Alḥamdulillāh.

This is not a clickbait title. It is a serious question—one that haunts countless Muslim hearts around the world, especially as they witness genocide broadcast in real time, funded and shielded by the world’s most powerful empire. And now, as Israel continues to brazenly bomb Syria—again and again—without a single missile fired in return, without even the illusion of deterrence, the truth becomes undeniable: Israel never sought a just peace, and it never will. Its record is long and well-documented by countless international institutions and human rights organizations—marked by massacres, ethnic cleansing, an entrenched apartheid regime, flagrant violations of international law, and the continued occupation of Palestinian land. And America gives Israel everything it needs to do that and to dominate, destabilize, and subjugate our Muslim people—defending it at every level, from UN vetoes and massive military aid to proxy wars, diplomatic impunity, economic coercion, and total narrative control through its monstrous media apparatus.

And let me be clear at the outset: this is not an expression of hatred toward Jews, so don’t be quick to dismiss it as an anti-Semitic rant. As Muslims, we have lived alongside Jews for centuries, and—aside from the hypothetical case of Unitarian Christians who uphold Mosaic law—no religion is closer to Islam—ritually, legally, and theologically—than Judaism. We yearn for a just peace, one in which we can welcome our Jewish cousins back—from the Euphrates to the Nile—not as overlords, but as co-citizens, with dignity and justice for all.

So let us begin. But before we proceed further, let me distill the reality into two unshakable premises—both supported by overwhelming evidence and visible to anyone not numbed by propaganda or paralyzed by moral confusion. These are not abstract positions. They are the foundation upon which this entire discussion rests, and if one cannot accept them, it is unlikely that anything that follows will make sense.

1. Two Premises We Will Not Debate

Premise 1: Israel is an evil entity—not merely a misguided aggressive state. It is a settler-colonial project grounded in ethnic supremacy and systemic dehumanization. It seeks to dominate and subjugate the surrounding Muslim region—indeed, Muslims from Casablanca to Jakarta—by brute force, espionage, sabotage, and genocide.

Premise 2: America enables this. Some used to say Israel is the West’s arm in subjugating Muslim lands. Today, the stronger case may be the reverse: that America is subordinated—morally and politically—to the Zionist project. Whether one calls it a “special relationship” or strategic alliance, the fact is that America has become so entangled in Israeli interests that its institutions, diplomacy, and credibility are routinely sacrificed for Israel’s impunity.

I will leave aside the CIA’s covert operations, regime changes, and empire-building. What I want to focus on here is the primary reason why America is hated across the Muslim world—its undying, militant, and shameless support for Israeli crimes against our people over the last 77 years.

2. So, Should We Hate America?

If it is true—as the evidence overwhelmingly shows—that Israel has spent decades committing massacres, enforcing apartheid, and occupying Palestinian lands and other territories of neighboring countries, and if it is equally true that the United States protects, funds, and shields it at every level, then the question is not rhetorical:

Should we, as Muslims, hate America?

There are three common answers:

An absolute yes—fueled by righteous anger, but often collapsing into indiscriminate rage that blurs moral distinctions, alienates allies, and undermines strategic action.
An absolute no—which too often amounts to denial, normalization, or silence in the face of horror.
A muddled answer — driven by confusion, personal entanglement, or a performative pursuit of hollow intellectualism, often resulting in moral paralysis or the quiet normalization of injustice.
I reject all three. What we need instead is a fourth position: not neutrality, not moral compromise, but principled clarity. One that recognizes the full extent of America’s complicity, names it without hesitation, and yet insists on responding with justice, discipline, and purpose—not blind fury or empty slogans. This is not about softening the truth. It is about staying anchored to it—so that our resistance is not only fierce, but meaningful.

3. What Do We Mean by “Hate”?

This may be the first question we need to ask ourselves: Are we hateful people? Does Islam allow us to hate a country, a people, a civilization?

To answer that honestly, we must begin not with their slogans, but with our own tradition. Then we can examine what others preach—and whether they live by what they claim.

Don’t be fooled by propaganda that tells you to “love your enemies.” They want you to love the ones who buried your children under the rubble—as they continue to bury them. They want you to love the settlers in al-Khalīl (Hebron) who terrorize the indigenous population, your brethren, and subject them to unthinkable daily humiliation and violence. It is not enough for them to steal your home; they want your embrace as they do it.

Yes, we hate oppression and the oppressors. We love our human family—the children of our father Ādam (ʿalayhi al-salām)—but we do not love evil or those who embody it. We do not suspend moral judgment in the name of abstract universality. We hate evil and we hate those who embody evil, insofar as they embody it. But we do not hate their transcendent egos—their souls—for we still hope for their repentance, their guidance, and ultimately their salvation.

This is not emotional vindictiveness. This is al-barāʾ—the principled disavowal of injustice and those who persist in it.

4. What Is “America,” and What Shapes Its Conscience?

Some ask, “But what is America? Is it the land, the system, the elites, or the people?” It’s a fair question. We must always distinguish between parts and wholes. Just as it is crude to reduce individuals into their collectives, it is equally misleading to ignore the existence of larger structures, dominant trajectories, and the reality of a collective conscience—a national posture that emerges through patterns of behavior, policy, and public sentiment.

