Atif Rashid, MTA News

Faith in Chains is a dramatic MTA News documentary series highlighting the persecution of Ahmadi Muslims and their unjust imprisonment on false charges

When an Ahmadi Muslim is imprisoned for his faith, they bear the trial with great steadfastness, trust in Allah and resignation to His will. Their moral strength is so powerful that it is not their loved ones who console them – often they are the ones who console their loved ones! Such  trials are just as severe for their families – if not more.

This was the case with Tahir Mahdi, manager of the Al Fazl newspaper in Rabwah and a prisoner of conscience. In 2015, he was arrested and jailed for the so-called crime of publishing verses of the Holy Qur’an in the Al Fazl newspaper, a long-standing newspaper which used to be published by the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Pakistan.

His daughter Atiyyatul-Wadood was in London, unable to see her dear father locked up more than 4,000 miles away. Her only source of comfort was her spiritual father, Hazrat Mirza Masroor Ahmad, Khalifatul Masih V^aa, who she would visit multiple times during this unbearable ordeal.

“The first time I spoke to my father after his imprisonment, I was not able to say anything,” she recalls. “I simply cried and wept whereas my father was laughing, he was laughing a lot. I still remember this even today.”

Her father would say: “My dear, have a mulaqat [meeting] with Huzoor^aa and request Huzoor^aa for prayers.”

She recounts those memorable moments with Huzoor^aa who would reassure and console her. “I could not meet my father during his imprisonment but I continued to seek prayers from Huzoor^aa for him whilst living here,” she says. “He would say things with a smile on his face. He would tell me that [my father] is not worried or that he is very happy or that he has friendships with his inmates. The environment would be such that for a few seconds, it would feel as if we are worrying for no reason and this feeling would last for several days.”

During this time, Tahir Mahdi was going through extreme hardships in prison. Jails in Pakistan are quite grim. Inmates receive old and dirty blankets, they get a plastic plate and glass and live alongside 5 or 6 others in the same area.

Often, food that he would request from the Jamaat Langar [kitchen] in Rabwah would be eaten by the guards and empty plates would reach him. “It’s food from the Langar, whether you eat it or I eat it, it is the same thing, it’s not an issue,” he would tell the guards. Other times he would share his food with his fellow inmates. Due to his character, he earned their respect and even made friendships in jail.

He would recite durood [salutations upon the Holy Prophet Muhammad^sa] and prayers to get him through the night. He says: “There have been many nights where I recited these prayers all night up until the time for Tahajjud [pre-dawn prayers]. I never lost hope. Huzoor’s words would always give me hope. Allah the Exalted had put this in my heart that my release is going to be soon.”

Back in London, his daughter requested Huzoor^aa for a ring for Tahir Mahdi. Huzoor then handed her a ring and said to tell her father: “This time, I am giving him this ring, and he shall come and get a stone ring from me himself.” Moments and phrases like this are what kept Atiyyatul-Wadood’s hopes alive.

At times, she would be questioned by non-Ahmadis as to why she doesn’t leave the Jamaat so they don’t have to bear such hardships. She would tell them: “No, because we have a Khalifa who is the head of our Jamaat, who is with us and who prays for us. We also have the prayers of the Promised Messiah^as with us as well.”

Each time she visited Huzoor^aa during this ordeal, she would receive loving words of comfort  from her spiritual father.

“I believe if we were to look at any other community outside of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jamaat, I don’t think anyone has a leader who treats his followers with such love and compassion, who prays for them and who makes them feel as if he is standing with them,” she says.

Soon, the time for Tahir Mahdi’s freedom would arrive, just as Hazrat Khalifatul Masih V^aa had foretold, and father and daughter would be reunited once again.

Faith in Chains: Jailed for Believing is now streaming on MTA News.