There is something revealing about the geography of Muslim moral courage. Western Muslim leaders and institutions can summon magnificent clarity when the perpetrator is Washington, Delhi or Tel Aviv. They have spoken, often rightly and courageously, about Palestine, Kashmir, Islamophobia, Guantánamo, rendition, drone warfare and the obscenities committed under the banner of the War on Terror. The harder test begins when the road leads somewhere less comfortable. To Islamabad. And two names now expose that discomfort with unusual force: Aafia Siddiqui and Imran Khan. Aafia belongs to the beginning of the War on Terror. Adiala belongs to its afterlife. For more than two decades, Aafia Siddiqui has haunted Pakistan’s political conscience. She disappeared with her three children in 2003 before reappearing in Afghanistan in 2008. What happened during those missing years remains contested: her family and supporters have alleged secret American detention, while the United States has denied holding her. Human Rights Watch recorded both the allegations of clandestine custody and the American denial. But the uncertainty is not incidental. It belongs to the era.

The War on Terror perfected a world in which human beings could vanish between intelligence agencies, jurisdictions, secret prisons and official denials. Rendition became bureaucracy. Torture became procedure. Sovereignty became negotiable.

The War on Terror perfected a world in which human beings could vanish between intelligence agencies, jurisdictions, secret prisons and official denials. Rendition became bureaucracy. Torture became procedure. Sovereignty became negotiable.

And Pakistan was not merely watching from the sidelines: its security partnership with Washington made it an indispensable part of the machinery. Aafia eventually received an 86-year American prison sentence. Yet in Pakistan her significance became much larger than the particulars of one criminal case. She became a wound the state could neither heal........

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