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Two Years After My Husband’s Arrest, My 4 Kids And I Still Await Justice To Prevail

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by Umaima Jafri

Ibrahim Zubair Mohammad is awaiting trial for two years at Lucas County Correction Center. His trial has been postponed four times, the judge has been changed three times, and he has been denied bond twice. He is charged with conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. His wife and kids are petitioning his release on bond. A 72-page indictment can be found on Mohammad’s charge.

I got up this morning, got all four kids ready for school, dealt with a good deal of tantrums, and hustled them into the car so we could beat traffic and get to school on time. I came home, sat my toddler in front of the laptop to watch cartoons until nap time, which has now become a norm because I just do not have the energy or willpower to handle his 3-year-old tantrums. Single moms can understand my struggle.

The monotony of routine, the hardship of providing, the loneliness—I won’t say it’s always hard, but some days are definitely harder than others. Lately, however, I feel the weight of time passing like a boulder on my chest. With each swing of the pendulum, I realize the gravity of time that has elapsed since they took him.

Rewind two years ago to November 2015 when life was quite different. My husband, Ibrahim, and I had moved to Dallas three months prior from the Midwest. We were full of ambition, dreams, and plans. Then just like that, the fantasy of being closer to my family, having that six-figure job, finding that amazing school for the kids and living in our dream home was gone in the blink of an eye.

They came in 14 unmarked cars. FOURTEEN. Why so many to arrest one man is still a mystery to me. Ibrahim was holding our 2-year-old son at the time when they stormed into our garage. Ibrahim was simply on his way to work. I was getting ready to take the kids to school. It was supposed to be a typical day. What was happening? I shouted at my three older children to go to their rooms; I did not want them to see what was going on in the garage. I ran out, sans hijab, and took our youngest son from Ibrahim. I demanded a warrant, which was initially denied but presented briefly thereafter. They did have a warrant, and this was no mistake. Ibrahim, along with three other Muslim men, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit bank fraud, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. In a nutshell, it’s what they charge any Muslim man with when they don’t know what else to conjure up.

Ibrahim blacked out. He was standing there listening to the barrage of legalities, the instructions given to me by the U.S. Marshalls: which court, what time, what steps to take, which lawyer. On and on they droned while Ibrahim’s life flashed before his eyes. Would he ever see our four children again? Would he ever get the chance to run around the house with them again? Would our toddler even remember him? Would he ever see his mother again? It was all too much for him, and he came crashing down.

My husband is built like a linebacker. Six feet tall, broad shoulders, strong as an ox. And he fell. I cannot recall what I did with our son, but in an instant, he was no longer in my arms, and I found myself at Ibrahim’s side beckoning him to get up. He was sweating profusely, soaked completely through his clothes. They called the paramedics, and then went on with business. It was just another day at the office for them, and a never-ending nightmare for us.

The U.S. Marshalls, I will admit, was somewhat considerate. They allowed Ibrahim to hug his kids goodbye, and they were considerate enough not to put cuffs on him in front of the children. But the children saw anyway. They watched, confused and horrorstruck, from the upstairs window, unbeknownst to me, as their father was taken in cuffs into the back of an unmarked car. I watched from the driveway, initially shocked and cold in the heat of a Texas autumn. My shock eventually turned into determination as 14 cars drove my husband away.

That was two years ago. Ibrahim was extradited to Ohio for his case. This was the beginning of a witch hunt akin to an absurd legal drama that includes problematic evidence, entrapment, deception, lies, and tragedy. We have been denied bond twice. This is the reality of the injustice that is incarceration. This is the reality of our “justice” system. And we continue to await a trial that has been postponed and rescheduled at least four times already.

Each day I answer questions from our children about when Baba will be home, who took him away, and why they took him away. Our now 3.5-year-old remembers what the others never saw. “Baba fell down in the garage.” He remembers, despite my desperate prayers that he forgets that one final image of his father. He thinks we go to Baba’s house during “visits.” Our visits involve hazy video chats transmitted live to a loud jailhouse lobby. We try to have normal conversations with Ibrahim, who sits somewhere on an upper floor in front of another hazy screen. This has been our contact. Nothing physical, nothing through a glass wall, but rather a low-quality video chat where I can only take one child per week for a maximum of 30 minutes. Ibrahim has watched his children grow from behind this video screen, seeing them only through the eyes of a camera, and from the pictures, I am able to send him.

