New settlements planned on privately owned Palestinian land in the West Bank.

Firm owned by Elbit Systems boasts of going to the moon.

The Weight of Symbolic Recognition

When I saw the image, I stopped scrolling. A mosque with an American flag in front of it. The words across the bottom: Ramadan has officially been recognized in Washington. And then the comments: Alhamdulillah. Historic moment. Muslim Americans are valued, respected, and part of the fabric of this nation.

I read it twice. And I felt something I wasn’t expecting—not joy, not gratitude. Something heavier. Something that has been building for a long time. I understand the impulse to find something to hold onto when you have been made to feel invisible for so long. I understand what it means to want proof that you exist in the eyes of a country that has spent years making clear it would prefer you didn’t.

But I struggle with the idea that Washington State’s proclamation is proof that we are valued and respected in this country. We have never fully been given that. Not without condition. We have been here, worked here, built here, and raised our children here. We have fasted every Ramadan and celebrated every Eid without waiting for anyone’s permission or recognition.

The Exception vs. The Baseline

I know what the asking for proof of belonging looks like up close. A supervisor once found out I was Muslim; he looked at me and said, “You’re one of the good ones”. He said it casually, as if it were a compliment. What it meant was that the rest—my community, my family—were not. That contempt for Muslims was his baseline, and I was the exception he was willing to tolerate.

In 2017, I came across a Facebook discussion in which a man stated plainly that all Muslims should be expelled from the United States—even those who are citizens. For the ones he deemed acceptable, they would be given a year to sell their homes; for the rest, he suggested death or immediate banishment. No whispers. No shame. No consequences. When I challenged him, he told me that I, too, should get my affairs in order and leave.

A Climate of Manufactured Enmity

We are told that Islam hates America, yet Muslims died in those towers on September 11th and were among the first responders. And then a President manufactured and circulated videos of Muslims celebrating that day—videos that were debunked and designed to rewrite the truth—to tell the country that we were the enemy.

That climate produces real-world consequences. A man who believed those lies walked up to my seventy-year-old mother on a street in December 2016. She had to run into a store where strangers helped her and called the police. This is the environment in which Washington State has chosen to recognize Ramadan—not an environment of genuine inclusion. It is an environment where rhetoric from top officials has portrayed Muslims as criminals, fueling racial profiling and hate crimes.

The Human Cost of Asymmetry

I know what this climate produces beyond the rhetoric. In June 2025, a 55-year-old mother of five was beaten on the E train in Queens after she confirmed she was Muslim. In October 2023, six-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume was stabbed twenty-six times by his landlord in Illinois. Wadea was American. He was born here.

On social media, I recently saw an ad raising money for Muslim orphans. In the comments, people posted images of the Twin Towers and called us terrorists. I responded to one, noting that it is remarkable they feel free to dehumanize us this way—but if I were to do the same, heaven and earth would move to stop me. That asymmetry is not a coincidence. It is a climate.

Faith Without Validation

A signature cannot close the distance between symbol and safety. It does not protect a mother on the street, and it does not bring back a six-year-old boy. Freedom of religion is not a gift the United States government gives to Muslims; it is the First Amendment and the foundational promise of this country.

Muslims have been on this land since before its founding, kept alive in secret by enslaved Africans who fasted and prayed with no recognition from anyone1. They did not need a proclamation then. We do not need one now.

What we need is to be treated as full human beings. We were never waiting for their permission to fast, and we were never waiting for their recognition to know our worth. We will continue to celebrate—with or without their proclamations. Our hope is part and parcel of imaan, and it has survived every generation that tried to break it.

 

Related:

– [Podcast] How to Fight Islamophobia | Monia Mazigh

– Islamophobia In American Public Schools

 

1    The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/african-muslims-early-america) and Sylviane Diouf’s Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas (NYU Press, 2013).

The post For Muslims In The US, Recognition Does Not Guarantee Safety appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Ahmad Hussam of Propaganda Co. reports on his recent travels in Iran. Jon Elmer on Hizballah’s efficient drones. Asa Winstanley on Israeli leaders admitting defeat and more.

Bombed, wounded, used as human shields and humiliated. What Israeli soldiers have done to women in Gaza.

