The Broken Circle: A Memoir of Escaping Afghanistan

by Enjeela Ahmadi-Miller

Padar was my first teacher. At dinner he would tell us stories from the Quran. When I drove with him in the car on errands, he would always tell me how we were to treat others as Muslims. “Never do anything to hurt your neighbor,” he said to me. It was the way he conducted his business, treated his tenants, and treated us. He told me often that Muslims don’t hurt other people, either in business or their bodies. He taught me to practice my religion in action—not just in thought. He was adamant that a true Muslim didn’t kill other people in order to force their religion on them or hurt other people in a business or personal dispute.

I had witnessed up close how rude and violent men were determined to force their version of love and safety on others using guns and

blood. It didn’t matter what the men called it, political order or religious fervor, it was all from the same place—the hellish dark side of man that is motivated by hate. Mina’s parents called selling their daughter into sexual slavery part of their tradition, and Mina’s husband treated her according to the dictates of his religion, but it was all the same. Their actions were motivated by hate. Hate is not from God. People who use religion to hate can’t love God. It is impossible.

but it was possible, maybe for the first time, to see true beauty, even in the devastation and sadness that surrounded us.