This Life or the Next

by Demian Vitanza

But back to the first time I smoked. After taking a couple of drags, I went out to the street. I could see over to the mosque. At the time I didn’t think about it. But years later, when I started going to the mosque, I’d sometimes hear music from that same apartment when I got up early to go to morning prayer. They hadn’t gone to bed yet. It’s like that. Parallel universes. So close, and so far. You stand in one universe and stare into the other, you understand? But sometimes you have to go a long way just to get across the street.

But I have to say one thing before we continue. Even if I try to change my extreme ideas, I’m still a Muslim. And I try to be a good Muslim. In Islam you don’t talk too much about previous sins. You repent and try to come back to God; it’s called tawba. You pray for forgiveness and try to put it behind you. Done. It’s a thing between God and me, so you really shouldn’t go around boasting about the mistakes you’ve made, you understand? It’s OK for me to tell you some things, but I won’t glorify my sins.

Where does the urge to offend come from? While I was thinking of those things, I realized something. Why is this being discussed really? I thought it had to be because society wanted to get rid of us. Weed us out. Do you know that feeling, when you realize you’re a weed?

What’s sick is how the violence creeps into you. You know what you’ve seen is wrong, but you accept it because everyone around you accepts it. Or at least on the surface they do. Morals are a vulnerable thing. Your sense of justice is influenced by how other people act.

Abu Saad said we should go. He didn’t want to see that. We got in the ambulance and left. Only after we’d driven a little way did he start to talk. “That’s not following the Koran,” he said. “Not Islam.” He said you had to bury people with dignity, even your worst enemy. I just sat there clinging to the car seat.

I swear, all the screams in Aleppo were in the mouth of that one child.

They believed in God and thought their faith would automatically lead them down the right path.

Because they hate. They hate the police. They hate their parents. They hate the state. They hate Western society. But first and foremost, they hate themselves. They feel like they’re never good enough. So they want to do something good, but they don’t know how. You have to remember prison is a spiritual place. You feel small when you’re sitting in a cell, and when you’re small, you open yourself up for something big. You look for God.