SecondThat year was 2006, and I was standing in front of the students with a red book in my hand. This is the usual morning meeting in the auditorium, and I am going to make a speech today.I eagerly read a passage from Sayed Qutb’s book Muslim Brotherhood. This part deals with the duty of every Muslim to participate in the jihad against infidels. A few minutes after my inflammatory speech, I was in the director’s office and was about to be expelled from the school. The principal cannot allow himself to expel an outstanding student whose father was in an American prison.
Five years ago, my brothers and sisters and my mother squatted in a room, and strange-looking people searched our house. My grandpa, Gulbudin Sikmatyar, Is one of the most famous jihadists in the 1980s; he served as Prime Minister of Afghanistan twice in the 1990s. Father warned us not to enter because my grandfather had declared a holy war against the American invasion. Provocatively, I put a rare photo of my grandfather on my dressing table. I wasn’t interested in what all this meant until I saw from the door one of the officers pulled out a pistol and placed it on my father’s neck. He was taken away for interrogation that night, but should be back in a few hours. Hours turned into days, turned into months, and then lasted for six years. That was the most difficult period of my life.
