Amina is nineteen and she prays five times a day.

The thought first arrived during Maghrib about eight months ago. It lasted a second. She has been dealing with it ever since.

Since then she has read a great deal. She has watched debates, she has read three books, she has asked two imams, and she has a folder of screenshots of answers she found convincing at the time. Each good answer works. The relief is genuine and it lasts somewhere between an hour and a day.

Then it comes back, in the same words, and the folder is no help because she has already read everything in it.

She has started praying quickly, so there is less room in it for the thought. That is the part she has told nobody, and it is the part that worries her most.