A True Story, written in the Words of a Doctor Who Once Lived in the Homeland

Introduction: In the midst of rapidly unfolding events, literature remains the most precise chronicler of the human experience, capturing the finest details of individual and societal life to provide a vivid account of humanity’s historical accumulation.

This is a true story, written from the perspective of a doctor who once lived in Syria, his homeland.
It was written in 2012, during the events of the blessed revolution, as a testimony to a real-life journey spanning more than 40 years of this nation's history. However, due to the presence of many of the doctor’s family members still inside Syria, the names of locations and people have been obscured. Despite this, publication was withheld at that time at the request of the doctor's son to prevent any unforeseeable harm.

Every detail in this story is true, and the writer’s only contribution was to shape the narration into a literary form, nothing more.

Huda Al-Rifai – December 22, 2024

The Story:

Every day, I hear news of another field hospital being raided and destroyed. Public hospitals have been shut down and turned into centers of detention, torture, and even organ theft by doctors who have neither religion nor conscience. Any doctor who refuses to participate in such atrocities is executed on the spot—unless God saves them by some miracle.

Just as He saved me. ..Thirty years!

I still remember those days. No—those years. No, those three decades in which their eyes relentlessly watched me, hunting me with terror and religious strife. It reached a breaking point, and five years ago, I finally left the homeland at the age of nearly sixty. May Allah forgive me. I never thought it would rise again… that it would ever rebel against the rule of tyrants. May Allah forgive me.

My story began when I graduated from high school, ranking among the top five students in the entire country. But in the president's party-controlled state, such an achievement was a disaster—for me, for my family, for my relatives, and even for my friends!

Do not ask why. Simply look up what happened to all the top students in schools and universities who came from families not affiliated with the ruling party. Look at what befell them—arrest, murder, exile—just because they were brilliant minds capable of building a great and honorable homeland. But the party members wanted nothing but ignorance and backwardness, ensuring that power remained solely in their hands. They truly believed in their ideology: "The re is no power but the party, There is no god but the party."

Before even receiving my diploma, I thought long and hard about fleeing the country. The situation back was eerily similar to what is happening today—except that back then, the events were less widely known. But my mother adamantly refused. She insisted I stay, and even urged me to study medicine in the capital’s university! At the time, it seemed like a wild idea. Yet, it happened. My friends, however, chose to enroll at the university of the commercial Hub (Aleppo), believing it might be safer than the official capital. But… they were all killed. All ten of them. Yes—ten doctors, slaughtered in cold blood. Just like countless others. The daily conversations among people soon revolved around murdered medical students, spoken of with dull indifference, lacking any shock or novelty.

Much like how people today casually discuss the number of murdered children and women… as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

After my friends were killed, and after I miraculously survived more than once, I became a subject of government surveillance. Their informants began spreading rumors about me, so much so that they reached my exiled family. They were told I had become a "Shabbih" (a regime mercenary). And there is no greater agony for a family than hearing such a thing—that their son had sold his faith for money, that he had betrayed his own people, his homeland, and even his very blood.

I later learned that my family actually believed these accusations. It was no longer just a suspicion—their doubts were backed by “evidence.” The strongest proof? That I had not been killed!

Meanwhile, in reality, I was moving from house to house every single day, sometimes unable to find even an hour of safety. Despite all my suffering, people still believed the lies. They constantly reaffirmed them to my family, time and time again.

It was so easy for the regime to fabricate such falsehoods after they had completely isolated every city from the others, forcing people to rely only on rumors—rumors that the regime itself deliberately fed with its filthy tactics.

One day, government security forces raided the home of an elderly woman who had sheltered me for a brief time. I was certain I had been caught.

She looked at me and said, "Hide behind this curtain."  I obeyed.

A mere light breeze could have shifted that curtain just enough to reveal me.

The agents stormed in. They searched the house meticulously—they even opened matchboxes, lifted the lids off pots, unrolled carpets, and spread-out blankets.

Yet not a single one of them touched that curtain.

It was as if the old woman had recited every verse of the Quran, she knew in that fleeting moment… a moment that Allah stretched beyond its limits, as though a single instant had expanded into an eternity.

"A day with your Lord is like a thousand years of what you count."

Years passed like this. My family was in a neighboring country while I remained trapped in the capital, far from my hometown, expecting death or imprisonment every time I entered my lecture hall at the university.

