Prisoner 650 – عافیہ صدیقی

Close your eyes and travel with me as you soar through your mind…

 

Travel through the earth and over the oceans, as you dip through valleys and weave through the forests….

 

 

Can you smell the air?

 

Can you feel the change in atmosphere?

 

 

Imagine for a moment, imagine for this day, that you are someone other than yourself….

 

Imagine that you are famous even! Imagine that most of the world knows your name….

 

 

Travel to a land most foreign to you. A land that you’ve never even been to….

 

 

Enter your home….

Enter Carswell Texas….

Enter your prison cell….

 

 

Imagine that your name is Aafia…
Dr Aafia Siddiqui…
Thee Aafia Siddiqui…
Aafia the captured ‘terrorist’….

 

 

 

Imagine for a few moments that you are her. Famous the world over. Most talked about and most misunderstood.

 

 

You sit in your bare and lonely cell yet you’ve frequented thousands of dinner tables and tea parties as the topic of conversation. People wonder about you! Are you a figment? Are you dead or are you in fact alive? What is your condition at this very moment?

 

 

And as I write this, as someone else reads this, you sit in the darkness of your cell, trapped within the box of four walls. Stripped of everything that you own except of that which is within you, within your heart, within your mind. You own your knowledge! No one can steal or erase the words of the quraan inscribed on your heart…

 

 

Too frail and weak, you cannot bear to stand. You do not see the light of day, the light of the moon, nor do you see the light of hope enter through the cracks of the stained and grey prison walls. My sister your life has been handed over to Allah…

 

 

You do not even begin to dissect the course of events which have led to your imprisonment or capture. It is simply not important any more. You are here, where you were meant to be, where you were placed. And yet you are at peace… you are as free as a bird within… you are free although shackled… Perhaps you are more free than the one reading these words…

 

 

You sit with your knees pulled up to your chest, in a pit of darkness, with a stench in the air so vile, yet still you remember every word of quraan as its etched and plays in your mind. This is your home, your space and your life…

 

 

Accustomed to your routine you make your way to ablution and to salaah. Allah has numbed your heart and inspired your mind. As your head bows in sujood, He is all that you see, all that you care to remember and all that is left for you to cling to….

 

 

Freedom isn’t even a thought which floats through your mind for you are already free, free in your mind, free at heart. These torturous moments have turned into gifts with the Might of Allah at your side. No pain is too grave, nothing is too big to bear…..

 

 

 

What more can they do to you?

 

What more can you lose?
You already own the gold of this world, your eemaan! SubhanAllah…..

 

 

A trail of voices disturbs the eery silence.

 

 

You flinch as the voices get closer…

 

 

Could it be?

 

 

Would it be?

 

 

No its too soon for the striking to begin again! Your flesh has barely stopped oozing and your tongue is still uttering “Ahad”.

 

 

 

There’s a kick at the door. Someone’s brought a meal for you. The crack unleashes a most potent light which blinds your eyes. Your palms instinctively fly up as you look away to shade yourself from its white glare. They’ve left your meal without any care. You pull the plate next to your shaking legs. You eat a few unpalatable morsels to fuel your body so that you can stand strong to fuel your soul….

 

 

 

The day is coming… no not for me but for you! The one reading this, the one writing this, to see, to learn and to understand what freedom truly means… The freedom within…. Insha Allah….

 

 

Open your eyes wider dear reader and let the spacious room swallow you in…
Let it lovingly envelope you…
Look around you….
Look at the light…
Look at the space and feel the comfort at your toes and at your finger tips….

 

 

 

Oh dear reader! What a pity it is that your mind will not let you hold onto the memory of the road traversed just a few seconds ago. Some or other distraction will soon come to avert and to occupy you, perhaps to hypnotize your mind….

 

 

 

Yet she’ll still be there…

 

Aafia will still be there, cold and bare…

 

Stripped of a home, stripped of space, stripped of an existence, stripped of motherhood! Stripped of an identity, stripped of a right to freedom, stripped of a voice, stripped of everything!!!

 

 

 

 

 And you’ll be where you are. You’ll be right there. Discussing politics and the weather, until the phone rings or its time to get dinner going….

 

 

 

We’ve forgotten her plight and her fight! We’ve tried! We’ve tried hard to fight for her rights but the fight was too much, too long and too tiring so we retreated back to our comfortable lives… we relented…. we gave up….

 

 

 

But she is not even aware, if she’s still even there!

 

 

 

She’s closed within the confines of her heart as Allah comforts her mind…

 

 

 

We forget but Allah never forgets….

Haajar…