Though I experienced a great deal of worry and frustration when I was arrested, I expected that everything would work out. I thought people would see I had no reason to kill Hae, and certainly there could be no evidence to say I did. I had complete faith that I would never be held responsible for a crime I did not commit. But by the end of the year, the exact opposite happened. It seemed everyone thought I had reason to kill Hae, and there was hard evidence to prove I did.

Even if you've been living under a rock, it's hard not to recognize the voice above. It belongs to Adnan Syed, the protagonist and center of the groundbreaking podcast "Serial." The passage is taken from a letter written from prison, and it appears in a new book, , which will be published next week. The book is the product of the lifelong relationship between Adnan Syed and his friend and advocate Rabia Chaudry.

A quick refresher: Syed was convicted of killing his girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999 when he was a high school senior. He was the Prom Prince, ran track, led prayers at his mosque, and was a teenage ladies' man. She was smart, beautiful, and an athlete. "Serial," a spin-off of "This American Life" hosted by Sarah Koenig, took listeners through the details of the case over the course of 12 riveting episodes. "Serial" has been downloaded over 100 million times. Chaudry's follow-up podcast, "Undisclosed," which she started while "Serial" was airing, focused, in its first season, on the minute details of Adnan's case and the way that Koenig was covering it. "Undisclosed" has been downloaded 92 million times. A second season follows a different true-crime case.

Chaudry's new book is more than just a re-cap, however. It's loaded with facts and analysis, details from the original case, and revelations that have emerged since Adnan's incarceration: an alibi provided by Syed's classmate Asia McClain, for example, who said she saw Adnan in the library at the time of the murder, yet was never contacted by Adnan's original lawyer. The book also looks at the issue of possible witness-tampering by Kevin Urick, one of the prosecutors. Then there's an examination of the cell phone records, a key piece of evidence used by the state that may not be as reliable as originally thought.

Chaudry is uniquely qualified to tell this story. She is the one who brought the case to Koenig's attention in the first place. And she's known Syed since he was a kid—he's her little brother's best friend, and they are from the same community in Maryland, attended the same mosque, and refer to each other's parents as "aunty" and "uncle." Chaudry sat in the courtroom during the trial, visits him in prison, and the two talk on the phone and write letters. When I spoke to her recently about the case and her new book, she says he's always been "charming, patient, non-confrontational and empathetic."

Adnan Syed (far left) and Rabia Chaudry (in jeans, second from the right) in 2002 Courtesy Rabia Chaudry

The book arrives at a particularly important moment. At the end of June 2016, a Baltimore judge vacated Syed's conviction and ordered a retrial. This month, the Maryland attorney general's office appealed the judge's decision to overturn Syed's conviction. What this means for Syed is more uncertainty and waiting.

At the end of June 2016, a Baltimore judge vacated Adnan's conviction and sentence and ordered a retrial.

Since June, Syed has been assisted, pro bono, by Hogan Lovells. The high-powered international law firm has joined forces with Syed's longtime lawyer, Justin Brown, and the Innocence Project. "This is a huge deal," says Chaudry. "[Hogan Lovells] has vast resources. And it really reduces the stress on us to raise money for a new trial. But also it has political implications," she says. "It sends a message to the state—that we've got a lot of firepower and we've got the backing of a firm that has very good relationship with the judiciary."

Rabia Chaudry Hira Khan

These resources have given Chaudry and Syed renewed hope. Chaudry says her phone conversations with Syed are usually basic. They talk about family stuff, his case, things he needs, and what's going on and home and work, but he'll never disclose details about life in prison. She says he's careful to make everyone feel like he's doing fine, so as not to be a burden on his friends or family. But lately, for the first time, Adnan has started to talk about life after incarceration.

"It was always too scary and painful to talk about what we would do if he came home," she says. "But since the conviction was overturned, our discussions have been very pragmatic. If he gets bail, where would he live?" Syed's parents live in the same house he grew up in—his younger brother now has his room—but it would be tricky for him to move back in as his mother runs a licensed daycare center from the home.

"Since the conviction was overturned, our discussions have been very pragmatic. If he gets bail, where would he live?"

Chaudry describes her relationship with Adnan as akin to that of a big sister, but there's a maternal urgency in her voice as she talks about his life after jail and her hopes for his future. She says she would recommend he move away from Baltimore—she doesn't trust the city—and start a quiet life somewhere else.

And then there's the current anti-Muslim sentiment within the political climate, and what Chaudry jokingly refers to as the "possible apocalypse" of a Trump presidency. "Muslims have been experiencing a slow boil [of antagonism] in the last 10-15 years," she says. But it's taken what she sees as "full-blown shameless bigotry to make people realize what's happening." According to Chaudry, Syed was indicted and prosecuted because of his religion and ethnicity. The bigotry that she believes colors Donald Trump's worldview is the same bigotry that did in Syed. But she doesn't want to impose any kind of mission on Syed to combat this. "I'm hoping when Adnan comes out … [he'll] just build a small, quiet life and have a family," she says.

A letter written from Syed to Chaudry before he was sentenced in which he writes: I know that while the judge in my case referred to the book(s) a lot, a lote of her rulings were based on her opinions (well, all were but some were kind of iffy). Courtesy Rabia Chaudry

Adnan's Story is deeply inflected with Chaudry and Syed's faith. Each chapter of the book starts with a verse from the Koran, a quote from the Prophet, or a prayer. Before the chapter on "Serial," Chaudry quotes a thirteenth-century Sufi mystic: "The truth was a mirror in the hands of god. It fell, and broke into pieces. Everybody took a piece of it, and they looked at it and thought they had the truth." The quotes are purposeful: "I wanted to use those quotes to frame how we approach situations," she says. "For an observant Muslim, when things happen in your life, we reference the scripture … Many of the quotes are with us already. These are very common things, common verses, we think about all the time."

She says while Adnan wasn't very religious as a 17-year-old, he's found comfort in faith in jail. "There's this confusion about how observant Muslims—which I am, Adnan is, his family is—approach issues and think about things. For example, when Adnan says he 'takes responsibility,' people don't understand that from a spiritual or Islamic perspective, we are commanded to take responsibility, not for things we didn't do, but to think about what we have done that has put us in certain situations," she says.

She says while Adnan wasn't very religious as a 17-year-old, he's found comfort in faith in jail.

Part true-crime, part-personal memoir, the book is also about Chaudry herself. In it she opens up about her personal life, including a failing marriage and issues with her then-husband and in-laws. She talks about the terms of her life that were set by her conservative in-laws: She was responsible for cooking, cleaning, taking care of her daughter before heading to law school. In a separate essay not in the book, Chaudry has opened up about domestic violence issues that plagued her first marriage. (She's since happily remarried and has two daughters.) "I also wanted to send a message … that if [domestic violence] happens to you, it doesn't define you. There's no shame in it. There's such a deep shame in the South Asian culture in talking about [divorce, domestic violence]. I knew how much it would help other people, I knew what it would do for other women."

Her openness and assertiveness have made her a target to some. But she's tough, shutting down social-media haters quickly and pointedly. "I can be a little cutting and biting online," she says. "I don't take a lot of crap. When people attack me, I will say, 'fuck off' and I will do it in publicly. … I have had people say, as a Muslim woman you shouldn't talk like that. And to them, I also say 'fuck off.' ... But for the most part, people are very supportive. I get a lot of messages from women saying thank you for not shutting up when people tell you to shut up."

Raakhee Mirchandani Raakhee Mirchandani is a writer, editor and hairspray enthusiast.

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