I could no longer endure the emotional torment of my family’s grief over me, nor the overwhelming fear of imprisonment. We heard every day about the horrors suffered by detainees—torture, humiliation, forced apostasy…

Finally, I decided to leave.

I abandoned my university.

I abandoned the dream of medicine that my mother had envisioned for me.

I made up my mind and began planning my escape. But then, unexpectedly, I saw a religious scholar from my distant hometown standing before me.

How had he come? Why? I did not know.

But fate had decreed that I would meet him…

Just before I left.

I Asked Him About My City and Its People

I knew that nothing he would tell me would bring me any joy… but I never imagined it would be this bad.

He told me that my city no longer had a single doctor left—except for those monstrous ones, the regime's party doctors who knew neither ethics nor humanity. Their only purpose was to spread disease and disability among the city's people and children. As for the rest of the doctors, they had either been executed, their bodies mutilated and displayed in the streets and at the mosque doors, or they had been imprisoned. No humane doctor remained in the city.

Then he said to me, "My son, how long until you graduate? These doctors have humiliated us!"

My blood froze.

I whispered, "My Sheikh, I have made up my mind… I am leaving."

Fate had brought me to the Sheikh in those circumstances, not as mere coincidence or a passing event.

He refused to leave me. He pleaded with me to stay and finish my studies. His desperate appeals weighed no less heavily on me than the image of my father in my mind. But even heavier than that were the horrors of torture in the prisons, the accounts of those who had been forced into religious apostasy.

Everything here was cruel.

Everything here made death seem far more beautiful.

Would I end up martyred like my eldest brother?

Or would I vanish into the darkness of the prisons, lost without a trace—like my younger brother? Is he still alive? Or has he already joined his brother in the highest ranks of paradise, among the martyrs and prophets?

Could it be that one day, they will force me to renounce my faith… and I will never see my brothers again—not in this world, nor in the afterlife?

This land had become too narrow to contain me, too stifling for my prayers and my faith.

If I remained here, I would be holding the wine to my lips… tasting it… letting it mix with my blood, my soul, and my sanity until it consumed me.

The Sheikh left me to wrestle with the torment in my soul. He had placed upon my shoulders the trust of my city's people, their dignity, and their illnesses—if I were to abandon them.

Fate had chosen me for them.

Perhaps it was the Sheikh's prayers that kept me from leaving, that erased the thought of escape from my mind. And so, I stayed in the capital until I finished my studies. Every time I was summoned for interrogation, and I believed that death was inevitable, they would release me—sometimes after six hours of questioning, sometimes after twenty—depending on the mood of the officer.

The summons came every week, sometimes every single day.

I felt as if a sincere prayer, whispered in the dead of night by someone unknown to me, was shielding me.

Every time I thought I could not endure no more, I found myself bearing even greater suffering.

And I did graduate.

I returned to my city and opened my clinic.

One day, the Sheikh visited me there. Our meeting was a mixture of laughter and tears.

Despite all the pain, we were still alive, Sheikh.

I began counting the days after opening my clinic, telling myself, Perhaps this will be my last day. Perhaps my clinic will never open again tomorrow.

Then, one day, the intelligence officer who interrogated me at the security branch came to my clinic.

But this time, he wasn't there to summon me for six hours of torture in their terrifying interrogation rooms, Nor for twenty hours of psychological warfare, locked inside those hellish chambers.

No—this time, he came to inform me that I had been selected as the military training camp’s assigned doctor.

And in the state of the President’s Party, this meant one thing:

I was about to face the greatest battle of faith and morality in this world.

And I had no choice.

I would go… or I would go.

They chose me, even though they knew how much we hated them.

They didn’t pick one of their own party members.

Because even they did not trust their own doctors.

They knew very well that those doctors had obtained their medical degrees through favoritism and corruption.

And if, by some miracle, they had actually learned something about medicine, they were either too lazy to put in the effort to treat a patient properly, or—if they were diligent—they were too wicked to refrain from intentionally infecting their patients with new diseases, ensuring that they remained dependent on them.

One time, a regime doctor prescribed medication to an officer, who became suspicious and consulted me.

I told him, "This medicine is not for you."

He glared at me.

"And how can I trust you? You are not one of us!"

I replied, "You know that we do not betray, nor do we lie. When we swear the oath of medical ethics, we do not break it—ever."

