On the Haj, the father has many things to tell his son, chiefly how he left Daghestan and why he left his young wife, Salih's mother, behind. In the process, the reader is ushered into the snowy mountain world of Daghestan and its people's proud traditions. The father, Sheikh Mohammad Jabali, was a teacher of Arabic, the Quran and Islamic jurisprudence, until being exiled during the Daghestani revolt against imperial Russia. Thinking the Ottoman empire would support fellow Muslims, Jabali travelled with a Daghestani delegation to Constantinople to seek an audience with Sultan Mahmoud. The sultan pretended to respond to their appeal, but subsequently had the delegation arrested and exiled, in Jabali's case, to Damascus.
Conscience is dead.
Vested interests turn a blind eye to such absolute right, and a nation can be wiped out. In the wake of his father's exile and subsequent death, Salih establishes his own life in Damascus. Eventually Salih buys a house in this area, with a garden divided into two parts by the Yazid stream and a waterwheel which conducts water to the courtyard fountain and the kitchen. Though Salih is successful in business and eventually marries a beautiful Damascene girl, he never forgets his original intention of returning to Daghestan to see his mother. The most emotionally gripping part of the story is when he finally makes this journey over thirty years later.