No Mercy For The Elders

Children were taken and tortured in Bagram and Guantanamo. To the Muslim prisoners’ shock, elders were not spared either. In this episode, Moazzam Begg shares deplorable examples of US soldiers harassing vulnerable elderly prisoners. A reminder of how much Guantanamo stands in stark contrast with the dignity Islam grants to all children of Adam .

[As part of the MuslimMatters x CAGE Dhul Hijjah Activism Drive: Close Guantanamo, we bring you a series, Guantanamo Memories, of stories from behind bars.]

There is a beautiful hadith spoken by our Prophet .

He said, “He who does not show mercy to our young ones or recognize the rights of our elders is not one of us.”

I’ve written about Omar and Yasser, two teenagers tortured and detained in Guantanamo. One even died, may Allah accept him as a martyr, Ameen.

Guantanamo and Bagram had little mercy on our young ones. But the elders fared no better…

In Pasho, elderly men are respectfully called spin gira – grey beards. But Bagram, with its dark cells and torture chambers, was devoid of humanity let alone respect.

In Bagram, I remember young US soldiers bragging about the “very dangerous” Afghans who had just been captured.

When I saw they were referring to really old men, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I remember saying that they’d captured the octogenarian unit of the Taliban.

Some of these men had lost their limbs fighting the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan, using only rifles from WWI and WWII. Now they were seeing their home occupied by another “superpower”.

Many of them were so old that they couldn’t even remember their exact age.

One day, I saw the soldiers bring a camel spider in a box, and throw it at a very old man who’d been shot in his leg and couldn’t walk.

It was a joke to them.

The camel spider is the most terrifying arachnid I’ve ever encountered, and has a powerful, painful bite. The bite dissolves human flesh.

Several prisoners were bitten by these creatures in front of me.

Bagram was crawling with them… But they weren’t the only ones who had to crawl.

One prisoner had his crutches taken away because they were a “security hazard.” To move, he had no choice but to crawl along the floor.

The system made no sense.

Another elder had his hearing aid taken from him, but the guards would still scream at him when he couldn’t hear or understand what they were saying.

It was infuriating and terribly saddening to see these elderly people treated in this way.

Like most Muslims, I was brought up to respect the elderly and the sick. As Muslims, we are commanded to be good to prisoners.

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “I enjoin you to treat the captives well.”

That was another piece of advice that fell on the deaf ears of our captors, but, again, our oppressors should never become our teachers.

Don’t forget to join MuslimMatters and CAGE this month as we work to Close Guantanamo. Check out how you can act today. 

Related Reading:

 – Dhul Hijjah Global Activism Drive: Close Guantanamo

Dhul Hijjah Global Activism Drive: Close Guantanamo

– “A US Soldier Reminded Me Of Allah And Made Me Pray!”

“A US Soldier Reminded Me Of Allah And Made Me Pray!”