And so, he took the medicine I prescribed instead.

It is not an ordinary thing to treat your enemy.

But he is my enemy precisely because I am a man of faith and principles.

If I were to abandon my principles, I would become one of them.

And they would welcome me as their own.

One day, I heard that intelligence forces had arrested a young man I knew.

He was lost in life—without values, without knowledge, without faith, without anything.

A poor soul, one I had always pitied.

I went to the head of the intelligence branch and said, "What do you want with this young man? He knows nothing of prayer or fasting!"

The officer looked at me in shock.

"Is that possible? Then why did we arrest him?"

He called one of his men and ordered the young man’s release.

Do not be surprised.

This is the President’s Party State, dear gentlemen.

The greatest crime is to bow to God (ALLAH).

And the greatest loyalty is to bow to tyranny.

They forbade me from praying.

So, I prayed with my eyes.

Then they forbade even that.

They dragged me away once, trying to force me to drink alcohol.

I refused.

If they prevent me from praying, I can make up for it later.

But a single drop of alcohol—if it enters my body—what will purge it from my flesh and blood?

The days of torment never end.

I know that if they did not need me, I would not still be alive.

Every day, they raided my house.

They searched everything—even the matchboxes, opening them to check what was inside.

In the garden, they stabbed metal rods into the ground, searching for any hidden weapons my father might have buried before he fled the country.

Or hidden documents.

Or scientific books.

Or even books of hadith and Quranic interpretation—anything my mother might have concealed to prevent them from erasing religious knowledge from our city.

If not above the ground, then beneath it—beside the graves of our martyrs, whose bodies we had hidden so that the president’s demons would not desecrate them.

I burned every scrap of paper left in the house.

Every photo.

Every document.

Everything.

So they would have no excuse.

I burned it all.

And I saw my sister's eyes as she watched the flames consume our memories, her tears held back with difficulty.

I tried to ignore her gaze.

But the smiles on those burning photographs haunted me for days.

No matter. I forgot them.

What mattered was that I had erased every memory that they could use against us.

I had wiped out every picture from existence.

Even if I could never erase them from my heart.

Because when memories are carved into the soul, they can never be burned away—

Not even if the heart itself is reduced to ashes a thousand times over.

Every day, I watched my sister refuse to go to school—just so they wouldn’t force her to remove her hijab.

And then I saw my younger sister return from school…

Her hijab had been ripped from her head.

 

Death Would Have Been Much Easier…

One day, the principal of the high school came to me, pleading with me to convince my sister to sit for her baccalaureate exams.

She had refused to attend school for months after a Futuwwa instructor had tried to force her to remove her hijab and perform physical exercises without it. When my sister refused, the instructor wrote a zero in her gradebook right in front of her and all her classmates—as a warning that none of them should dare follow her example.

She was the only one left. The only one who remained veiled.

When the threats escalated beyond academic punishment and turned into the butt of a rifle pressed against her, my sister rose from her seat and never returned.

She swore never to step foot in that school again—not while those armed girls, sitting among the unarmed students, tore off their hijabs with arrogance and mockery, stripping them of every shred of dignity.

They had forcibly removed everyone's hijabs.

But when they reached my sister, whispers spread among the students:

"That’s the sister of that man… Be careful."

"That man who held a power so close to magic that his enemies' rifles turned to obedient servants in his grasp…"

They ordered my sister to throw away her hijab.

She threw her books in their faces instead—

And walked out of school, never looking back.

The principal was persistent.

She pleaded with me, again and again. She was a woman of iron will—never seen without her niqab or her black gloves. I had never known her by anything but her strong, resolute voice.

They had forced every other school principal to change.

But not her.

They could not break her. They could not alter her dress.

She brought me my sister’s gradebook and pointed to the zero.

Then, she said, “Look. I have now placed a three after it. It is done. Your sister has a full grade—thirty points in Futuwwa. She only needs to wear a large cap on her head and raise the collar of her shirt high enough. It will cover as much as the hijab does.”

But my sister refused.

She said, “I will wear a cap. I will raise my collar. But I will wear my hijab underneath them both. If they take off my cap, my hijab will still be there. No one will dare touch it.”

And so, she went to take her exams.

Without study. Without preparation.

The principal had absolute confidence—blind confidence—that my sister would pass.

