sent by Zaahied Sallie

Allah

LOVE AND WAR

Balance. Without it, we enter the danger zone, where chaos lurks and constantly threatens.

God’s love is unconditional, they say. He is all love, they conjecture.

This belief undoes itself. If God’s love is unconditional, then His love is not unconditional.

What do we know about God? We believe God is Fair, He is Most Merciful, and He is Just.

So, if God unconditionally loves the oppressor who is given to oppression, then He is not being just and fair and merciful to the oppressed.

Thus, for God to be unjust and unfair is impossible. Hence, His love is conditional.

The believer must always seek to even up the scales in thought, understanding and deed. For balance is closer to nature and, thus, to God’s truth.

Khauf and rajā‘—fear and hope in God are the wings of the believer. And as it is with birds, their wings are equal.

So try not to commit excess in either of them.

The Prophet (s)

GOD WILLING, A PRECONDITION

Two envoys, covered in Arabian dust, stood before their Qurayshite masters. They had just completed their 860-kilometre round trip mission from Makkah to Yathrib (old title for Madinah) and back again. Their task was to seek an audience with the Jewish rabbis and gather intelligence about Muhammad (s) and his claim of Prophethood.

The Qurayshite leadership, armed with the three questions prepared for by the rabbis, summoned the Prophet (s) for interrogation:

1. “Tell us about the wondrous tale of youth aforetime, whom God had veiled from their townspeople”, and
2. “Give us tidings of the one vastly travelled, who had been to the West and the East”, and
3. “Tell us, what is the Great Spirit?”

The Prophet (s), unknowledgeable about their queries, said he (s) would tell them the next day but did not say, ‘If God Will,’ and when they returned, he (s) was no wiser.

The Prophet (s), distressed by the lack of heaven’s intervention, remained nescient for fifteen days until Gabriel (as) bore him revelation from God: ‘Do not say of anything, “I will do that tomorrow,” without adding, “God willing,” and, whenever you forget, remember your Lord and say, “May my Lord guide me closer to what is right” [18:23-24].   

Accompanied by the verses of admonition were the answers to the Jewish and Pagan Inquisition and more. (Read verses 18:9-26, 18:83-99, and 17:85 for the answers)

This lesson in humility teaches three things:

1. The delay from heaven indicates that the Prophet (s) had no control over the revelation and thus proved to his dissenters that the Quran was not his fabrication.
2. The admonition verses prove that the Quran is not the words of Muḥammad (s) and that he spoke the truth. It is not natural for leaders to expose their flaws for posterity. But Prophets must spread God’s message, every jot and tittle, and even verses where God convicts them of their faults.
3. We must never exclusively rely on our limited resources and forget God, or worse, exclude God altogether from the equation.

The lesson is not only for Muslims, and we should remind our Christian brothers and sisters that Deo Volente—Latin for God Willing, like InshaAllah, is for them, too: ‘Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business, and make a profit.” You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord is willing, we will live and do this or that”‘ [New Testament, James: 13-15]

Milquetoast

Many leftists are milquetoasty and kumbaya about Palestine.

They speak about peace and the cessation of hostility in abstraction, fearing they might offend if they speak more directly. But this is spinelessness. Genocide is blunt, and we must meet it with equal bluntness.

How can one speak about peace amidst a genocide and not name the problem?

How can one speak about peace amidst a genocide and not name the perpetrator?

How can one speak about peace amidst a genocide and not advocate for justice for the victims?

It is not peace that drives them. It’s fear, fear of truth’s discomfort and its consequences.

We must not be afraid to speak out, especially at this stage of the genocide, when the official death toll nears 40,000, of which 14,000 are children, and when the Lancet, the world’s leading medical journal’s July 5th report estimates the total casualties at 186,000 or more, nearly 8% of Gaza’s total population?¹

If we don’t and continue to self-censor through fear, many more Palestinians will die an unjust death and suffer grave evil at the hands of Israeli genociders and their Western backers.

1. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)01169-3/fulltext

Until next week, InshaAllah

Zaahied Sallie

Author of The Beloved Prophet – An Illustrated Biography in Rhyme

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