Untitled from Prison Notebook

Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Thanks be to God you’re safe and sound. Welcome.

Thousands of thanks to Allah that you’re back safe and sound.

Thousands of thanks to Allah that you’re back safe and sound.

Our lord was merciful in what was destined.

This is our Creator’s volition.

“But it may be that you dislike something while it is good for you.”

Ibrahim El-Salahi

: This is about the time I went into the east-end cells and found the people who were sitting there, people whom I had missed for some time. I thought they had left the country or that they were no longer there—I found them inside. One of them was a professor of philosophy at the University of Khartoum; others were the minister of information, lawyers, and so forth. They said, “Thanks be to God you’re safe and sound.” I thought those political prisoners must have gone mad. How could they congratulate me on coming to this wretched jail? And they said, “Thousands of thanks to Allah that you’re back safe and sound.”

Credit: Acquired through the generosity of Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin, Catie and Donald Marron, Alice and Tom Tisch (in honor of Christophe Cherix), Marnie Pillsbury and Committee on Drawings and Prints Fund