Palestinians from Gaza find community and solace at Egypt’s Taabu Club.

Kerala in Context: Postcolonial Secularism and Neo-Marxist Influence

Notwithstanding the diverse cultural and historical trajectories of modern societies, contemporary debates on religion and modernity frequently operate on the assumption that religious fervor must be restrained in order to achieve social progress and adapt to the changing demands of modern life.  Although this assumption is commonly associated with Western liberalism, it is equally visible within the neo-colonial dynamics of postcolonial Kerala’s communist–secular project1.

Kerala, widely celebrated for its religious pluralism, high literacy, and cultural diversity, has in recent years become the subject of growing criticism from religious and cultural practitioners and leaders.  Within the broader context of neoliberal and neo-colonial transformation, neo-Marxist forces have played a leading role in advancing what critics describe as dialectical reinforcements that erode religious and cultural identities, particularly those of Muslim communities. These ideological pressures have increasingly generated anxiety and discouragement among religious populations regarding the future of cultural and religious pluralism, as modernity and liberalism advance their marginalizing tendencies (Osella and Osella 2008)2.

The contemporary neo-Marxist influence in Kerala thus appears to reproduce patterns of cultural suppression reminiscent of colonial regimes.  Drawing on theories of cultural alienation, ideological state apparatuses, and postcolonial critique, this article demonstrates how Kerala’s Marxist secularism operates within a distinct postcolonial and communist context while simultaneously mirroring this ideological formation’s objective of defanging Islam. 

The Construction of the ‘Progressive Muslim’

This process of cultural degradation echoes the colonial disruption of the Orient analyzed by  Edward Said in Orientalism, where the so-called “civilizing mission” of colonial powers functioned not as enlightenment but as a project of cultural suppression and the construction of new ideological apparatuses of identity. These tensions, which have intensified over years of political governance, are now deeply embedded in the everyday lived realities of Keralites.

The philosophical roots of this dynamic can be traced to Hegel’s assertion that the ultimate goal of the individual is the attainment of “human-consciousness,” a notion further developed by Francis Fukuyama through his concept of the “struggle for recognition” as a central motor of historical development. Within Kerala’s contemporary political culture, this pursuit has materialized in the construction of the figure of the “progressive Muslim,” whose religious identity is accepted only insofar as Islamic belief is rendered socially innocuous under the rhetoric of emancipation and rationality. 

Liberalism, Marxism, and the Regulation of Religious Identity

Visible practices of piety, such as hijab-wearing or the observance of traditional rituals, are often framed in public discourse as markers of ‘backwardness,’ whereas secular-liberal behaviors are celebrated as symbols of modernity. These representations, I argue, reflect not simply individual choice but the operation of ideological frameworks that subtly reshape Muslim subjectivity. Rather than promoting authentic religious freedom, such interventions can function as mechanisms for aligning community practices with secular-liberal and neo-Marxist norms. Carool Kersten, in Contemporary Thought in the Muslim World, referencing Abdolkarim Soroush, observes that when religion becomes ideology, it risks becoming a tool of oppression3. Yet this insight is frequently misappropriated in Marxist discourse to suggest that religious ideology itself is inherently oppressive, particularly in the case of Islam.

“Visible practices of piety, such as hijab-wearing or the observance of traditional rituals, are often framed in public discourse as markers of ‘backwardness,’ whereas secular-liberal behaviors are celebrated as symbols of modernity.”

While early Marxist critiques emerged from specific  European conditions—notably the entanglement of church and state that necessitated their separation—contemporary Marxist politics in Kerala deploy this framework to justify the extraction of religious “passion” from Muslim consciousness. From within the rational framework of Islamic theology, however, Muslim resistance to such interventions is neither reactionary nor irrational. Moreover, Islamic disapproval of certain religious celebrations does not translate into hostility toward other faith communities, underscoring that theological commitment and social coexistence are not mutually exclusive. 

