Who would have thought that the first time I’d sue my penal colony would be over the Quran. Yes, really. Not because they refused to let a doctor see me (the reason for my hunger strike), not because of the detention conditions, but because of the Muslims’ Holy Book. The issue is that they won’t give me my Quran. And it infuriates me. When I was first imprisoned, I made a list of ways I would try to improve myself while in custody. One item was to study and truly understand the Quran and the Prophet’s Sunnah. After all, everyone around us endlessly talks about Islam and Muslims, and of course 99% of those doing the talking understand nothing about it. So I decided I would become the Quran champion among Russia’s non-Muslim politicians. I had read it before, of course. But the way everyone does: “I’m reading it just to tick the box, but I don’t understand anything.” That’s not enough for me. And, by the way, I realized that my own development as a Christian also requires studying the Quran. I even arrogantly decided that I would memorize it! But it turned out that a) that’s impossible for me and b) it makes absolutely no sense. Any remotely serious study of the Holy Book can only be done in Arabic. And where exactly am I supposed to learn Arabic in here? The only option is to buy 2–3 volumes of the Quran with commentaries by different scholars and read them carefully. But! In my “friendly concentration camp,” they hate books! I arrived here a month ago with a pile of books. And I ordered a pile more. But to this day they haven’t given me a single one. Because, supposedly, they all “have to be checked for extremism.” That takes three months. - You’re going to check even the Quran for extremism? That’s absurd and illegal! - Every book has to be checked for extremism. You have a television in the barracks unit, why not watch that instead. I’ve been having this conversation over and over for a month now. So I wrote yet another complaint to the warden and filed a lawsuit. How much longer am I supposed to put up with this? Am I really not even allowed to read my own Quran now? Especially since, on the 13th day of my hunger strike, I’m in a very philosophical mood. That’s that. Books are everything to us, and if I have to go to court for the right to read, then I’ll go to court. P.S. They still don’t know that I also ordered the Torah with Rashi’s commentaries for myself 😉