Previous
Adil Pasha
Farooq is a cousin of Parvaiz’s friend, and he becomes Parvaiz’s mentor and recruiter to ISIS. Farooq is in his thirties and is described as a “compact but powerfully built man.” Farooq seeks out Parvaiz after learning that his father is Adil Pasha. He lures Parvaiz in by telling him stories of his father as a hero, and he becomes a sort of father figure for Parvaiz in training him to endure pain (which he frames as experiencing what his father experienced) and in teaching him “how to be a man.” Farooq ultimately convinces Parvaiz to join ISIS, but he disappears from Parvaiz’s life quickly after they arrive in Syria. When Parvaiz tries to escape in Turkey, Farooq tracks him down and kills him outside the British consulate.
Farooq Quotes in Home Fire
The Home Fire quotes below are all either spoken by Farooq or refer to Farooq. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 5 – Parvaiz Quotes
They’d returned most of the items they took, but not the pictures of Adil Pasha climbing a mountain, sitting beside a campfire, wading across a stream—sometimes alone, sometimes in the company of other men, always smiling, always with a gun slung over his shoulder or cradled in his lap. When you’re old enough, my son, his father had inscribed inside it, which made Parvaiz’s mother furious for reasons he didn't then understand.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Or Farooq would talk and Parvaiz would listen to those stories of his father for which he’d always yearned—not a footloose boy or feckless husband but a man of courage who fought injustice, saw beyond the lie of national boundaries, kept his comrades’ spirits up through times of darkness.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
The ache in his back had begun to recede and he remembered how, before the pain had become too unbearable for any thought beyond his own suffering, he had turned his head toward the wall, toward the photograph of his father, and there was this understanding, I am you, for the first time.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Home Fire LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Farooq Character Timeline in Home Fire
The timeline below shows where the character Farooq appears in Home Fire. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5 – Parvaiz
Farooq and Parvaiz walk into an electronics store in Istanbul to pick up an audio recorder....
(full context)
The next day, when Parvaiz is at work, a man named Farooq introduces himself. He apologizes for his cousin’s actions the night before and returns Parvaiz’s phone,...
(full context)
Parvaiz protests that he never knew his father. Farooq says that Adil regretted that, which is why his jihadi name was “Abu Parvaiz”—Father of...
(full context)
Farooq and Parvaiz meet every day over the next weeks. Farooq tells Parvaiz of “stories of...
(full context)
Farooq always returns the conversation to the heart of all of his lessons: how to be...
(full context)
Farooq invites Parvaiz over to the flat where he lives. He gives Parvaiz some tea, then...
(full context)
At that moment, two of Farooq’s cousins enter the flat. They knock Parvaiz to the ground, tie a chain around his...
(full context)
Farooq returns, tears in his eyes, and explains that they had done this to Adil for...
(full context)
...he finds are so visceral that he throws up. After reading this, he returns to Farooq’s flat. He tells Farooq to chain him again, saying, “I want to feel my father’s...
(full context)
A few days later, Parvaiz returns to Farooq’s flat to find him ironing his clothes. After they speak for a bit, Farooq tells...
(full context)
Farooq then tells Parvaiz that there is a place where they can go, where Parvaiz can...
(full context)
Parvaiz then asks if the stories of violence are true, and Farooq explains that the pursuit of the ideals that they hold dear warrants a revolution. Farooq...
(full context)
...realizes that he is preparing to leave, though he’s not quite sure how it happened. Farooq assures him that he can come back if he wants to, and Parvaiz thanks him...
(full context)
Chapter 6 – Parvaiz
Six months earlier, Parvaiz arrived in Raqqa with excitement and terror. Farooq takes him to a villa where the media unit stays, a sprawling and luxurious home....
(full context)
...talking to—women from France and England whom they are convincing to come join the cause. Farooq reveals that he’ll be going to the front lines to fight.
(full context)
Parvaiz is shocked to hear that Farooq won’t be staying, as he thought that Farooq would help find people who knew Adil....
(full context)
Farooq also suggests that Parvaiz tell Aneeka and Isma the truth about where he is, now...
(full context)
In the present, Parvaiz leaves the café, keeping watch for Farooq’s car. He destroys the phone he just bought and changes into new clothes. He knows...
(full context)