The castration of religion is not necessary for religious harmony; rather, it depends on the internal rationality of the religious tradition itself. Certain interpretations of Islam, particularly as practiced within Kerala’s socio-political context, can be in tension with some liberal principles, such as secular-liberal educational norms or gender expectations. While liberalism historically negotiated its relationship with Christianity in the West, the engagement with Islam involves distinct theological, legal, and cultural considerations that resist straightforward assimilation into liberal frameworks. It is therefore clear that one does not become more “enlightened” or “progressive” as a Muslim by adopting the Marxists’ agenda and its conceited arguments. Instead, the absurdity of liberal logic has been deceiving its practitioners into distancing themselves from religion itself. As a socio-political theory, neo-Marxist secularism in Kerala is characterized by deep anxiety toward religion. Much of its cultural and political endeavor is governed by this anxiety rather than by a genuine commitment to social good. With the advent of this framework, it developed the myth of religious violence and oppression, which holds that religion—particularly Islam—is fundamentally backward, irrational, and exclusively responsible for emotional instability, social stagnation, and even violence if not strictly controlled. This assumption lies at the heart of this intellectual stance. 

Education, Culture, and Ideological Intervention in Kerala

A concrete illustration of this process can be observed in recent educational and cultural interventions in Kerala. The introduction and enforcement of Zumba dance programs in schools, for instance, alongside the restructuring of academic schedules in ways that conflict with Madrasa education,  have been promoted under the language of physical well-being and progressive pedagogy. Yet these measures remain largely inconspicuous to parents, students, teachers, and community members as instruments of ideological transformation. Public remarks by political figures,  including Anil Kumar4, further reinforce this trajectory by framing such interventions as necessary components of liberation and modernization. In practice, however, these initiatives operate as mechanisms for the displacement of inherited religious and cultural values, replacing them with new normative frameworks aligned with contemporary Marxist ideology5.

This process extends beyond educational policy into the domains of media and public discourse, where selective narratives, the monopolization of major communication channels, and digital attention economies cultivate new habits of perception, evaluation, and expression. Through these means, the  Ideological State Apparatus disseminates revised cultural forms that undermine religious traditions while normalizing secular-liberal values. The result is a systematic reshaping of subjectivity in which religious communities are encouraged to internalize ideological assumptions that erode their own cultural and moral foundations in the name of modernity and progress. 

Defanging Islam: Secular Anxiety and its Consequences

Although the communist approach to the alleged “problem” of religion is presented as liberation and tolerance, it in fact serves as a project of neutralization. This ideology seeks to strip Islam of its moral force, transforming it into a defanged identity with no authority over behavior or values,  rather than genuinely defending religious freedom. Religious sensibility is repeatedly violated in order to desensitize Muslim culture to its own ethical obligations, through media narratives,  educational reforms, and social regulation of personal choices carried out in the name of liberation theology. The underlying assumption is that once religious passion and zeal are removed, religion can be controlled and rendered compatible with contemporary modern life.

However, this assumption rests on a fundamental error. Islam is a comprehensive moral and intellectual tradition,  recognized as a complete way of life that integrates reason, rationality, spirituality, law, and social responsibility. This is clearly affirmed in the Qur’an itself, where human beings are described as vicegerents on earth. This reality stands in direct contrast to the claim that Islam is an irrational system of blind emotional imitation. Consequently, Muslim resistance to certain secular-liberal practices is not rooted in fanaticism or uncontrolled passion, but rather reflects a more nuanced, rational, and ethical position. 

This dogma continues to serve as one of the central explanations for the ongoing regulation,  mockery, and restructuring of Muslim life in Kerala, despite the absence of substantial historical or empirical evidence to support such claims. As Saʿad Yacoob argues, liberalism is not grounded in genuine rational inquiry but is instead an emotional reaction concealed beneath the language of reason and concern over religious passion. Likewise, Marxist discourse operates through emotional responses shaped by colonial modernity, producing a rigid binary in which secularism is portrayed as rational and progressive, while religion is framed as passion and regression. Within this framework, religious passion is assumed to be inherently prone to extremism and emotional outbursts, which are then collapsed into the single category of religious violence. This binary is thus constructed as the central challenge facing contemporary religious communities in Kerala. 