For two years I have raised our children back in the Midwest, surrounded by old friends who have known Ibrahim and our family for over a decade. They stand by my side relentlessly. They show their support unconditionally. They love our children like their own. These are people who have known Ibrahim for so many years as a friend, a successful engineer, and a man who was obsessed with his family. He was that engineer who helped design elephant enclosures at the city zoo, he was that friendly neighbor who used to stop and chat with the neighbors, he was that man who everyone knew for his toothy smile, he was that friend who people could rely on even in the middle of the night.

We were that typical American family who cleaned out the garage when it was warm out, who washed their cars on the weekends, who went biking around the neighborhood, who went to Costco just to try the samples. Ibrahim was the husband who woke up early on the weekends so I could sleep in, made his famous omelets for the kids (four different types for our four picky eaters — well, five if you count me), sat down with the children and read Quran with them, prayed with his family at home, helped me with chores and dinner, and my favorite, put the kids to bed. They loved his bedtime stories. The ones that had adventures galore and lessons to be learned, the ones I thought were much too long. After these nearly hour-long bedtime stories, it would finally be our turn. Chai and cookies, and just us.

Now, our days consist of the standard breakfast (only one type of egg for our four picky eaters), the mundane routine of school, homework, and me counting down the minutes until bedtime. There are no bedtime stories, no imagination left for me to conjure up anything, nothing that will ever come close to matching Baba’s adventures. After putting them to bed, I head to our bedroom, alone, no chai or cookies, no us. Two years of going to bed alone, dreaming about Ibrahim and then waking up alone. Two years of being mom and dad, provider and comforter. Two years of waiting, struggling, hoping, and more waiting. Two years of being emotionally and physically drained. Two years and he’s still not home.

Ibrahim, as I write this, is still awaiting trial, our family’s life is still in limbo, we are still holding on to the hope of bail until said time. How things turn out in the near future, how they turn out eventually, at what point any of this comes to an “end” is known alone by God above. In the meantime, we carry on, doing our best and fighting the good fight.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not reflect the views of Brown Girl Magazine, LLC. 

This post was originally published on Brown Girl Magazine and republished here with their permission.

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Muslim Women’s Resource Center Offers Free Programs for All Immigrants in Chicago

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by Esthe Manewith

Two free programs to help all immigrants achieve citizenship or qualify for public assistance are being offered by the Muslim Women’s Resource Center, 6445 N. Western Ave., Chicago, IL.

“Our first program is a pro bono (no cost) citizenship program which is held on Wednesday mornings at our office,” says Sima Quraishi, Executive Director of the Resource Center. “It is a citizenship workshop which is under the auspices of the New American Initiative, funded by the State of Illinois.”

“We serve every immigrant group,” she added. “About 70% of those who come here are Muslim, but we also serve Russians, Hispanics, Asians and those of other nationalities. We are happy to work with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to accomplish this.”

Quraishi added that “it is important to be a citizen; naturalized immigrants have incomes that are 14.6% higher, and poverty rates that are 9.9% lower than those immigrants who are not citizens. ”

“And, immigrants pay taxes, as well,” she added. “A 2016 study by the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, estimated that both documented and undocumented immigrants pay $11.64 billion in state and local taxes in 2013 across the nation, equivalent to about 8 percent of their total income.”

She pointed out that it takes about five years to become a citizen.

“Many immigrants are here in the United States, working, with kids in school, but they are hesitant to apply for citizenship. They are afraid they will not pass the tests and, of course, the fees can be high – $725 per person,” Quraishi said.

“However,” she went on to say, “our agency supports our clients and make sure they are able to pass the citizenship tests. We are proud of our very high rate of passing. And, there is a waiver of fees through the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Service, an organization with which we work, great savings for immigrants who must watch every penny!”

The second program, part of the Immigrant Family Resource Program, helps low-income families qualify for public assistance.

“We have qualified staff members and volunteers who help those who come here,” Quraishi went on to say.

Much of the aid to new immigrants is funded by the State of Illinois and the Chicago New American Initiative Program which was brought to Chicago in 2012 by Mayor Rahm Emanuel. This program serves approximately 10,000 new immigrants over a three-year period. Quraishi served on Board when this new program was formulated.

“Our mission it is to assist immigrants and refugees to help them overcome cultural and language barriers, and prepare them with appropriate occupational skills to become self-sufficient and ready to enter the job market,” she concluded.

For further information or to make an appointment at the Muslim Women Resource Center, please call 773-764-1686.

