" Below him, in the choir, the faithful are prostrating on countless rugs. They kneel down, place their foreheads on the ground, then get up, look at their hands held out in front of them as if they were holding a book, then place them behind their ears the better to hear a silent clamor, and then they kneel down again. They are murmuring, chanting, and the hum of all these inaudible words buzzes and mingles with the pure light, without any pious images, without any sculptures to divert the gaze from God; just a few arabesques, snakes of blank ink, seem to float in the air. Strange beings, these Mohammedans. Strange beings, these Mohammedans and their austere cathedral, without even an image of their Prophet. "

― Mathias Énard , Tell Them of Battles, Kings and Elephants