“I am not angry at all, I’ve forgiven everyone from my heart and there is no hardness in me. There is patience in me because I learned how to be patient after having to leave my children behind.” These are the gracious words of Aasia Bibi, the Christian mother-of-five who spent nearly eight years on death row in Pakistan, falsely accused of “blasphemy” charges.
She was picking fruit in an orchard on a sweltering summer’s day in June 2009 with Muslim women when a dispute arose over a shared cup of water because the Muslim women would not drink from a cup that they considered “unclean” as it had been used by a Christian. This culminated in Aasia being accused of insulting Muhammad. “My husband was at work, my kids were in school,” she recalled. “A mob came and dragged me away. They made fun of me. I was very helpless.”
By faith Aasia was sustained throughout the ordeal of her trial, imprisonment and eventual acquittal, when her tormentors were crying out for her execution. This is the same faith that sustained the early heroes of faith, like Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, who were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things God promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance (Hebrews 11:1-13).
Aasia did not seek glory or suffering but, like Abel and the other great men and women of God in days of old, was faithful to the Lord when tested by him. Now resettled in Canada for security reasons with her family, Aasia said in an interview on 28 February that she still hopes to return to Pakistan one day.
“It was my country that freed me. That makes me proud,” she said. “I still respect my country and want to see the day when I am able to go back.”
She called on Prime Minister Imran Khan to free anyone unjustly accused or convicted of “blasphemy” and to ensure the charges are investigated properly. “Innocents should not be punished for no reason and people who are innocent, in prison, should be freed,” she said.
In Aasia Bibi we see what Paul described in Romans (5:3-5) “…suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