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The Burden of Being American Muslim in an Anti-Muslim Era

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by Fatima Ahmed

In November of 2015, a series of coordinated terror attacks took place in Paris which shocked the world. Just last month, a far-right leader tweeted a video of Muslims celebrating on the streets of London, along with the words “Oh look, a crowd of ‘moderate’ Muslims celebrating the Paris Terror attack in London.” That video, however, was soon debunked as it was revealed that it was filmed in 2009 and featured British-Muslims celebrating a cricket match, not an attack.

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Tweet Deleted: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C-Gx0PBXUAEZNRN.jpg

So why does this happen? How does a video of Muslims being happy quickly become propaganda against them?

In recent times, we have witnessed an increase in hate crimes toward the Muslim diaspora living in the West. With right-wing, anti-immigrant, and Islamophobic sentiment on the rise, the pressure on Muslim communities has increased. They have come under greater scrutiny, with their lifestyles and worldviews constantly being questioned at every turn. In our current political climate, it is impossible not to conflate Muslims with politics. Muslims do not have the privilege to exist as just human beings, but instead, they are put under a microscope and scrutinized for the smallest things. This has led to a culture where anything said or done by Muslims can immediately be used against them.

So, it is no surprise that we are currently witnessing a significant rise in the number of hate crimes committed against Muslims living in the U.S. Last year, 385 anti-Muslim acts were recorded in the United States. The burden of hostility facing the American-Muslim population is undeniably present. With this much persecution present in their daily lives, it is no surprise that Muslim-Americans are rightly distressed.

Every time an act of domestic terror happens, Muslim-Americans become targets. The media immediately starts speculating on whether the act of terror was committed by a Muslim. For example, after the shooting at a Quebec mosque in January of this year, many media outlets irresponsibly assumed the terrorist to be a Muslim man when, in fact, it was a white nationalist. As soon as it was confirmed that it wasn’t a Muslim, the act of terror was quickly downgraded in magnitude by the media.


Furthermore, Muslims are kept under surveillance not just by the government but by average citizens. Symbols of faith like the skull cap, the hijab, brown skin, and beards have become targets for non-Muslims to watch for and attack. There are now reports of Muslim children being bullied at higher rates than their non-Muslim counterparts. ISPU reported that 42% of Muslim children report being bullied for their faith. In this environment, many Muslims feel the need to blend in, choosing to not have any overt symbols of Islam on their person. Moreover, even if you are not Muslim but appear to be one, such as having brown skin or a turban, puts people at risk of being targeted for hate crimes.

However, if an attack is said to have Islamic ties, the entire Muslim community comes under fire. Because of this, when news of an attack starts circulating, Muslims don’t have the luxury of just grieving. They are compelled to also be afraid for their own safety and future while also being mournful for the victims.

Muslims are not only afraid for their personal safety and also forced to be apologetic for crimes they did not commit. In the wake of any terror attack committed by someone claiming to be Muslim, all of the Muslim community is expected to denounce the incident and apologize on behalf of someone they did not know nor endorse. If Muslims don’t offer any apology to non-Muslims on behalf of their religion, then they are assumed to agree with the attack. The entire religion of Islam is repeatedly tried and questioned just because of the terrible actions of a few people.

In March, during the incident on Westminster Bridge, a picture of a hijabi Muslim woman on her phone went viral. She was attacked on social media for walking past paying “no mind to the terror attack.” She later corrected the Islamophobic assumption by explaining that she was contacting her family to let them know she was alright. Yet because she was visibly Muslim, she was quickly condemned. Evidently, Muslims in public are tasked with exhibiting perfect behavior at all times or else risk public slander. Their reactions and emotions get scrutinized in the public eye mercilessly.


In this distressful climate, American-Muslims are living in now, everything they do is immediately politicized. Their happiness, anger, joy, or silence cannot exist without the mainstream media projecting their interpretations on it. Being Muslim in the West has become a liability where Muslim populations feel burdened at having to prove themselves constantly. They have to prove that they are non-violent, that they are not barbaric and backward, that they are just like any other person. All this must be done in the face of growing right-wing forces that would rather portray Muslims are the frightening other. No wonder current times are proving to be the most testing for the Muslim community.

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Understanding the Angst of America’s White Working Class

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by Saeed Khan

During the 2016 election campaign, Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton remarked that half of Donald Trump’s supporters could best be described as a “basket of deplorables” because of their bigotry, prejudice and “contempt for everyday Americans,” an accurate caricature of the plethora of racists and alt-right zealots who venerate Trump. Many analysts contend that this statement lost her the presidency because of a perceived condescension of a significant portion of the country’s electorate. But it was the second group of her opponent’s base of support that was a precise and sympathetic description of many Americans, ones “who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from.” Clinton stated that they deserve understanding and empathy; the “they” were primarily America’s white working class.

