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[Abdullah123]

Wali Khan Amin Shah: April 26, 2012 (Ramadan & Eid in Prison)


26 Apr




As-salamu alykum,


May Allah reward you for asking about the Eid & Ramadan in Marion USP. I want to give you a brief idea about the subject:


Firstly, in Ramadan Muslims get the Sahoor meal in a paper bag in the evening. It is very meager stuff, and usually the brothers eat it as a snack (: right away. Then, an hour before Fajr, one brother will be allowed to pass the milk (two pints), and if hot water is needed, he can get us some too.
After Fajr, the doors will open, and the inmates who don’t take part in Ramadan will be called for breakfast, and then for lunch. After that, if we are allowed to pray in Jama’ah like last year, we can then go and put the large prayer rugs and make our Zuhor prayer in Jama’ah. After dinner is served for the others, we can again put the large rugs and pray Asr since no additional meals will be served for the day except for Muslims. We are allowed to keep the rugs in the same place and wait for Maghreb prayer. The food will come fifteen or so minutes before sunset. It is placed on tables (the place where we pray is the same dinning hall), so we can pray first and then we can eat.


They give us the lunch and dinner at once; they only save the trays that are served regularly and give it to us together (no special food for Ramadan). Once we finish eating, if the time allows it, we can pray Isha’ and some Taraweeh. Because Ramadan is coming in summer this year, we might not have time. They usually ask us to leave the hall and go back to the housing unit. There too they give us little time before they lock us in our cells for the day, and the same happens during the month.


After the Eid day is confirmed, we are allowed to make the Eid prayer together and share some food that we can put together from what we can buy from the commissary. Then we might get together again to have some fun and sports or plays. We also share sweets and snacks from commissary; usually we pool our resources because many brothers are very limited in their income. I think that the Muslim community can send money as gifts for Eid to the Muslim inmates they know, and it will be good way to show the Muslim prisoners that they are not forgotten. To tell you the truth, we are not in bad shape; even if we can’t buy much, we still can get by. It is for the community outside, if they would like to share the Eid with us, then it is a good thing. No one is starving here (: .
We can mimic Baklava (Turkish sweet) and Cunaffah and other sweets from things that are sold in the commissary. We can’t buy sugar but limited honey can be bought. Nuts are expensive but available, and dates or dry fruits are marked up by alot. We can buy halal ground beef (cooked and in pouches), rice, beans and fish, which are used to make the meal for Eid. I hope that I gave you a fair idea about the subject, if you want to know more just ask me!!


Leave a comment Posted by aseerun on April 26, 2012 in Letters from Wali Khan Amin Shah, Risala



Tags: Eid, Prison Life, Wali Khan Amin Shah

[Abdullah123]

Asalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullah wa barakaatuh

Wali Khan Amin Shah: April 28, 2012 (Flashback: Jungle-Light!)

28 Apr

As-salamu alykum,

I was in the rain forests of eastern Burma (Myanmar), I was following a local guide, with me was a brother who became shaheed in Tajikistan in 1993, we were traveling in two groups with locals, so they suggested that we split in order to be less visible, of course Burma was communist and very hostile to the Muslims whom we were visiting. It was very hot and humid that even the locals were sweating, I on the other hand was having my own monsoon season (: , I was in the small group that went ahead with a guide who looked ok at the start, but as we approached some farming areas he became very jittery and nervous, I asked what is the matter?

He said these are communists!! Referring to the villagers who were on the two hill tops on each side of us. We started after Asr so we came to that point in the Isha’ time, we were on our bellies in the jungle with every thing that we can’t see crawling on us, it was ok as long as we moved, but when we came in one of the rice fields, which was long and nearing harvest time, suddenly the villagers got wind of us and started to drum their drums as loud as they could!! Then they lit torches and started shouting to each other, I didn’t understand a word but knew that they were alerted to our unannounced visit!!

The guide was terrified by then, he wasn’t moving and I thought that he was able to stop his heart beat!! I urged him to move so we can pass before they come and catch us in that position, but he wouldn’t have any of it!! I didn’t know the area nor the language and didn’t want to go on my own, so I stayed but very reluctantly. The torches were getting closer and closer and the drums louder and louder and more men were joining the search. I glanced at the watch, it was12 am or so!! And they were not going to give up!!

