‘Allah has punished them,’ Mia Zaman says of the 12 men chained in concrete cells around a tree. ‘See, we are not crazy. Allah has made them crazy as a punishment.’ The men are not criminals. They are at Zaman’s family shrine near Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, to be cured of mental illness.
Crouched in a cell nearby, a man covered in his own excrement begs for food and water and for his shackles to be released. He is too disturbed to answer any questions. Zaman, who is responsible for the patients, says he was brought by strangers and does not have a name. ‘He has been here eight days. After 40 nights, we will let him go,’ he explains. ‘God is great, he will cure him.’ Asked when the man’s cell, which smells unbearable, will be cleaned, he replies: ‘After the 40 days we will clean his place.’
