With all of this, the prosecutor had the audacity and shamelessness to try to prevent her from being seen by a doctor due to her being a "security risk." When he was pressed by the judge as to why Aafia was sitting all this time in a NYC prison without basic medical care, the government attorney stuttered, said that it was "a complicated situation," and capped it with the expected cheap shot that "it was her decision as she refused to by seen by a male doctor." As soon as the prosecutor said that last bit, I saw Aafia's thin arm shoot up and shake back and forth to the judge (as if to say 'No! He’s lying!'). I felt so sorry for her, as she was obviously quite frustrated at the lies being spilled out before her very eyes. Her lawyer then put her hand on her arm and began stroking it to comfort her and calm her down.

When the hearing was over, one scholarly statement stuck in my mind, and it is where Ibn al-Qayyim said that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until: "...there remains only one obstacle from which the enemy calls him from, and this is an obstacle that he must face. If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation. This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue, and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways. There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So, he has essentially put on his body armor in this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allah's Sake and in His Name, and his worship in doing so is the worship of the best of worshippers."

And this was absolutely clear that day when looking at the scene in the court. Despite Aafia's apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain 'izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time. Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most people's minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female "security risk" - everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sister's iman.

This is the situation of our dear sister, a Muslim woman in captivity…

What can I say...?

I will not close by mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mu'tasim razed an entire city to the ground to rescue a single Muslim woman. I will not go back to the days of Salah ad-Din or 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Aziz, who rescued Muslim prisoners in the tens of thousands. I cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at this point because what is even sadder than what is happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims were who even bothered to show up to her hearing in a city of around half a million Muslims (not counting the surrounding areas), and that not a single Muslim organization in the United States has taken up the sister's cause or even spoken a word in her defense, and as Ibn al-Qayyim said: "If ghayrah (protective jealousy) leaves a person’s heart, his faith will follow it."

Unfortunately, in a time where most of us are following Din al-A'rab, it seems that the best person to teach us a lesson in how to help Aafia Siddiqui would have been Aafia herself.

Source: al-istiqamah.com

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