Yet many religious individuals continue to support the Communist regime because it offers liberal ideologies that are presented as progressive and indispensable for the modern world. In reality, this support reflects a profound delusion generated by the irrationality of this ideological framework,  through which religious individuals are persuaded to participate in the defanging of their own tradition, particularly Islam. In conclusion, when religious communities embrace the ideological positions promoted by the Communist movement, they actively weaken the seriousness and distinctiveness of their own religious heritage. 

In sum, while neo-Marxists exalt liberal-secular lifestyles as symbols of enlightenment, they simultaneously promote the portrayal of religious practices—such as hijab-wearing, cultural and ritual observance, and ethical restraint—as backward and non-progressive. As a result, in the contemporary cultural climate, Muslims who seek to be regarded as “modern” or “progressive”  increasingly find themselves under pressure to disengage from and dismantle their inherited religious traditions. Islam thus continues, ipso facto, to pose a serious challenge to Communist secular reasoning, which advances liberal ideas that seek to uproot religious passion from the believer. Muslims do not become enlightened by abandoning the coherence of their own heritage in favor of Marxist or other liberal ideologies; rather, they become dependent upon an ideology that requires them to surrender their cultural and spiritual agency—an agency originally formed in response to the very emotional anxieties toward religion that these ideologies themselves embody.

 

Related:

– Can India’s Financial System Make Room For Faith?

– Perpetual Outsiders: Accounts Of The History Of Islam In The Indian Subcontinent

1     1. In this article, the following terms are used in the context of Kerala: Marxist theory refers to political parties and intellectual traditions. Neo-Marxists refer to those who emphasize cultural critique in addition to classical economic analysis. Communism is not used as so much a theoretical position but as a political party (e.g., CPI (M)). Liberal denotes a commitment to individual rights, secular reasoning, and pluralism. In India, the term “secular” refers to the state’s neutrality towards religion rather than its hostility. 2    Osella, Caroline, and Filippo Osella. Islamism and Social Reform in Kerala, South India. Modern Asian Studies, vol. 42, no. 2–3, 2008, pp. 317–346.3    Carool Kersten, Contemporary Thought in the Muslim World: Trends, Themes, and Issues (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 107.4    . This is in line with what Anil Kumar (a prominent political communist leader in Kerala) stated during the most recent election: the Communist Party frees Muslim girls from the oppression of Hijab-wearing, enforced by Islamic law. It turned into a point of dispute that spread throughout Kerala. 5    Religious-cultural practitioners or performers are backward and not cultural, or that the girl who applied the Bindi or tilak (a traditional vermilion spot on the forehead that has deep spiritual and cultural significance in the Hindu community and other religious practices) remind Karl Marx of his false consciousness, are examples of the religious-cultural practitioners who are backward and non-civilized.

The post Communist Anxiety And The Liberal Defanging Of Islam In Kerala appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Leading “manosphere” podcaster Joe Rogan absurdly suggests Nobel Peace Prize-winning AFSC could be a CIA company.

A weary caregiver and her successful sister clash over sacrifice and faith, only to discover that each has been quietly carrying a life the other cannot see.

The kitchen smelled faintly of sugar and vanilla, with something warmer underneath, perhaps yeast and butter lingering from the cookies that had come out of the oven an hour ago. Two cooling racks sat on the counter, with four varieties of cookies waiting to be decorated or frosted, while a smear of icing clung to the edge of a metal bowl, half-whipped.

Zaynab wiped her hands on a dish towel, then wiped them again, though there was nothing left on them. She felt jittery and bottled up.

She hadn’t been to the gym in three days. In that time she had lifted her mother in and out of bed, helped her in and out of the bath, clipped her toenails, applied skin cream to her arthritic joints, managed her medication, cooked and cleaned, and answered the same questions more than once because her mother forgot or pretended to forget.

Aside from that she ran her small bakery business, which meant evenings and late nights measuring flour, cracking eggs, going on grocery runs, and making midnight deliveries so that her clients would have the cookies ready for customers in the morning.

She moved constantly without any genuine release, and the energy had nowhere to go. It sat in her chest and shoulders and jaw, making her restless, irritable, as if something inside her needed to break loose or it would harden into something worse.

She glanced at the clock. Her sister Heba would be here soon. She visited every Friday night.

