IN MEMORIAM
Allah equalises the world by making relics of oppressive nations and peoples. Those who’ve faded into the annals of time were once proud and arrogant. Delusions of grandeur made them believe their power and wealth were intrinsic, inherent, theirs. How very wrong they were. Allah requited them for their evil, but only after affording them many opportunities to turn from oppression: “We shall certainly make them taste a nearer torment before the greater torment, so that perhaps they may return” [32:21].
Crimes are a macrocosm when at the level of the nation-state and a microcosm when we bring it home. But both, when unceasing, will taste the al-Muntaqim—Avenger’s wrath.
Arrogance, pride and perpetual corruption extinguish the spiritual eye and blind us to the truth even though vividly clear: “I will keep distracted from My signs those who behave arrogantly on earth without any right, and who, even if they see every sign, will not believe in them; they will not take the way of right guidance if they see it but will take the way of error if they see that. This is because they denied Our signs and paid them no heed” [7:146].
For more than seven decades, the people of Occupied Palestine have suffered brutal subjugation, repression, colonialism, oppression, human rights crimes, systematic expulsion and land annexation at the hands of the Zionist Israeli Apartheid regime. Finally, every credible international human rights organisation (Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, to name but a few) agrees that Israel is an Apartheid State with a settler colonial agenda and a genocidal record. It took them many years to acknowledge these evident realities. But most are still blind-eyed, blundering on the path of error in complicity, arrogance and chutzpah.
I fear Israel, through its ongoing crimes against humanity, has put out its inner eye and stands on the precipice of moral bankruptcy and self-annihilation and that the sands of time will usher yet another people into memoriam.
RESISTANCE IS MERCY
The Prophet teaches us to help the oppressed and the oppressor. [Bukhari 6952]
When fully human, we will naturally pivot towards the plight of the oppressed, but to aid the oppressor is counterintuitive and may even seem immoral. So, why would a Prophet (s) of God command us to help evildoers? The answer lies in God’s purpose for His Messenger: “We have sent you (O Prophet) only as a mercy for the whole world” [21:107].
Prophet Muhammad (s) was not partisan, and his Divine Mandate was to benefit all of humanity, not just his followers or the virtuous.
Still, the question remains: how do you help an oppressor? The Prophet (s) states that you aid him from oppressing others and committing further errors.
The Prophet (s) doesn’t stop there but provides the taxonomy for dealing with injustice: 1) When you are a witness to injustice, change it with your hands, 2) If you can’t, speak out against it, and 3) If you can’t do that, then feel bad about it in your heart, but know, this is the weakest form of faith. [Muslim, hadith 40]
PS. The inability to do 3, let alone 1 & 2, indicates ‘no faith’ nada, zilch, zero.
Check out @shaunking on Instagram (human rights advocate), and learn how to be a witness against injustice.
It was Youmul Jumuah, and my late father, Shaykh Abdurraghiem Hasan Sallie (Allah yarhamhu), had just finished a lecture about The Battle of the Trench and how the Confederates amassed with the sole purpose of wiping Madinah and its Muslim inhabitants off the map. As we drove home from the mosque, he turned to my brother and me and said: ‘I don’t know if I would have remained steadfast or turned on my heels in such a battle.’ He determined that he might have been of the latter because of the ferocity of the onslaught: “When they came upon you from above you and from below you, and when eyes grew wild and hearts reached to the throats, and ye were imagining vain thoughts concerning Allah. There were the believers sorely tried, and shaken with a mighty shock” [43:10-11].
While writing, I’m praying and sobbing for the forgotten souls abandoned by the world as the Apartheid Israeli army prepares a ground invasion to commit mass genocide in Gaza: “And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? Men, women, and children, whose cry is: “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from Thee one who will protect; and raise for us from Thee one who will help! Those who believe do battle for the cause of Allah; and those who disbelieve do battle for the cause of idols. So fight the minions of the devil. Lo! The devil’s strategy is ever weak.” [4:75-76].
But I’m also praying for my father and believe, contrary to his doubts and because of his strength of character, that he would have stood firm as the believers at the trench did and as the Palestinians are: “And when the true believers saw the clans, they said: “This is that which Allah and His messenger promised us. Allah and His messenger are true. It did but confirm them in their faith and resignation. Of the believers are men who are true to that which they covenanted with Allah. Some of them have paid their vow by death (in battle), and some of them still are waiting, and they have not altered in the least” [33:22-23].
In closing, I pray for courage that wakes us from our slumber and, upon awakening, boldly strives against oppression, knowing that its strong appearance is but a falsity and, therefore, weak: “And say: Truth hath come and falsehood hath vanished away. Lo! falsehood is ever bound to vanish” [17:81].
PS. Read Surah al-Ahzab, verses 10-27, for a mirroring of attitudes between the hypocrites then and now. The resemblance is striking.
The best anti-Israel slogan of the week is from @sbeih: The devil works hard, but Israel’s propaganda team works harder.
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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