She always said, “She is the sister of that man”—meaning me. “She does not need to study to pass any exam, no matter how difficult.”

And I had no doubts about her intelligence.

I had spent years in medical school, receiving international medical journals in my college mailbox every year, because I ranked first in my class. Global medical publications sought to connect with the top students in every university in the country, especially those from the capital. Pharmaceutical companies courted our attention and trust in every way possible, including through such publications.

I translated these journals in full, compiling them in a file and sending them to the few remaining members of my family who had not yet fled the country.

Only my two sisters remained.

They had both stopped attending school altogether when the forced unveiling intensified.

The younger one was never fond of reading—she preferred embroidery, painting, and design.

But the elder one—the one in high school—she devoured those journals. She read them like someone deprived of knowledge, someone thirsting for learning.

For months, she studied and absorbed everything I sent her.

She had more knowledge than all her classmates.

That is why I was never worried about her missing school lessons.

I took her hand.

Walked her to the exam hall.

Waited outside.

Every so often, I would glance through the window, keeping watch.

Then, I saw it—

A Futuwwa girl approaching her.

My sister was fully absorbed in writing her exam answers.

The girl struck her rifle butt against my sister’s shoulder and muttered something.

I didn’t hear it—

But I didn’t need to.

Her hand gesture was clear: Remove your hijab.

I knew my sister would refuse.

And I knew this armed girl would attack her.

I braced myself.

This is it. Get ready to die now.

Just as I took my first step forward—

I saw it.

The Futuwwa girl simply walked past my sister.

Left her alone.

Left her hijab untouched.

No insistence. No threats.

Nothing.

What did you do, my sister?

What angels were guarding you, that they turned away this rifle-bearing girl without a single struggle?

I waited for her to finish.

When she stepped out, I took her hand—just as I had done on the way there.

I tried to shield her, stretching my shoulders wide, making myself a barrier to block any bullet that might come from either side.

I asked her, "How did the girl with the rifle leave you alone?"

She smiled.

And when my sister smiled, it was as if the sun hid behind the clouds in shyness at the radiance of her face.

She shrugged, indifferent, and said:

"I told her my hair was wet."

"I showered before leaving home, and my mother told me to keep my head warm so I wouldn’t get sick."

I looked up at the sky.

Minutes ago, it had been bleak and overcast, suffocating me with its gloom.

But now—

Now it had opened up, vast and bright, with just enough light to let hope slip through the clouds.

Every day, before entering our home, I would stand at a distance and watch—

Just to make sure no one was raiding it at that moment.

I had warned my sisters:

"If you ever hear commotion, jump over the garden wall to our uncle’s house. Or any neighbor’s house. Just run."

One evening, I returned home with my sister—

Only to find our house turned upside down.

Locks broken.

Doors smashed.

They had left their iron rods in the garden, as if to taunt us—

To show us what they had used to stab through the soil, making sure there was nothing buried beneath it.

Making sure they hadn’t missed a single book.

Making sure we knew they would not hesitate to drive those rods through the chests that carried such books.

We searched for our younger sister.

She was gone.

We asked the neighbors.

I nearly lost my mind—

Until she finally emerged from the attic.

She was pale.

Mute.

She had been unable to speak or move for hours.

She finally whispered that they had raided the house from all sides.

She had no way to escape.

So she climbed to the attic—

And stayed there, holding her breath for hours—

Until they left.

We often spent nights away from home.

Split up to avoid drawing attention.

But after that night, I ordered my sisters to prepare to leave the country.

I arranged a taxi to take them to the last location where I knew my family had settled.

We had no time to contact them or confirm their new address.

I prayed they would arrive safely.

And I returned to the capital—

Desperate to find a way to escape.

To flee.

I could not risk traveling with them—

Their presence with me would have put their lives in danger.

But as for two young girls traveling alone—

No one paid much attention to girls back then.

Years passed.

My mother died in exile.

I never got to say goodbye.

One morning, I picked up my medical bag and headed to the clinic for a scheduled surgery.

A doctor never arrives late.

Not by even half a second.

I was walking—focused, clear-minded, as all doctors must be when carrying their bag.

Nothing could divert me.

Nothing.

Except—

A man came running toward me.

It was the barber from the far street.

He was waving his arms, shouting my name like a madman.

And then—

Then I heard the words I never thought I would live to hear:

"Your brother… Your brother is out of prison!"