Part of her looked forward to the interruption, the presence of another person in the house, someone who could take over for a few minutes even if only symbolically. But another part of her resented it. She resented the neatness of it, the way her sister could arrive, perform some act of kindness, and then leave again, returning to a life that moved forward instead of circling the same small rooms.

She knew it wasn’t fair, but that knowledge did nothing to soften the feeling.

“I’m going to the gym,” she said, tying her hair back with a rubber band she had stretched too many times. “Heba should be here soon.”

From the recliner in the adjoining room, her mother shifted, the fabric creaking, while the television murmured low, some silly sitcom with canned laughter rising and falling in tired waves. It was an old-fashioned, non-digital TV. “I like a TV with a knob that I can turn,” her mother would insist. “Not one of those flat black monstrosities that look like portals to Jahannam.”

“Stop at the store,” her mother said without looking away from the screen, “and get me -”

“Eggs?” Her mother always wanted eggs.

“What?”

“Eggs.”

“No. Toilet paper.”

She paused, one sneaker half on. “So you don’t want eggs?”

“I want toilet paper and eggs.”

A small smile tugged at Zaynab’s lips. “So I was right.”

Her mother’s eyes flicked toward her then, still sharp. “About what?”

“About the eggs.”

A dry breath escaped her mother. “What do you want, a prize? If you wanted a prize, you should have gone to college. I would have bought you a graduation gift.”

Zaynab’s smile disappeared. There was no point in responding. If she did, an argument would ensue, which would end in her mother weeping and screaming, “I’m an old woman! Why are you torturing me?” Then they’d give each other the silent treatment for three days. Zaynab had been through that cycle often enough to know that she desperately needed to move past it.

The refrigerator hummed in the background as a car passed outside, its tires whispering over asphalt. Zaynab stood still, breathing softly.

“I’ll get your toilet paper,” she said.

A key turned in the lock. The door opened.

Her sister Heba stepped in, carrying a leather Versace tote bag over one shoulder.

“As-salamu alaykum!” she called out. Removing her blue hijab, she hung it on the hat rack near the door.

For a moment the younger sister simply stared, struck again by how much they resembled each other. They had the same eyes, the same shape of mouth, the same dark hair, though Heba’s was smoother, finely coiffed and pulled back neatly instead of tied in haste. They were the same medium height, built on the same slender frame, but the differences lay in the details: flour on her own sleeve, a faint smear of icing near her wrist, scuffed sneakers, while her sister wore a pressed blouse, designer slacks, and shoes that looked expensive without needing to say so.

She’s the sister who matters, Zaynab thought bitterly. The one who made the right choices, went to law school, and pays all the bills. Mom’s favorite. The lawyer. Looking at her was like looking into a mirror that reflected a different life – the one she might have had if she had been less rebellious, stayed in school… and of course if Mom had not gotten ill.

“I said,” Heba repeated, “As-salamu alaykum. What is this, a house of zombies?”

“I was just about to go out for eggs and toilet paper,” Zaynab said.

Her sister winced slightly. “Don’t use the T-word, please.”

“The what?”

“Toilet paper. Just… say something else.”

She stared at her. “Like what? That’s what it is.”

Her sister set her bag down by the wall. “Hygienic paper.”

“That’s not a thing. No one says that.”

“They do in Spanish,” her sister replied as she slipped off her shoes. “Papel higiénico.”

A short laugh escaped. “You can’t help yourself, can you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Reminding me you went to college. I know you minored in Spanish. That doesn’t mean you have to come in here and try to change how we talk.”

Her sister held her gaze briefly, then looked away. “I didn’t mean it like that.” She crossed the room, bent, and kissed their mother on the cheek. “How are you, Mama? A bit heavy on the menthol skin cream, no? It’s like I’m in a mint factory.”

“It helps with her arthritis,” Zaynab said defensively. She was the one who’d applied it.

“You’re late,” their mother said.

“I came as soon as I could.”

“Are you pregnant yet?”

Heba winced as if she’d been slapped. But her voice remained soft as she said, “No, Mama.”

The older sister straightened, stepped back, and then hugged the younger one briefly. She smelled of perfume and hushed office spaces.

