the Seal of the Prophets?" "Will you publicly recant historical materialism?" "Will you denounce your former beliefs before the cameras?" "Do you fast during Ramadan?" "Do you pray and read the Holy Qur'an?" "Would you rather share a cell with a Muslim or a non-Muslim?" "Will you sign an affidavit that you believe in Allah, the Prophet, the Holy Qur'an, and the Resurrection?" "When you were growing up, did your father pray, fast, and read the Holy Qur'an?" Prisoners were told that authorities were asking them these questions because they planned to separate practicing Muslims from non-practicing ones. However, the real reason was to determine whether the prisoners qualified as apostates from Islam, in which case they would join the moharebs in the gallows. Some prisoners saved from execution by answering the questions properly returned to their cells and passed along what the commission was asking. A leftist prisoner who had once attended a seminary realised the theological significance of the questions, and sent morse code messages to other cells, warning of the dangers, by knocking on the prison walls. The questioners wanted to know if prisoners' fathers prayed, fasted, and read the Qur'an because the sons of devout men could be called apostates. If they had not been raised in proper Muslim homes first and "exposed to true Islam," they could not be apostates. Another wrong answer was refusing to reply on the grounds of 'privacy', a response which was often taken as an admission of apostasy. All this was a surprise to the prisoners, with one commenting: "In previous years, they wanted us to confess to spying. In 1988, they wanted us to convert to Islam." It also meant there was no correlation between the length of sentence being served and the likelihood of death. The first leftist to go before the commission were those with short sentences, some even completed. These had no warning of what was in store and many died. Dealing with women Mojahedin women were given equal treatment with Mojahedin men, almost all hanged as 'armed enemies of Allah'. However, for apostasy the punishment for women was different and lighter than that for men. Since according to the commission's interpretation of Islamic law, women were not fully responsible for their actions, "disobedient women – including apostates – could be given discretionary punishments to mend their ways and obey male superiors." Leftist women—even those raised