Lessons from Gaza

Praise be to Allah (swt) and blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad (saw)

And the [political] Jews and the [political] Christians will not be satisfied with you [O Muhammad] unless you trail their worldview.[…] [Al Baqarah, 2:120]

Living in the rain, sleeping on soaked mattresses, with almost no food, with food aid under blockade, without medicine, amid the rubble or under tents threatened with bombardment: these are the conditions in which our brothers and sisters in Gaza are living through their third year of genocide. Many families have been wiped out, loved ones are missing, children are maimed, and yet the Palestinians of Gaza show exceptional resilience and tawakkul. This is the first lesson the Ummah should take from the genocide.

The Ummah seems to have fallen into the trap of the West's strategy of diverting attention from the genocide through a so-called ceasefire. Let us be clear-sighted: the genocide has never ended. Since the introduction of the so-called peace plan, which aims more at colonizing the Gaza Strip and, in the long term, eliminating Hamas, the genocide continues, having caused more than a thousand casualties, hundreds of children martyred, and a million displaced.

Faced with the lies of the Western media, and with the indifference of those who should be leading us in opposing and denouncing oppression and aggression, we have no right to forget Gaza. It is our duty to draw the necessary lessons from Gaza so that the Ummah remembers the barbarity and cruelty of the Zionists.

This tragic reality, however, should not prevent us from better grasping the lessons of Gaza.

And the [political] Jews and the [political] Christians will not be satisfied with you [O Muhammad] unless you trail their worldview.[…] [Al Baqarah, 2:120]

We must understand, as an Ummah, that whether in Gaza, Myanmar, Xinjiang, Kashmir or Yemen, all these atrocities that our brothers and sisters suffer, all these humiliations and persecutions, are interconnected. Gaza is not an isolated case. Gaza is perhaps the most shattering and shocking holocaust ever seen live.

And this surely comes from Allah (swt). Allah (swt) wants us to understand that everything comes from Him (swt). So separating Gaza from Sudan, or Yemen from Kashmir, is a distorted, fragmented view of the world. In fact, Allah is reminding us of these innocent oppressed people who belong to our Ummah. Ignoring this is an immense affront to our Islamic tradition, and it is abnormal.

O you who are committed [to Allah’s authority and power]! Respond to the call of Allah and to the Apostle whenever he calls you to that which will give you [spirited] life; and know that Allah intervenes between a person and [the desires of] his heart, and that to Him you shall be gathered. [Al Anfal, 8:24]

Gaza is not only a catastrophe, blood, grief, famine and hunger. Gaza can be a teaching. Gaza calls us to wake up. Gaza is an opportunity. It is a sign that we have gone astray as human beings and that we truly must set things right. For while we all moved on in the so-called postcolonial era, shut up in our little nation-states, content but frozen in apathy, Palestine did not take part in that illusion. It did not take part in that macabre lie and deception. It has always been a wake-up call. So those who turn away from it turn their backs on the truth and must question themselves. And when we turn our backs on the truth, our very humanity and our very faith are in danger.

The faith of the people of Gaza should serve as a lesson to us. They have given a lesson in resistance and absolute trust in Allah (swt). Let us remember that child hidden behind a pylon to shelter from an Israeli tank, and that other child who, unable to get food, still kept smiling. Allah (swt) lets us witness all this live so that we may draw lessons from it.

Let us be convinced that Allah (swt) is more powerful than America and its bombs, and than the United Arab Emirates and their financing of this campaign of death. This is what we mean when we say Allah Akbar: no deity, no earthly power, no bomb, no drone, no F-16, no M16, no tank is greater, or more worthy of fear or worship, than Allah (swt).

Gaza challenges us on the fact that we have internalized an inferiority complex. We are always on the defensive. We are always dancing to our enemies' tune and always want a seat at the table. But the table does not want us. So trying to play the "good Muslim" is a battle lost in advance, because Islam represents a threat to racists and to those who claim to be superior.

While the Zionists were destroying Palestinian homes in occupied Jerusalem and in the West Bank in order to expand colonization, despite the resolutions of the impotent UN, the media and the Ummah looked the other way. We let ourselves be convinced that without them, the Ummah can do nothing. Have we underestimated the power of Allah (swt)?

It is our duty not to forget Gaza. We will not forget that the peace plan is merely an initiative to colonize Gaza and to displace its population by maintaining the blockade on food aid.

The Zionists do not realize that Palestine is today the global symbol of the struggle for freedom, and that victory will belong to those who believe in it. The Palestinians have become the symbol of patience, resistance and absolute trust in the Creator.

It is incumbent on the Ummah to rebuild itself on the basis of the lessons of Gaza. Gaza has revealed to us the true identity, the true face, of the Zionists. We have also discovered, with astonishment, the emergence of another type of Zionist, the Arab Zionists, traitors to the cause of Allah, entangled in the infamous Abraham Accords.

Gaza has also lifted the veil on the other face of the West. We live in a world where lying has become a veritable form of madness. Anyone who does not see the genocide in Gaza is either a liar or a fool. But Gaza has also exposed the endemic racism that characterizes the colonial system. The mere presence of Islam within the Ummah does not lead to its renewal unless it is adopted as an ideology and as an intellectual foundation, from which its solutions emerge and on which its ideas are built.

Allah has promised those of you who have committed themselves [and their lives to Him] and do what is exact and ethical that He will guarantee their inheritance [of world affairs] on earth as He guaranteed such inheritance [of world affairs] to those who came before you [in history]; […] [An Nur, 24:55]

It is our duty to keep speaking about Gaza and to make our children understand that, for lack of active engagement from our traitorous, collaborating Muslim heads of state, Gaza died, but its inhabitants are in paradise, as martyrs.

May Allah (swt) help and guide us.