AN HEAVEN SCROLLED
Why do we keep reading an awful book or watching a lousy film? Because the intrigue of the plot keeps us locked in. We want to know how the story ends.
Since the beginning, stories have captured the imagination. The most common formats are books and films, but scrolls preceded both. The elder scroll—The Diary of Merer—was discovered in Egypt in 2013 and was written over 4,500 years ago. It is the oldest known scroll today.
The oldest story is that of the Universe, and Allah tells us in the Quran that He preserved its history from the beginning until the end in the Lauḥil-Maḥfūẓ—The Mother of the Book, which is The Book of Decrees.
Everything and everyone has a story, and most important is the plot.
Thus, it would be fitting for the Universe’s plot to be extraordinary and intricately crafted. Why would it not be the most mind-blowing plot ever devised when its author is God?
And so the story of the ultimate tale ends with the Creator rolling up the material universe like a scroll and then writing its sequel. Even more incredible is the metaphorical device employed to describe this scene. Allah, the writer, rolling up His scroll. What a fitting metaphor to end the tale of all tales: “On that Day, We shall roll up the skies as a writer rolls up [his] scrolls. We shall reproduce creation just as We produced it the first time: this is Our binding promise. We shall certainly do all these things” [21:104].
Great stories enthral us, but the most important is our own. We may not all be writers or live lives exciting enough for the page. Still, everyone has a biographer, and the scrolls of our lives will be laid bare. Hence, we must pen a fitting plot for ours.
THE BONDSMAN
To break the bonds of slavery, we must become slaves of God.
Many slaves in sixth-century Arabia found their freedom through submission to the One and Only God. They unbonded themselves by bonding to the only Power that could truly free their minds and bodies.
The Prophet (s) was God’s greatest bondsman because he detached from his will and perennially attached to God’s.
The further we move from God, the deeper we plunge into chaos. We experience much suffering when we live in our will.
Surrendering to the perfect Will of God and then putting our trust in Him will render a peace and freedom we have not yet known. This state can solve life’s challenges where nothing else can.
The Prophet’s life testifies to this truth. On his (s) deathbed, God gave him the choice to live or die. He (s) could have solved death, the vainglorious’ greatest riddle. But he (s) chose the supreme communion.
With Thee, O God, with Thee.
The veils will invariably fall because the truth will bare its teeth. But biting the somnambulist to rouse him is not the truth’s responsibility.
On the issue of racial discrimination, Western societies would like to believe that they’ve put the question to bed. For many, the sentiment is that racism is a relic banished to the annals and viewable only in the Smithsonian. And that the civilised West has since recalibrated society equitably.
This opinion is not rooted in reality but a dreamlike whimsy. It is but a psychic shutter to avoid the discomfort of dealing with the truth. Which is that systemic and structural racism is alive and kicking, and liberal anti-racism has only given it a whitewash.
The last few decades bear testimony that racism is not dead and that the historical colonial and racist structures still shape political, social, and economic oppression.
A visible portrait of the effects of systemic and structural racism is on display for road users daily. Witnessing a Black Load—black labourers often loaded like livestock on the back of a bakkie (pickup truck)—is an inescapable reality on South African highways and byways. White never breaks the colour palette and is reserved for the driver or passenger up front. No one blinks when they witness it. The daily sight, often multiple times, has desensitised us to such injustice.
Elsewhere, the world has given us police brutality disturbingly liberal against non-whites, George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, Colin Kaepernick, “The Knee”, the rise of the far-right, and too many iterations of the same.
The clearest unveiling of racial bigotry, the “Us and Them Syndrome”, “Us” being whites, is the world’s response to the current conflicts in Ukraine and Occupied Palestine.
It was too much for the West to witness white, blue-eyed Ukrainians who looked too much like them to be victims of war. The reaction was shameless and exposed that a hierarchy of human worth based on race exists.
Compare that to the West’s reaction to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians living in Gaza. Unfortunately, it has not evoked the same emotions and, more importantly, failed to effect similar policy changes as it did against Russia, even though the human cost has been exponentially higher than any other conflict since World War 2.
Commissioner-General of UNRWA Philippe Lazzarini said, “This war is a war on children. It is a war on their childhood and their future.”
Lazzarini made this statement in March 2024 after the UN data revealed that 12,300 Palestinian children were killed in Gaza in four months compared to 12,193 globally in four years. (1)
This sobering statistic could not stir the West’s heart and move them to save the children. At the time of writing this, and since Lazzarini’s statement, 1,700 more Palestinian children have been genocided by Israel.
These irrefutable truths prove that whiteness matters in this strange-coloured world and that racism, bigotry, class, Apartheid and fascism are not Smithsonian relics but elephants that have never left the room. And it’s high time we all settled in and chatted to them.
Until next week, InshaAllah
Zaahied Sallie
Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme
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