I don’t remember what happened that moment.

I don’t remember anything.

The barber later told me that my medical bag had fallen from my hands, and that I had started running down the street—

Until I reached the barbershop.

Until I grabbed my brother—

Or what was left of him.

I held onto him as if I feared he would slip away again—

And I wouldn’t see him for another fourteen years.

My younger brother.

Only two years younger than me.

He had been a football champion.

And he had been so handsome that people feared for him.

My mother had arranged his engagement when he was only seventeen—

Just a few months before his arrest.

If he had not been my brother, I might not have recognized him.

If I had seen with my eyes as others do, I might not have recognized him.

But the soul has its own sight—

And it knew him.

My brother had always loved beauty.

And despite everything they did to him,

They could not take that love away.

He was ashamed for me to see him disheveled, unkempt, covered in dust.

So he had gone to a barber—far from home—

Hoping to fix whatever could be fixed,

Hoping to hide whatever could be hidden.

But tell me—

How could these wounds,

These scars,

These burns,

These agonies—

How could they ever be hidden?

How could a barber conceal even the smallest trace

Of fourteen years of torture?

He was seventeen when they took him.

And he spent the prime of his youth

Under the lashes of hell and torment.

He had no crime—

Except that his eldest brother,

When he spoke,

Half the nation rose for him.

And when he willed,

He could make them sit.

For my brother had stood before the tyrants and said:

No.

My eldest brother.

The one who taught me how to pray.

The one who taught all of us—our siblings, our friends.

The one who taught me righteousness.

The one who taught me to love goodness for others.

The one who taught me to desire righteousness for the world.

 

He Was a Doctor, But He Never Finished His Studies…

They pursued him to the ends of the earth—across half the globe—and still, they did not stop chasing him. But when he was certain that he had finally escaped their grasp, when he had proved to them that they could never keep up with him…

He returned.

He returned to them, to their very doorstep.

Not out of arrogance. Not to challenge them.

But because running away is not the way of great men.

They could have killed him.

But his presence alone left their lowly soldiers paralyzed.

He looked at them and said, "Take me to your leader."

And so they did.

Their commander welcomed him.

"Welcome back. You are dear to us, honored and powerful in our ranks. But the beard—it is unnecessary."

He replied, "The beard and the neck… they do not part ways."

This was never about a beard.

Nor about superficial debates or appearances.

To shave the beard meant far more than that.

It started with forcing schoolgirls to remove their hijabs—

And ended with the collapse of bridges and the nation's infrastructure.

Corruption is corruption.

Injustice is injustice.

A war against justice does not merely prohibit religious symbols—

It forbids sincerity itself.

A man of faith can never accept deceit, even if it costs him his life or his wealth.

And a corrupt man can never profit above honest men—

Or beneath them.

They sent dozens of elite forces to kill him.

But none of them succeeded.

None of them dared.

Until the last unit—after they had drunk themselves into a stupor—

And even though they were the ones holding the weapons…

He killed them all.

Because, in the end, they left him no choice—

Either they would kill him, or he would kill them.

He called them to repent—

To abandon their worship of tyrants.

But their pride blinded them.

Except for one.

One man fell to his knees, trembling.

"I surrender to God—do not kill me!"

He converted to Islam for one minute.

Then he lost his mind.

And for thirty-five years—until the day I left the country five years ago—

He would wake up from his sleep, screaming:

"I surrender, O [my brother's name]—do not kill me!"

And he would recount the entire story, over and over—

As if he were reliving it before his very eyes.

He would describe how they were trained—

How they were recruited as a special unit to assassinate my brother.

How they set out on their mission.

How they reached him.

How they tried.

How they failed.

How they humiliated him by desecrating the Quran before his very eyes.

How he took their weapons.

How he reloaded them as they stood there, stunned.

How he debated them.

How he advised them.

How he pleaded with them to repent.

How he tried to spare their blood—and his own—until the moment came when there was no other choice.

Either they would kill him, or he would kill them.

And how, one by one, he made them recite the Shahada before he pulled the trigger—

Until one of them finally screamed:

"I surrender, O [my brother's name]—do not kill me!"

But the story did not end there.

And the number of loyal men was never enough to stop the harm of the tyrant's slaves.

When they saw that their own followers feared killing him—

When they realized that those who hesitated feared revenge from his family, which made up two-thirds of the city’s population—

They made a decision:

They would make his death a shared responsibility.

