Bahá’í World/Volume 20/Winnanik and Mubarak
WINNANIK AND MUBARAK
c.1959—1984/1948—1986
Mubarak was born in 1948 in Canga’an village, Genteng sub-district, Banyuwangi district, East Java province, Indonesia. He was the fifth of seven children of Muḥammad Ṣáliḥ, a farmer and a staunch Muslim, who raised his family in an atmosphere of piety. In 1966, the family moved to Lampung, South Sumatra. Mubarak completed six years of elementary and three years of secondary school.
In 1975, as a result of a three—months visit by a close friend of Muḥammad Ṣáliḥ, the family came to know about the Bahá’í Faith and embraced it the following year. Mubarak, who was also a farmer, had achieved an unsavory reputation, but he now abandoned his old ways and became an eager and enthusiastic believer, fearless in spreading the Faith among his friends and neighbours, and in proclaiming it to government officials throughout the district.
Winnanik
In 1970, he married Winnanik, known to her friends as ‘Nani’, who had been born into a Muslim family in Ngawi in about 1959. She also accepted the Faith, and the couple farmed on a small scale. Three children were born to them. They taught their children Bahá’í principles, frequently held Nineteen Day Feasts in their home, and attracted others to the Faith. Much of the progress of the Cause in Lampung province was the result of their efforts.
When, in 1981, Mubarak, his wife and his younger brother, Wahab, as well as ‘Abdu’l—Hadi Wibowo and Kurdi, two other local believers, acknowledged themselves as Bahá’ís on their identity cards, the Islámic clergy and others in the village community began to oppose the Bahá’í Faith and to spread abroad false accusations that the Bahá’ís were enemies of Islam. As a result, on 23 November 1982, Mubarak, ‘Abdu’l-Hadi, and Kurdi were required to present themselves to the Military Commander in Tanjungkarang where they conducted themselves with equanimity before a trial panel and jury during an intensive interrogation.
Mubarak
They explained the principles of the Bahá’í Cause and acknowledged the divine origin of all the great religions of the past, including Islam. They were given a sympathetic hearing and released. However, the ‘ulamá continued to make false accusations against the Bahá’ís and stirred up feelings against them among the people by broadcasting false reports over the radio.
On 17 January 1984, Mubarak and three other Bahá’ís had their Bahá’í books seized by the police. Refusing an invitation to recant their belief, they were imprisoned and sentenced to terms ranging from two to five years.
In the difficult circumstance of being forcibly separated from her husband, Nani struggled to keep her family intact. She made a living for herself and the three children by buying chickens in the villages around her home, then selling them in the Panjang City market, 80 kilometres away—an undertaking that required her to use dirty, overcrowded public transport. She would leave her home each day at six o’clock in the morning, depart for Panjang City about ten, and return
home at ten o’clock in the evening, day after day, without cessation, and without complaint. During this time she also visited her husband and the other Bahá’í prisoners regularly, negotiated with a lawyer in Tanjungkarang regarding their case, attended court sessions, initiated solicitations at the office of the court, and made every attempt possible to obtain redress of injustice in the face of implacable official indifference. It is through Nani that the detailed knowledge of the court proceedings in these cases were made known to other Bahá’ís.
At last the great stress of dealing with the authorities, together with the physical strain of working to keep her family together, took their inevitable toll. In her eighth month of pregnancy, Nani suddenly fell ill. She died shortly thereafter on 13 July 1984. She was unstinting in her attempt, on behalf of the four imprisoned Bahá’ís, to wrest justice from a prejudiced and insensitive judiciary. She faced this daunting challenge with remarkable resolution and never failed, on her regular visits, to bring cheer to the hearts of the prisoners who will always be grateful for her valiant efforts.
When informed of his wife’s death, Mubarak was inconsolable but he resigned himself to the will of God and entrusted his three children to the care of Bahá’u’lláh. Since his children were also the children of the Bahá’í community, he told his friends, he relied upon the believers to provide them with a Bahá’í education. His steadfastness in the Cause of Bahá’u’lláh remained unshaken despite the added suffering caused by the death of his young wife and his concern about the welfare of his children.
After a two-year confinement, Mubarak was released from prison on 17 January 1986. He and his younger brother, who was released on the same date, went to work for another brother in whose home Mubarak died on 25 May 1986.
The Universal House of Justice requested that his family be assured that it had offered prayers at the Sacred Threshold for the
progress of his soul; it praised his steadfastness and spoke of him as the very essence of faith and sincerity.