And we were like logs on the ground, they came so close to us that I was ready to engage them with a knife (: , and our guide was still advising that we stay put!! I looked again at the watch it was after 2 am and soon the Fajr was going to expose us any way!! I told every one that I am pushing ahead and not waiting for no one!! After few hours of hard push into the jungle and climbing a slippery slope we made it into a real wild and untouched jungle of Allah!!
As the light of the day penetrated the thick jungle canopy, I started exploring what happened to my body (: , I was very tired and weakened, I thought it was because of the lack of food and dehydration, but the red colour all over made me look closer, the first leech I found was easy to remove but I started to find more and more!! All of them just sucking my blood and letting it go!! It felt like sweat during the night but when I examined it it was sticky blood that was mixing with the sweat, who knew what else was feeding on us!!

The locals were more afraid of the large cats like Bengal tigers and the like of it, we were reminded every now and then by their fresh tracks and ……(: . I was worried about the return route!! Sooner or later we were to return and I wasn’t looking forward to repeat that nights exploit, the guide who followed us after we left him in the rice field, started to think in more realistic way, he suggested that we try to know exactly who are these people!! I thought that was done already!!

The Muslims in Burma are minority and they call themselves Rohingya, I might be wrong in spelling their name but that what I remember, may Allah forgive us, and they are very good Muslims, they are like us, the Turkistanies, they too were made refugees by the communists, so many of them made it to Saudi too, I was in touch with some of them and this guide supposed to know about them!! But apparently he was not that good. I was overtaken by the nature of the jungle, and it is not for the faint of heart, it was very difficult to move and only those made wise by experience and helped by Allah can survive there.
Soon it was the time to go back!! And for our amazement the villagers were good Muslims!! Who helped us back, in Arabic they have a saying that translates something like this “A land will kill who is ignorant of it “. As we made our way back we didn’t tell them that it was us who made them stay up all night (; , but we asked politely, did they notice any thing that night? They said yes, they were chasing away Tigers (: , I said to myself very close!! I came away from that jungle wiser and have great respect to the people living there, I hope that the recent events in Myanmar will help the forgotten Muslims there. I also met a man who I really felt very bad about his plight,

I will tell you his story in the next E-mail incha’ Allah, salamu alykum.

[Abdullah123]

Asalaamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakaatuh

Wali Khan Amin Shah: April 29, 2012 (Flashback: The Young Man’s Story)

29 Apr

Bismillah,
Speaking of stories, I promised you that I will tell you one about a young man I met in my travels. Here it is:

We were traveling in a van that we rented with a driver. We were in Bangladesh!! In the northeast of that country it was afternoon, and we were hoping that we would make it safely to a hospital that we were visiting. Suddenly an old man came out in the middle of road!! He stopped, and the driver did all he could to stop or avoid him, but he hit him or so it appeared to us. All of a sudden the whole village was upon us, and the driver said that we shouldn’t move!!

The men were holding axes!! They said it was a well planned trap to get money from travelers, and that the old man was a good actor. I couldn’t tell if that was true but we heard a lot of that. Anyway, we had to pay (: . In the crowd we saw a young man who came to us, and when he heard us talking in Arabic, he started speaking in a very clear Makkan accent (: .

The young man started to tell us his story while trying to stop the people from hurting us. He was not happy being there; he was born and raised in Makkah. Then, Iraq invaded Kuwait!! One can’t see why that would effect this poor man in Makkah, but it did because of a very bad law in Saudi Arabia and other gulf countries. He was just like other people of his community doing whatever he could to make a living in the Holy Land of Makkah when the people started to panic and think that Iraq was going to invade Saudi too!!

So his guarantor fled to Egypt!! Because he had to get his residency papers renewed and under the law he could only do so when his guarantor was in the country, he was arrested and deported to Bangladesh. He tried to make it in the capital but couldn’t find any kind of job in the city, which has more homeless people than many capitals have people.

He was told that in that village that we were ambushed in (: , that he could find a job and live with a relative. It turned out to be a job in match factory that paid just like my job here in the prison (: , which means he couldn’t eat but once a day, five times a week. It was very hard for him to learn how to fight for anything and live on the side of the road while struggling to learn the language in a land far away from where he grew up.

When we were leaving, I saw in his eyes the sadness, and I hoped to be able to help him. I was like him, made stateless and pushed away from my people. But I was given more than him by being connected to many people who made it easy for me to go around by the grace of Allah. I looked back as he was waving his hand, and I still think of him and make dua’ for him and many others who suffer injustices in the Muslim world.

Salamu alykum.