Only a few weeks ago, a pregnant Meriam Ibrahim was rotting away in a Sudanese prison. There she would give birth — in shackles — to her second child.
This week she landed in America, after a brief visit in Rome with Pope Francis, who blessed her and praised her courage.
The story of Meriam Ibrahim is an extraordinary one, which exploded into world headlines when a Sudanese court ruled that unless she recanted her Christian faith, she would hang — for apostasy. She faced 100 lashes for marrying a non-Muslim.
Sudanese law forbids Muslim women from marrying non-Muslims (though Muslim men are not bound by this restriction). The law also says children must follow their father’s religion.
Ibrahim’s father was Muslim, but she argued he’d abandoned her family when she was just a child. She said she’d never been Muslim, and had been raised Christian by her Christian mother. After a global outcry, a Khartoum court in June canceled her death sentence and ordered her release.
After a few other hassles from Sudanese authorities, she has now made it to the United States, with her very happy family in tow. Her husband is an American citizen originally from South Sudan.
Ibrahim’s journey reminds us of the terrible price people pay for their faith in many parts of the world. But when we are inclined to become jaded, her case ought also to remind us that the ideals symbolized by the Statue of Liberty in our harbor continue to make America a source of hope for all those yearning to breathe free.
And when, against all odds, one of the world’s tempest-tossed comes to our shores the way Meriam Ibrahim has, we think of it this way: She’s made it home.