I met him upstairs beaming with a giant smile and embracing me as his friend 2 seconds after finding out what my name was. The upstairs, a big open space with a two giant doors leading to a small balcony overlooking the garden had a single mattress on the floor, and Safwan was peeking out a little bit anticipating to see M upon hearing her voice. I had heard so much about this little 6 year old boy and I was eager to meet him. He dragged his little body across the room and let himself be scooped by my M into her arms.
I was eager to meet this boy for many reasons. One of the main ones being that he was the reason my roommate is in Palestine and will continue to be here. The second because I heard his story. Born with Spinal Bifada, paralyzed from the waist down, he was abandoned by his parents, left to die in the hospital. His disability, half a paralyzed body, a large head, was too much to bear for the then 15 year old mother, and both parents abandoned the newborn. A group of Catholic nuns (from Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charities group) took him in. And raised him since.
I was astonished to hear his English, fluent and perfect, without a trace of any struggle to express any thoughts or emotion that second language learners often face. He grew up bilingual at the Sister’s house hearing them speak a communal English (the sisters are all stationed here coming from various countries, with English being their binding language, which turns into a mixture of old English meets formal English meets colonial english) and Safwan picked up their lingo along with his native knowledge of Arabic.
I was astonished by his warmth. That afternoon, was my first time in a convent, and in an orphanage. And this place was an orphanage inside of a convent. The top floor was for outcasted children, who were left to perish before they were taken in by these Sisters. The other kids that I saw were barely moving. One sat up on the floor staring off into the distance. The other was sitting in her wheelchair, completely non functional. Clapping in front them sort of elicited a response but for the most part they were severely disabled, not stimulated by anything at all, they needed to be changed and fed and they lived. This was also my first exposure to disabled children. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous and uncomfortable. Playing with safwan for half an hour made me completely forget that he was a paralyzed child and that half of his body didn’t work. He was just this vivacious kid excited to watch movies on maggie’s laptop and play catch throwing around a giant ball across the room.
The bottom floor was for women who otherwise have no place in society, some battered so severely that they have lost all mental capabilities, others who are senile due to abuse or age.
I remember thinking how can someone abandon their child? how sad it must be to grow up in an orphanage. I was corrected on this issue by Maggie saying “thank god Safwan was abandoned! He grew up with 5 mothers! (the sisters) who knows what his parents would have done to him if they had actually taken him, he’d probably have been left to die, or locked up somewhere because they were so ashamed of his existence. Safwan had two other siblings. One of whom was fed a bottle of bleach and had to be rushed to the hospital. The kid miraculously survived.
Once in a while safwan’s dad visits to take safwan around town to beg for money and then after collecting the money for himself, he returns safwan to the Sisters. Sounds like a movie doesn’t it?
A couple of weeks after I met safwan, he came to Ramallah for 2 weeks for some necessary medical procedures. During that time, M had created a rotating schedule of friends who would go spend time with safwan at the hospital for several hours during the day and then Maggie would spend her nights at the hospital with him. I’d play with safwan, and watch him wheeeeeeeeee through the hallway on his wheelchair, talking to every single person on that floor. Running after him I met some of the most interesting characters, and at that point in time, those were my first interactions with Palestinian Palestinians. I met a man suffering from bullet wounds from Jenin, and his entire extended family who would sit me down in their room for hours to ask me a variety of questions and then feed me sweets and ask about safwan. I guess that’s when I really bonded with safwan, spending time with him in the hospital, helping with his homework, or just fooling around with the camera.
You would think occasions like Mother’s day would be a sad day for little safwan, since he is fully aware about what his parents did and how they feel about him, but it actually ends up pretty humorous. He gets confused why he makes only one mother’s day card, because if there is only one, who amongst the five Sisters, who have all been mothers to him, is supposed to get that one card?
As bright and lovable as safwan is, the truth of the matter is that he has absolutely no future in Palestine. Disabilities won’t get you far. To have a future of any kind ,he needs to get out. Knowing this, Maggie’s been on the hunt for a family that would be willing to adopt him. you’d think that that would be the problem. But no, there is already a family lined up from Spain who is waiting for Safwan, knowing his background and his life story. However the problem comes in with his biological parents. And the community who stirred up this controversy that the Sisters are just simply trying to convert this little boy and that sending him away to Spain would only complete their mission.
And that “legally” adoption is not a possibility because the State law (what state?) and “Islam” (the same Islam where the Prophet (pbuh) himself was an orphan?) forbids it.
???? I was so perplexed hearing this. Where did this come from?? That adoption is illegal in islam? After doing much research and literally obsessing over this and many other issues of Islamic jurisprudence, I still have no answer to why people would intervene in the life of a disabled boy to stop him from having a better life with the dogma of religion. Somehow handing the boy over to a Christian family would be injustice to islam (according to the townspeople) but ..sending him back to the father (which is something they suddenly decided to instigate and provoke, by literally buying the father off) who has no problem abandoning his child or attempting to kill them would be preserving islam?
Not having Muslim friends around anymore or not having anyone of the same faith to immerse into Islamic conversation with (in real life, not virtual cyberspace), situations like this heightens a sense of urgency to figure out how political, social and cultural elements of society can use religion to come up with ridiculous jurisdictions and cover it up in the name of a blanket term “islam”. Especially when the conversation is happening with a non muslim, and even though I am not directly held accountable, I am still somehow on this other side that “forbids” something so noble. It sends me on desperate hunt to dig and search for the truth, whatever that may be, hidden under so many many things.
Often times I make sense of things by telling myself that it’s not Islam with the flaws, its Muslims, and the lack of unity and a deeper understanding of faith and the spirit of Islam that gives birth to so much of the complexities within the community. Of course this issue is not exclusive to islam and muslims, it exists in all groups. The freedom of will to interpretation comes with the burden of too many types of interpretations leaving a dangerous space for manipulation and blind stupidity. i wish instead of muslims constantly defending islam to outsiders by having a selective scattered cliffnote collection of Quranic verses and hadiths, they’d look inwards to become active and progressive agents of unity and change within the internal community. Instead of wasting so much time digging up and arguing about the past, I wish people would struggle more with figuring out answers for the present and the future by admitting when and where they are or were wrong. I wish humanity would come before dogma.
*This adoption question led me on a quest to ask anyone and everyone I know about this, including professors, friends and family members. I found out speaking with my mother, that nowhere in Islam does it say that adoption is "illegal". In fact she herself has 2 cousins who have adopted children in Bangladesh, and though its a complicated issue, it certainly is not a forbidden one.
*This adoption question led me on a quest to ask anyone and everyone I know about this, including professors, friends and family members. I found out speaking with my mother, that nowhere in Islam does it say that adoption is "illegal". In fact she herself has 2 cousins who have adopted children in Bangladesh, and though its a complicated issue, it certainly is not a forbidden one.
