"It is in the bones. You have no idea how I was brought up. You have to work real hard to root that shit out"

New York. Today. Corporate lawyer Amir Kapoor is happy, in love and about to land the biggest career promotion of his life.

But beneath the veneer, success has come at a price. When Amir and his artist wife, Emily, host an intimate dinner party at their Upper East Side apartment, what starts out as a friendly conversation soon escalates into something far more damaging.

One of the most despised words in conservative Muslim circles is the word ‘secular’. All one has to do to vilify any opinion is to say that it is ‘secular’ (or ‘modernist’ or ‘liberal’ or even ‘Westernised’) and effectively a departure from Sharia. Sharia is the fountainhead of Islamic law, the source of practice of Traditional Muslims’ religious life. To render any element of one’s life ‘secular’ is to abandon Sharia and become irreligious.