trials

When Nelson Mandela died two weeks ago at the age of 95, television channels and radio stations brimmed with tributes to this internationally beloved man. A civil rights icon, a savvy political strategist, a Nobel Prize recipient and the first black president of South Africa—he wore all these hats, and each one with more elegance than the last. Yet as a Muslim woman, I found myself appreciating Mandela and his life through an entirely different prism. That of Chapter 12 in the Holy Qur’an.