They brought a squad of young riflemen—

They covered him completely—

And they placed him as a target on the shooting range.

No one knew who fired the first bullet.

But God knew—

Who had planned.

Who had ordered.

Who had approved.

They killed him.

And yet, death could not take the life from his face.

The forensic doctor believed he was still alive.

He knew him.

Most of the country’s doctors and dignitaries knew him.

He ordered the soldiers to carry away the bodies—

But he did not open his coffin.

As soon as they left, he pried it open—

And nudged him.

"Get up. They’re gone!"

He repeated it, convinced that he was alive.

He was alive—

By the will of God.

By the words of God.

Alive and provided for.

But not for human eyes to witness.

That night, when darkness cloaked the military camp,

The doctor carried him away—

And buried him where no one—

No man, no jinn—

Would ever find him.

He feared they would desecrate his body,

That they would mock him.

And that would break the hearts of those who had loved him—

And yet, who had never possessed his courage.

After my eldest brother was killed,

And after my father recovered from the shock,

A regime officer came to him and said:

"Do not hold a funeral gathering. No one will dare attend."

My father did not even look at him.

Did not waste a single word in reply.

If my memory serves me correctly,

For an entire year,

Not fewer than 200 men visited our home daily.

Every single day.

I remember arranging chairs—

In the reception hall, in the guest room, on the roof, on the neighbor's roof, in the entrance, on the stairs—

And still, there were hundreds of men standing outside.

They came to pay their condolences to my father.

And tell me—

What condolences could ever ease the loss of a man like that?

There were more than 200 chairs—

And still, the number of men standing, I could never count.

It was certainly more.

Some came in buses,

Not just from nearby cities,

But from neighboring countries.

I was in awe.

How had he touched so many lives in so few years?

How had he taught so many?

How had he planted such deep roots in their hearts?

Even while hunted—both inside the country and beyond—

He still found time to gather young boys before Fajr,

To teach them the Quran,

To teach them faith,

To teach them the strength of a believer—

That no boundary can hold him back.

That no tyrant can break him.

So long as he stands with Allah .

I thought it would only be the neighboring countries sending their men to offer condolences.

Until one day, a group arrived from a distant nation.

I was astonished.

"How do you know my brother?"

They told me—

When the regime failed to assassinate him in another country,

He fled to them.

He lived among them for a long time.

Walking from village to village.

Teaching them prayer.

Teaching them faith.

Neither I,

Nor my siblings,

Nor my cousins,

Nor even my eldest brother—who had fought so bravely—

Had any crime except one word:

"No."

Some said it aloud—

And paid with their blood.

Others whispered it in secret—

And lived as I did.

As my younger brother did.

Either under the whips of physical torture in the prisons—

Or under the agony of psychological torture outside them.

For Three Years, I Treated My Brother—Wound by Wound, Scar by Scar, Pain by Pain…

For three years, I dedicated myself daily to treating my brother.

Wound by wound.

Scar by scar.

Burn by burn.

Fracture by fracture.

Pain by pain.

Until he recovered—

As much as medicine could ever heal someone who had survived that hell.

In the first year, I focused on treating his face and hands.

He longed to see our father, who was in exile—

But he did not want our father to see his face, marred and disfigured.

He did not want to break his heart.

May God be pleased with you, my brother.

How handsome you were.

How tender was your soul.

How unwavering was your love for beauty—

Even after all they had done to you.

Even after all the mutilation they inflicted upon your body—

They could not mutilate your soul,

Which yearned for beauty in everything.

The first question he asked me was about our mother—

And about one of our brothers,

The one two years younger than him,

The one who resembled him in his demeanor, his character.

They were the only two who had died

During his years of imprisonment and complete severance from us.

I was puzzled.

Why had he chosen them?

Why had he asked about them first—before anyone else in the family?

Then, he told me things.

Things about me—

Things that no one in the world could have known but me.

I swore upon him to tell me how he knew.

He said:

"Every day, after the rounds of torture ended—after all its forms—"

"When I would retreat to sleep, I would feel an overwhelming longing for you all."

"I had no one to confide this longing to—except God."

"And so, He granted me sleep, despite the pain that weighed upon every atom of my body."

"And perhaps, as an act of His mercy, my soul would be taken and allowed to soar in your presence."

