Like many prisoners he came out of the prison as a better man. I once heard that Prophet Yusuf CS described the prison as Baytul Xikmah, The house of Wisdom. One must be a real fool not to spend all that free time to read or do some serious soul searching. It also created friendship between former rilvals. The writer who was born in Gaalkacyo became close friends with Adan Bahnaan from Burco who had more privileges than others. He used those privileges to help his fellow inmates by giving them books and brought home made food for them, since he was allowed to visit his wife once a week.
This following story shows us how former rivals became friends in prison
Adan Bahnan’s help reminds me of a similar story that Gen.Mohamed Abshir told us in person, while he was living here in Jeddah,
Saudi Arabia, several years ago. It shows that despite their differences in politics or occasional kin antagonism, Somalis get along
well on a personal level and can even be very kind to each other.Mohamed Abshir told us that while he and the late Mohamed Ibrahim
Egal were in prison at Labaatan Jirow, the prison guards wanted to deepen Abshir’s suffering, so they forbade any reading materials and even confiscated his single copy of the holy Quran. When Mohamed Ibrahim Egal learned about this, he took an exercise book and copied
by hand as many Quranic verses as he could, until it was full. He then smuggled the Quranic exercise book to Mohamed Abshir’s cell after
distracting the attention of the guards. Gen. Abshir told us that he learned all the Quranic verses that were in that exercise book by heart
and it was Egal’s humane gesture that helped Gen. Abshir endure these great hardships for another three years.
Cafis iyo masaamax yaa SiyaadThat is why I decided long ago to forgive Siyaad Barre and his dictatorial regime, because there is no point in dwelling on a past that you
cannot change. As they say in Arabic: “Elli faat, maat” (what is gone, is dead). I even at times feel thankful and offer prayers or “duco” to Col. Ahmed Jili’ow and Ali Adde, former Deputy Mayor of Mogadishu, the two men who were instrumental in my imprisonment mainly out of clanist animosity. They offered me, unintentionally, a crucial wake-up call that changed my life for the better. Another person who helped me in reaching this decision and in forgiving Barre’s regime and its sycophants was my colleague in prison, Ali Ambe (from Burao), with whom I later worked in the same bank here in Saudi Arabia for many years. He made me understand that it was not that ruthless regime that put us in jail, but it was God’s way of awakening us to greater future opportunities. Incidentally, I was told that Jili’ow is now stuck in lawless Mogadishu, where he survives by spying on students of Islam in Somalia on behalf of foreign governments.
http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cg ... t=bildhaan