“Good to see you, Zuzu,” Heba said.

“Don’t call me Zuzu. I’ve told you that many times.”

“Sorry.” Heba swallowed, touched Zaynab’s shoulder. “Could you – could you be nice to me tonight, please? I really need it.”

Zaynab was about to utter something caustic, but, looking in her sister’s eyes, she saw the same confusion and loss that she saw in her own eyes in the mirror sometimes, as if she had been carrying the secret to life and death in a little glass ball, but had dropped it and watched it shatter.

So instead she turned away and gestured to the kitchen. “Have a cookie. It’s an order for tomorrow, but I always make extras.”

“They smell delicious.”

They wandered into the kitchen. Zaynab watched as Heba took a semi-sweet chocolate chip cookie, bit into it and moaned in pleasure. “You could go places with this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I’m doing my best.”

Heba sighed. “I know.”

Her sister moved to the sink, rolled up her sleeves, and turned on the faucet. Water splashed against a stack of plates. Grabbing the sponge, she began washing the dishes.

“I was going to do that,” Zaynab objected.

“I know. I’m just… staying busy. Moving my hands.”

Zaynab watched her older sister, listening to the clink as Heba loaded the dishes into the dishwasher.

“I said I was going to do it.”

Her sister nodded, but continued.

“Why do you do that?” Zaynab asked.

“Do what?”

“Come in here and act like everything’s fine.”

“I’m not acting.”

“You are.”

Her sister rinsed another plate.

“You come in, you hug her, you kiss her, and you ignore the cruel things she says.”

“She’s our mother,” her sister said quietly.

“And I’m the one who’s here,” Zaynab countered. “I’m the one who stayed. I have to hear it every day. The put-downs and negativity.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. You can’t fathom what it’s like. It’s smothering me. I can’t breathe.”

“It’s the illness talking. She doesn’t mean it.”

“I know that!” Zaynab snapped. She let out a breath in a huff and rested her elbows on the prep island in the center of the kitchen. “I feel like knocking someone out.”

Heba shot her a worried glance. “Not me or Mama, I hope.”

Zaynab gave an annoyed cluck of the tongue. “Of course not. Someone else. Some robbers. I want some robbers to break in so I can knock them out. Maybe even stab them.”

Her sister laughed loudly, then covered her mouth. “You can’t always get what you want,” she said, turning off the faucet.

Zaynab blinked. “But if you try sometimes…” She gestured to her sister, but only got a frown in return. “You just might find..” Still no response…. “you get what you need.”

Heba nodded. “That’s surprisingly profound.”

“It’s the Rolling Stones.”

“The what?”

“You’re kidding. You don’t know the Rolling Stones?”

“Is that a band? I don’t know music.”

“What do you listen to in the car?”

“The Quran.”

Zaynab felt the words settle between them like a recrimination. “You can’t know both?”

“I don’t have a lot of free time. I choose to invest it in the Quran.”

“So you’re a good Muslim and I’m not?”

“Not at all.” She met Zaynab’s eyes with a serious look. “It’s the other way around. You’re the one taking care of Mama. You’re the one earning Jannah. You stayed. You put your life on hold.”

“Someone had to.”

“I know.”

“And it wasn’t you.”

“I know.”

The younger sister frowned. “You say that like it’s nothing. You come here once a week, wash a few dishes, say a few nice things, then go back to your life.”

“My life isn’t -”

“What? Perfect? Yeah, right.”

Her sister’s breath caught. “Do you want my life?” she asked. “Do you want to trade? You want what I have? Working twelve hours a day, sometimes all night, coming home to -” She stopped.

“What?”

Heba looked down at her hands. “He left.”

“What do you mean?”

“My husband Basim,” her sister added quietly. “He left me.”

The refrigerator hummed, and a clatter sounded as ice cubes dropped into the tray in the freezer. In the living room, canned laughter rose from the TV.

“You didn’t tell me.”

“I didn’t tell anyone.”

“Why?”

Her sister gave a faint, tired smile. “Because I come here and I see you, and I think… what right do I have to complain? You are the hero of the family, not me.”