"I saw you all in my dreams."

"I saw our father. Our mother. All of our siblings."

"Even the birds perched upon the jasmine branches in our garden…"

"I saw them."

"I could smell the jasmine—whenever a bird rustled its branch."

"I had never smelled anything in a dream before."

"But there—"

"There, where oxygen itself was suffocating,"

"Where it renounced that vile, putrid hell—"

"There, my body remained imprisoned."

"But my soul… my soul was inhaling the jasmine in our father’s garden."

I told him that our mother had died.

And our brother—the one he asked about—had also died.

I could not bring myself to tell him how that brother had died—

The one who looked so much like him,

Who shared his strength,

His beauty,

His athletic achievements.

We never truly knew—

Was the car accident that took his life really an accident?

Or was it a carefully orchestrated murder?

I told him they had passed away.

He already knew.

But still—

Still, he wept.

He wept silently.

He wept shamefully.

Our mother died of grief over our eldest brother—

Ten years after his assassination.

Yes, she lived a decade beyond him.

But she did not stop dying—

Every single day.

Every morning, she would wake up,

Hold his shirt,

And weep—

As if she had just received news of his death that very moment.

She had over fifteen children.

But none of us—

None of us was like him.

He was not extraordinary in his own eyes.

To him, everything he did was just… normal.

Every night, he would rock our baby sister to sleep—

Lulling her into slumber in his arms.

Then, he would climb to the roof,

Tie a rope around his wrist,

Let it dangle over the edge,

And instruct his friends—

That if they passed by on their way to Fajr prayer and did not see him waiting—

They should pull the rope to wake him up.

So that he would never miss the prayer,

No matter how late he had gone to sleep.

When he returned from the mosque,

He would wake up our sisters—one by one—

Help them perform ablution,

And ensure they prayed Fajr.

Then, he would prepare breakfast for all of us.

He would stand by the door as we left for school,

Asking each one of us,

"Did you pray?"

He would give us our school allowance and send us on our way.

Then, he would go back inside.

He would tidy our rooms—

Especially for the little ones who were still too young to make their beds.

He would organize the kitchen,

Tidy the house,

And then—

Then, he would prepare coffee.

And he would set it by the jasmine tree on the rooftop,

With two comfortable chairs beside it.

Then, he would go wake up our mother and ask her—

"Would you like a cup of coffee?"

To him, this was nothing remarkable.

It was just… normal.

But to our mother—

Who had sworn after my brother’s death

That she would not let those monsters claim another son—

To our mother,

This was also normal.

What she wept for was far greater than his kindness to his family.

Far greater than his morning coffee by the jasmine tree.

She wept—

For the hopes and dreams that died the moment he was killed.

She wept—

For the word "No"—

Which lips no longer dared to utter—

Choosing instead either silence…

Or exile.

She wept—

For a homeland losing its men.

For a faith losing its warriors.

For a nation losing its heroes.

My mother—

The one who gathered books of hadith, tafsir, philosophy, and jurisprudence—

The one who sealed them in iron boxes,

Welded them shut,

And buried them deep in her farmland—

So deep that no rod of the tyrants could ever reach them.

So deep that no pickaxe could strike them.

So well hidden that even if the oppressors searched every inch of the earth,

They would never find them.

And even if they did—

This world is not yet devoid of angels.

And we did all that we could.

My mother…

She fulfilled her vow.

She outwitted them all—

Turning their intelligence officers into a laughingstock.

She successfully hid every young man they hunted.

No matter how many times they searched,

They never found them.

She fulfilled her vow.

But still—

Still, her tears for my brother never dried.

She wept for him every morning—

Until the day she died.

She wept for my imprisoned brother, too.

But my father reassured her.

He told her he was safe.

That he knew his condition.

That the food she prepared for him reached him.

What else could my father say?

What else could he do?

He was merciful to her heart.

But when my brother’s captivity dragged on…

And when our mother passed away…

The father of his fiancée came to my father,

Complaining of his daughter’s defiance.

She was beautiful.

Incredibly beautiful.

But she refused to take off the ring my brother had given her.

For thirteen years and eleven months—

She clung to it.

If he were ever going to be released,

Wouldn’t he have been freed ten years ago?

Or five?

No one—

No one—

Could survive that hell for so many years.

So my father went to her.

He swallowed his pain.

