Introduction

How do you tell the story of the mouse who ate the cat--you don't. Somethings are seriously never meant to be told, just experienced, traumatized and forgotten. The story I am about to tell you, you wouldn't believe it; I wouldn't either. This story--my story, is a one of those crazy cases you'd hear on CNN or read in The New York Times but not this time. I was like you, hearing about these instances one day and forgetting about it the next; continuing about my life, until it was me who was the victim.

My name is Amir, I'm 22 years old and I am an American Muslim. Being Muslim is my first form of identification, something life has made me regret at points, nevertheless, I am a Muslim. My story starts in spring 2009 with just a quarter of my senior year at Harvard remaining. I was content with myself, I lived a pretty ideal life. I had two of the most amazing friends ever, I was President of the Harvard Crimson, and had recently been accepted into Harvard Law School. Life was good; or at least as good as life can gets for practicing Muslims in America.

My two friends, Ahmad and Aminah, both also Muslim, they too were living ideal lives. We were on track to be future leaders of our the next generation of American Muslim community. Ahmad and I had both been accepted into Harvard Law School and Aminah planned to enrolled in John Hopkins to become a neurologist. We were practicing Muslims: we didn't just fulfill the bare pinnacles of Islam, we took our religion to heart and were Islamically-consistent in every aspect of our lives. We had refused to be like those who identified themselves Muslims yet their actions were contradictory.

That's how four years in Harvard had passed: studying, praying, going to the Masjid for lectures, and the occasional 'hanging out'. We had worked hard these four years and we planned to continue to work hard, we believed working hard was mandated in Islam. Time played its course and before we knew it, we were Harvard graduates.

Within the span of twenty plus years we had lived, our lives had stayed within certain boundaries; somethings were practical and others were not. The three of us were very strong willed yet we knew what was possible and what wasn't; we didn't believe in, "everything is possible". This was all about to change.

The summer began and thus began our misadventures. What began as a simple airplane flight turned into two weeks of torture and ended as a multi-million dollar law suit against the US government? Reading this journal is not something you should do, it is something you need to do. It's not just my story, it’s our story.