E-MAILS FROM SCHEHERAZAD

A professor of comparative literature at the University of Arkansas, Kahf finds her brand of "mosque-ese" (Urdu, Arabic, Black and Standard English) comes in handy for encounters like "Hijab Scene #7": "No, I'm not bald under the scarf/ ...Yes, I speak English/ Yes, I carry explosives/ They're called words/ And if you don't get up/ Off your assumptions,/ They're going to blow you away."