First Grain of Sand — Page 98
82 FIRST GRAIN OF SAND So the eyes of an Ahmadi Muslim go beyond the creation and go directly to the Creator. The suspicion my interrogators held about me continued to grow. Throughout their series of questions, however, God Almighty guided me on the true motive behind each question and, thus, how to reply. In the next interrogation, they inquired what route I travelled from Qadian to Bukhara and where I stopped along the way. I explained that from Qadian I first went through the Indian cities of Batala, Amritsar, Lahore, and Quetta, then crossed into Iran to Duzdab [now known as present-day Zahedan], then 600 miles to Mashhad. At this point, they cut me off and quizzed me, ask- ing which locations appear en route from Duzdab to Mashhad. I said that had I known I would be held captive and asked these questions, I would have written down all village names on a piece of paper along my way. Hearing this, the State Prosecutor and translator then took me to a different room where there were maps hanging on the wall. He pointed at different areas between Duzdab and Mashhad, asking me if I had stopped there. At that moment, God Almighty guided me in my heart to simply say "نمی دانم ]nami daanam-Persian for 'I don't know'] to all places except for those that I was completely sure about. He used a stick to point at different cities and asked me if I had come across that city. When he said the name Sharifabad, which I was confident had passed along the way from Duzdab to Mashhad, I said "شریف آباد آمده بود ]Sharif Abād āmadah büd- Persian for 'I had come to Sharifabad']. Pointing the stick further away, he asked if I had also been to this other city. Since I did not have full confidence, I once again said in Persian I don't know but