Zaynab pursed her lips. “You’re mocking me.”

She was stunned when Heba suddenly seized her cheeks in both hands and brought her face almost nose to nose. “I’m not! I mean it. You are the believer here. You are doing what matters.”

She heard the truth in her sister’s words, and tears welled in her eyes. It felt like something was breaking inside her. “Okay,” she said. “Let go.”

But Heba did not release her. Zaynab smelled the sweetness of chocolate on her sister’s breath.

“Do you want my life?” Heba asked again, more gently. Her hands gripped Zaynab’s cheeks even harder. “Wallahil-atheem I will trade with you. I swear by Allah. You take my apartment, and I will quit my job and live here with Mama. Just say the words.”

“I don’t know!”

“I will do it,” Heba insisted.

“No I don’t want to trade ! Let go now, majnoonah!”

With this, Zaynab burst into tears. Her sister released her, and she slid down to the floor with her back against the cabinets, face in her hands. Heba lowered herself to sit beside her, and put an arm around her shoulders.

“What’s going on in there?” Mom called from the living room. “Did you get my toilet paper?”

The younger sister exhaled. She wiped the tears from her cheeks with a flour-stained sleeve.

“Not yet,” she called back, then added, louder, “And call it papel high-jenico, Mom.”

A pause.

“What the devil is that?” their mother called back.

Zaynab turned toward her sister, and something unguarded passed between them. Heba smiled, and Zaynab felt a laugh rise up in her own chest before she could stop it.

“Happiness is where you find it,” Zuzu,” Heba said.

Zaynab wanted to say, “At least you have the opportunity. I’m stuck here.” But that argument had already passed. And studying her sister now, she saw what she had missed earlier: the dark circles beneath the eyes, the worry lines, the sadness.

So instead she quoted:

Dostoevsky

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.”

Her sister looked at her. “What is that? Your Running Stones again?”

Zaynab chuckled. “It’s Dostoevsky.”

“You read Russian literature?”

“Just because I didn’t go to college doesn’t mean -”

“Zaynab,” Heba said in a low, threatening tone. “Don’t start that again.”

“Sorry. Habit.”

“Wanna know what the Quran says?”

“Sure.”

“It says, Surely in the remembrance of Allah do the hearts find contentment.”

“So it’s that easy?”

“Why not? Allah created us. He knows what we need.”

“Then why aren’t all Muslims happy?”

Heba pursed her lips. “I suppose they’re chasing other things besides Allah. Attaching themselves to other things, coveting other things.”

“Like thousand dollar Versace purses?”

Heba nodded slowly. “Yes. Like that.”

Zaynab stood, then sat back down with two cookies in her hand. She gave one to Heba. “Dark chocolate with macadamia nuts.”

They ate in silence. After a minute, Heba said, “You’re talented, mashaAllah.”

“I know. I’m the best.”

“And humble too,” Heba added.

Zaynab gave a snort of laughter.

“Do we have any nonfat milk?” the elder sister asked.

“No. We have two percent like normal people.”

Heba stood and poured them each a glass. They sat on the floor, eating their cookies and drinking cold milk. Warmth radiated from the oven even through the closed door, and water dripped softly from the sink.

THE END

 

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

 

Related:

A Wish And A Cosmic Bird: A Play

Searching for Signs of Spring: A Short Story

 

The post The Daughter Who Stayed appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

[This narrative scene is excerpted from The Interrogation Vault trilogy. Set within a digital simulation of the three-year boycott of the Banu Hashim (7th–10th year of the Prophetic mission), the story follows a protagonist and an extraterrestrial visitor as they analyze the logistical warfare of the Quraysh. Together, they explore the transition of Islam from a private belief to a sociopolitical movement, and why the elite of Makkah responded not with arguments, but with the cruelty of a total economic siege.]

***

The chamber opened into silence.

But it was not the silence of peace.

It was the silence of desperation.

The simulation placed us on the outskirts of Makkah, in a dry valley encased by rocks and sorrow. No birds sang. No children played. Dust settled over thorny trees stripped of bark.

“Welcome,” the alien said, “to the Valley of Shi‘b Abī Ṭālib.”