While many were both shocked and horrified by the election results last year, their reflexive reaction was to deem all Trump voters to be racist and if not, then willing and complicit validators of racism. Not only was such a conceit factually incorrect, it was a lazy broad-brushing of an entire group of individuals, often done by people who, ironically, have been themselves the targets of stereotypes and generalizations. While race, ethnicity, even religion are commonly contested demographic groups, socio-economics is still a powerful and pervasive line of demarcation in America. Lost in the static that is today’s public debates is the condition of those for whom economic mobility remains elusive. Of course, economics intersects all races, but the sheer size of the white working class suggests concern a tsunami of discontent whereas other groups might only produce a wave.

Joan C. Williams, Professor at the University of California- Hastings School of Law, assesses the situation of current social, economic and political turmoil in her newly published “White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America.” She examines the rise of populism among this particular demographic group and explores how it was drawn to the message of both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump with no inconsistency or sense of contradiction. The common denominator between these two seemingly polar opposites was that they spoke directly to a people who felt overlooked, ignored, even patronized by all of the other candidates, including Clinton. It helps explain why a good number of this group voted for Sanders in the primaries, yet voted for Trump in the general election instead of Clinton, an occurrence particularly seen in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin: four states which had gone consistently for the Democratic candidate over the past several elections, but turned “red” in 2016.

The common denominator between these two seemingly polar opposites was that they spoke directly to a people who felt overlooked, ignored, even patronized by all of the other candidates, including Clinton. It helps explain why a good number of this group voted for Sanders in the primaries, yet voted for Trump in the general election instead of Clinton, an occurrence particularly seen in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin: four states which had gone consistently for the Democratic candidate over the past several elections, but turned “red” in 2016.

But politics alone cannot adequately explain why the white working class feels the malaise it does. Williams places a good amount of the blame at the feet of white professional elites, especially those in the media and in the political establishment of both major parties. The white working class is often depicted as lacking refinement and sophistication, education and the right kind of culture. It is mocked by coastal elites as being woefully enamored by NASCAR, Duck Dynasty, monogamy and an unhealthy attachment to religious observance. This reductive attitude toward millions of Americans is broadcast, with few exceptions, on a daily basis by Hollywood, the news networks, and print media. More importantly, the object of ridicule for so many in the nation’s power structure see themselves as the country’s latest endangered species.

The subject of Williams’s study is part of a fast disappearing middle class, traditionally regarded to be the backbone of American society. On the one hand, the middle class has been the focal point of attention for politicians every election cycle, but the reality appears to be quite different. The rhetoric either does not match policies to help them or there is no longer any rhetoric directed at them. The result is a segment of the population that feels increasingly exploited and harmed by those claiming to represent them.

Traveling America’s heartland, one will find, and perhaps be surprised to find, the absence of pathological racism in every rural community. For those who suspect that bigotry thrives where the cornfields begin, the reality is far more complicated. If there is xenophobia in those communities, it is not necessarily based on a hatred of someone’s race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation. More often, the walls go up to what they see is an attack on their traditional lifestyle by urban sprawl, or more specifically, the perceived encroachment and imposition of cultural values upon them.

Interestingly, a similar phenomenon occurred with Muslims during the colonial era. Muslims were not averse to so-called western ideas; they simply resented the imposition of such values through coercion, especially when it was accompanied with the insistence that there was something inferior and illegitimate about their own values. The easiest way to antagonize a people is to deprive them of the agency to choose for themselves matters that shape them at the essential levels of their identity and livelihoods.

America is a country in transition. Within a generation, the current white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant majority will give way to a majority-minority one. This demographic shift will arrive on the heels of anxiety over uncertainties over the nation’s economic, political, diplomatic and cultural stability. Add to this the rise of automation and its potentially devastating impact on the socio-economic viability of the working class, and it sheds light on the growing frustration and fear among so much of the white working class, a group that sees the erosion of its once dominant place in society. While the election of President Trump has certainly laid bare, some would even argue normalized, the open expression of bigotry, the challenge of a simmering socioeconomic tension requires careful attention to prevent it from reaching a boil.

While the election of President Trump has certainly laid bare, some would even argue normalized, the open expression of bigotry, the challenge of a simmering socioeconomic tension requires careful attention to prevent it from reaching a boil.