Home > Work > Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial
1 " It wasn't just Adnan being indicted at this grand jury proceeding, it wasn't just him being prosecuted. His faith, his ethnicity, his community--they were all on trial. "
― Rabia Chaudry , Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial
2 " Culture is a powerful force that influences our perceptions, our mindsets and even our domestic and foreign policies. The rich, messy complexity of 1,400 years of Islamic civilization and 1.6 billion Muslims has been reduced to token stereotypes. We are either avatars of destruction or the good Muslim who helps the national security narrative. But the overwhelming majority of us live in the giant middle—the grey zone—where impressions exist in more colors than just black and white.” * "
3 " The only exception was my mother, who unabashedly took up for Adnan, fought with anyone who had anything negative to say about him, never stopped talking about him with Aunty Shamim, and prayed for him with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. I "
4 " The only way I can process it is through my faith. That God was not going to let Adnan suffer all this in vain. Why he suffered any of it, why innocents suffer at all, is not a question mere mortals have ever been able to sufficiently answer. It's enough for me to know that all through out history, incredibly good people have suffered terribly, and suffering is not punishment. But much suffering is followed by redemption, sometimes that redemption even coming after the death of great people. "
5 " Adnan was deluged with letters, notes, pictures, and prayers. Some were short messages of support, others were pages and pages of personal divulgences. Adnan was stunned at the sometimes very intimate nature of the letters, people pouring out their pain and tribulations to a stranger. He realized it was sometimes easier for people to share their deepest sorrows with a stranger than with people they knew. I told him that’s how the Internet mostly works. Students "
6 " Next, the prosecutor made a move he probably immediately regretted—he asked her about the security guards. Hamiel caused laughter in the courtroom when she responded that the guards were mostly a deterrent, so useless they were called “two-and-a-halves” because police were called “five-o’s.” She particularly remembered the single guard who worked there in January of 1999, who she dubbed “Useless Steve” because she did more security work than he did. On "
7 " The only way I can process it is through my faith. That God was not going to let suffer all this in vain. Why he suffered any of it, why innocents suffer at all, is not a question mere mortals have ever been able to sufficiently answer. It's enough for me to know that all through out history, incredibly good people have suffered terribly, and suffering is not punishment. But much suffering is followed by redemption, sometimes that redemption even coming after the death of great people. "
8 " bigotry everyone is comfortable with. And there’s a reason for this. A dedicated, well-funded, dynamic cottage industry of “Islamophobes” and anti-Muslim bigots has been operating for years under the guise of research, academia and policy-making. In 2011 the D.C. think tank Center for American Progress published a landmark report called Fear, Inc. It traces, in painstaking detail, the millions of dollars that annually support the very strategic creation and dissemination of misinformation about Islam and Muslims to policy makers and media and the grassroots and state-level legislative organizing against Muslims. "
9 " The impact of the work of this industry is no joking matter. Their influence has led to numerous Congressional hearings on the “radicalization” of American Muslims and a veritable witch hunt of any American Muslim engaged in policy or government work. "
