read the entire chapter, and while it was comforting to remember that some of the djinn received the Quran with gladness, I still wasn't satisfied somehow. After all none of the Autobots had professed Islam or shown any indication that they were believers. And yet, just because they weren't believers, it didn't necessarily mean they were bad.

After performing the wudu purification ritual, I picked up my compass, oriented myself, unrolled my prayer rug, and began my evening prayer. When it came time to kneel in submission to God, a sudden image flashed through my mind – Optimus kneeling in the cargo bay to talk to Mr. Witwicky. And then I recalled another account of the djinn in the Quran, this one from Surah 7. God had commanded all the djinn to kneel before Adam, but one refused and thus fell, becoming Satan. I set aside that thought until after I had completed the prayer, but when done, I again opened my Quran and re-read the passage.

Whether the Autobots were djinn or not, whether they were believers or not, their leader had knelt to a human. Whether he saw this as an act of submission or of mere courtesy, he had shown by both deed and word that he did not consider Mr. Witwicky above himself. If anything, the Autobots had shown deference to my fellow human. I took a deep breath, sighing in relief as both my heart and mind agreed – the Autobots were friends to humanity, just as they claimed.