The heat pressed against my skin. I heard coughing—dry, aching. Then the slow shuffle of feet. An old man clutched his stomach. A mother tried to nurse, but her milk had vanished days ago. A child with hollow eyes and cracked lips chewed on a strip of leather that had been boiled soft just to be edible.

I looked away.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because Quraysh didn’t respond with philosophy,” the alien said. “They responded with siege.”

He lifted his hand, and a scroll materialized in the air: brittle parchment nailed to the wall of the Ka‘bah. Its letters glowed in red, like they’d been written in blood:

No trade. No marriage. No protection. Until they hand over Muhammad.

“This,” he said, “was the first full-scale sanctions document in Islamic history. Sealed by twenty-five signatures of Makkah’s elite.”

He turned to me.

“Is this how you treat someone simply preaching in private?”

I hesitated.

“They hated his message. That’s all.”

The alien shook his head. “Hatred alone doesn’t explain a three-year logistical blockade. They didn’t just attack him; they attacked the system that protected him.”

He walked through the simulation—past a young girl digging for roots with trembling fingers.

“If they hated his message,” he said, “they could have ignored him. But Quraysh didn’t just attack him. They punished his tribe. Even those who didn’t follow him.”

He waved his hand again.

I saw Abu Talib. Gray-bearded, noble, exhausted. Sitting beside the Prophet ﷺ, shielding him with nothing but loyalty. Not faith. Not belief.

Just blood.

“This was the Prophet’s ﷺ defensive strategy,” the alien noted. “Utilizing the ‘Asabiyyah’—the tribal honor—of his kin to create a physical buffer that the Quraysh couldn’t cross without starting a civil war. The Siege was the Quraysh’s attempt to break that buffer. They turned his kin into hostages because they saw not just a preacher, but a leader building a structure.”

“But why did they turn his kin into hostages?” I interrupted.

The alien took a deep breath and said:
“Because they saw not just a preacher, but a leader rising. Because Islam was already becoming power.” 

I swallowed, watching Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas hand a small fig to an orphan.

“You think Islam was only spiritual at this stage?” the alien asked.

“Yes,” I said quietly. “Isn’t that what we’re taught? That the Prophet ﷺ had no power in Makkah. That he was waiting. Patient. Powerless.”

The alien tilted his head.

“Waiting is not the same as being inactive. And power is not only military. Influence. Organization. Unity. That’s power. Quraysh understood. Why else the boycott?”

He pulled another thread of the simulation.

I saw the men of Quraysh again—meeting in a darkened hall, whispering, calculating.

“If we cut them off completely,” one said, “they’ll fold. Hunger breaks even the proud.”

“But the children…”

“Their children will become ours once Muhammad is gone.”

The hologram faded.

I was trembling.

“This is cruelty,” I said.

“This is politics,” he replied. “This is what tyrants do when their control is threatened.”

He looked at me.

“Modern minds often imagine Islam began politically in Madinah. But that’s because they don’t understand what politics actually is.”

“Which is?”

“Power. Systems. Influence. Decisions that affect lives. Quraysh recognized the political implications of the Prophet’s ﷺ message long before the Muslims did.”

He turned back to the valley.

“And so, they waged war. Not with swords—but with hunger. Isolation. Humiliation.”

We heard a scream.

A mother had fainted.

And then, finally, the scroll in the Ka‘bah cracked—eaten by termites, as history records. Its injustice devoured from within.

The siege lifted.

But the scars remained.

The simulation dimmed.

“Three years,” the alien said. “Three years of collective punishment. Children starved. Marriages broken. And all for what?”

He looked at me.

“Still think Islam was just a private belief?”

I stared at the fading valley, haunted.

“Private beliefs don’t provoke sanctions,” he said. “But movements? Movements change history. And history resists.”

The chamber went black.

I didn’t speak.

Not because I agreed.

But because I couldn’t deny what I had seen.

***

Related:

– Fifteen Years in the Shadows: The Strategic Brilliance of the Hijrah to Abyssinia

– The Hijra: Lessons From The First Muslim Migration For Today

The post The Boycott: A Simulation Of The Valley Of Shib Abi Ṭalib appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.