He was a wise man—

One who never faltered in the face of trials.

He said to her:

"My daughter… My son is gone. Obey your father. Marry the man he has chosen for you."

And so, it was done.

The divorce was finalized in court—

By default.

Because they could not issue a death certificate.

So they wrote in the papers:

"Absent."

Just… absent.

For no reason.

The judge signed.

The clerk stamped.

The papers passed from hand to hand—

As if the officials were drunk,

Or pretending to be.

"Absent."

Nothing more.

And yet, they all knew—

That he was not absent.

He was present.

A living witness—

To unimaginable corruption,

To immeasurable oppression,

To a crime against history itself.

Against the homeland.

Against humanity.

Against the entire world.

 

She Married the Man Her Father Chose for Her

She married him after the divorce papers were finalized, but she wept as she did.

For fourteen years—save for one month—she had carried within her heart a silent, hidden struggle she could not understand but could never let go of.

She was loyal—far beyond what the word could ever mean.

And when my brother was finally released from prison…

She wept.

She wailed.

She lost her balance from the sheer weight of compassion and mercy in her heart.

She blamed herself—

Believing that she was the reason for his suffering.

She thought that if only she had left him alone, he would have been freed years ago.

She saw proof in the fact that he was released just one month after she had removed the ring he had once placed on her finger.

Yes, things like this can happen.

Even in the hearts of the patient and the grateful—

Even in those who endure hardship with unwavering faith.

Not because they lack belief in destiny or divine decree—

But simply to remind us that we are human.

That the tyrants, no matter what they have done,

Have not turned us into stone—

Cold, unfeeling, lifeless.

One day, one of my brothers called me.

He had been living with our father in a neighboring country.

He said to me:

"Our father is on his deathbed. He wants us to take him back to see our city one last time before he dies. See what you can do."

I left my home immediately.

I went to see the officer who was my patient at the clinic.

Perhaps he would grant me this favor.

Perhaps he would allow my father this small mercy.

I pleaded with him.

I said, "Just two hours. Let him see the city before he dies. He may not even live that long. Can’t you let an old man see his home without interrogating him?"

But the officer sneered.

"Even if your father were already dead, I would dig him out of his grave to interrogate him."

I called my brother.

"No, my brother. Do not send him."

A few days later, he called me back—

To tell me our father had passed away.

After his death, my brother opened his father’s cabinet—

And found a set of locks.

Beautiful, distinct locks that our father had bought years ago,

Hopeful that when he returned to a liberated homeland,

He would place them on the doors of his beautiful home—

To make it even more beautiful.

May God have mercy on him.

He had always been certain of God’s victory.

My father died.

And from the house where he had once lived—

All the way to the source of the river in the mountain—

More than half of the agricultural lands in that region belonged to him.

He cultivated them with fruits,

And roses,

And jasmine,

And gardenias.

And he left them open—

For anyone who wished to pick from them,

To take as much fruit and as many flowers as they desired,

Without question, without restriction.

I cannot forget the sight of the sea from my childhood.

Every summer, twenty thousand tents would be set up along the coastline.

Each for a sheikh and his young students.

They came from the inland cities,

And they camped on our land—

Land that stretched from the shore up to the hills,

All of it belonging to my father.

The trees on that land were heavy with fruit.

There was no need for laborious farming.

Just a little effort was enough—

The trees grew in abundance, by the generosity of God.

Twenty thousand tents.

They ate.

They drank.

They found safety in that land.

And despite everything the tyrants had done,

That land remained pure.

Because how could a land,

Where every grain of sand had once listened to thousands of recitations of the Quran,

Ever turn corrupt—

No matter how long oppression endured?

Yes, most of that land was stolen by the President’s Party.

And what remained, they ruined and defiled.

But righteous roots always stay firm—

And the froth is washed away in vain.

The land that embraced the bodies of the martyrs,

And beside them, the books of hadith and Quranic interpretation,

Could never be a place where tyrants would build their homes.

I will not count the tragedies, father.

But I will count the streets of our city.

And in each street, I will plant a rose and jasmine tree—

When we return, I will remember you wherever I turn my eyes in our beautiful city,

Because your memory, father— heals me.

------------------------------------------------------------- 

March 15, 2012

A Doctor Who Once Lived in the Homeland

A True Story

Huda Al-Rifai

Translated by Anas Al Arran 20/02/2025