And the American collective conscience regarding Israel is shaped by several dark and destructive forces:

a. Apocalyptic Religious Fanaticism

Among a significant segment of evangelical Christians, the Zionist project is not about justice or history. It is about facilitating the return of Christ. They believe Jews must return to Palestine, even if it means war and bloodshed, to fulfill prophecy. Unlike Catholics, many evangelicals also carry a theological inferiority complex—believing that Jews are divinely chosen in an absolute and ongoing sense, even by bloodline. As Muslims, we do not deny that righteous among the Children of Israel were chosen by God at specific times in history. But that chosenness was always contingent upon faith and obedience—not ethnicity—and it was never a blank check for oppression.

b. Projected Guilt from European Antisemitism

Europe’s centuries of violent antisemitism—culminating in the Holocaust—have produced in Western societies a deep guilt. But instead of facing their crimes, many have outsourced the cost of that guilt to the Palestinians. Support for Israel becomes an act of catharsis, even if it means cheering on oppression.

c. Social Darwinism

Among certain secular elites, Israel is admired not in spite of its ruthlessness, but because of it. Its material success, military dominance, and strategic cunning are seen as self-justifying. Within this framework, power is its own proof, and survival its only ethic. The fact that Israel can impose its will is taken as evidence that it has the right to do so—regardless of the moral cost or human toll.

d. Mass Apathy and Propaganda

Many Americans do not know, do not care, or have been deliberately misinformed. A media apparatus that is not only corporate but deeply corrupted, cynically manipulative—shamelessly complicit in manufacturing consent for war and whitewashing Israeli crimes—works hand in hand with bought-and-paid-for politicians and a deeply compromised educational system to produce a public too apathetic to care and too distracted to ask.

e. Political Cowardice and Corruption

From Congress to the White House, fear of AIPAC and the broader Israel lobby defines American politics. Some officials are morally weak; others are fully bought. Some are bribed, and some—like Jeffrey Epstein’s known associates—are likely blackmailed. And Epstein, after all, is just the one who got caught. We don’t know how many Epsteins are still out there, nor how deep the web of compromise runs. But the result is the same: a political system that safeguards Israeli impunity at virtually any cost, even when it violates American interests, morality, or global standing.

f. Identitarian Religiosity and Islamophobia

For many in the West—religious and secular alike—support for Israel is not just about Israel. It is about opposition to Islam itself. Islam has long been cast as the civilizational “Other,” and in a world increasingly fragmented by culture wars, many view Muslims not as fellow citizens of the world, but as ideological threats. For some Christians, Islam is the antichrist religion. For many secularists, it is a relic of the past. In this framework, Israel becomes a symbolic bulwark of the West against the rise or resurgence of Islam—no matter how unjust its actions may be.

g. Imperial Realpolitik

For much of the 20th century—especially during the Cold War—Israel was seen as a vital outpost for American power: a stable, militarized ally in a volatile region, serving as both intelligence hub and deterrent against Soviet-leaning Arab states. In that era, Washington viewed Israel as a necessary tool to maintain Western dominance over oil routes, suppress regional independence movements, and counterbalance nationalist or Islamist uprisings.
But times have changed. The Cold War is over. Most Muslim-majority countries today are not anti-American by default, and many are open to meaningful partnerships based on mutual interest and respect. In fact, the economic, demographic, and geopolitical advantages of fair alliances with the Muslim world far outweigh the diminishing returns of blind support for an apartheid regime that isolates America, inflames global resentment, and tarnishes its credibility.
America has everything to gain by reassessing this obsolete arrangement—and everything to lose by clinging to it. Yet America remains blindfolded.

h. Antisemitism

You may be surprised to see this listed here, and you may have expected antisemitism to be a force aligned with the Palestinians. But we are a nation committed to justice, and we strive to see things as they are. Some antisemites are motivated by religious resentment toward Jews for rejecting Jesus and may feel closer to Muslims who honor him as one of the greatest messengers of God and his mother as a virgin and saint. Yet, most antisemitism today is rooted not in theology, but in delusions of racial or ethnic supremacy. And those who harbor such views may despise not only Jews, but even more other Semites—namely Arabs, and by extension, Muslims. It is worth remembering that many of the political forces that supported the creation of Israel were driven not by sympathy for Jews, but by a desire to relocate their so-called “Jewish Problem” to lands far away from Europe. That tragic calculus had nothing to do with justice for either people—and we are all still living with its consequences.

5. But There Is More to America Than That

Yes, the system is corrupt. But no, it is not absolute.

a. Individuals of Conscience Still Speak Out

There are journalists, activists, clergy, and ordinary citizens who continue to speak the truth—not out of political opportunism, but from a place of moral conviction. Some are secular humanists, animated by the belief in the equal worth of all human life. Others are Christians who draw on the ethical core of their tradition— not on identitarian religion, apocalyptic fantasies, or the theology of empire, but the example of the prophets. Many have paid dearly. Rachel Corrie gave her life standing in front of an Israeli bulldozer to protect a Palestinian family’s home. Aaron Bushnell died in flames outside the Israeli Embassy to protest a genocide the world dares not name. Norman Finkelstein, the son of Holocaust survivors, was effectively pushed out of academia—denied tenure and marginalized—because he defended Palestinian rights with unflinching integrity and dared to challenge the sacred myths of power—they are proof that conscience still breathes, even within a system built to suppress it.

b. Fragile but Functional Institutions

America still offers, for now, limited space for dissent. The judiciary remains independent to a great extent—often capable of resisting political interference and upholding constitutional rights. But freedom of speech, while constitutionally protected, is not always consistently or equally granted—especially when it comes to criticism of Israel or advocacy for Palestinian rights. Social, professional, and institutional pressures often suppress certain voices long before the courts ever intervene. And even the judiciary is ultimately constrained by laws crafted by a legislature increasingly compromised by lobbyists, ideological capture, and foreign influence. If these trends continue, even the remaining institutional safeguards may not hold.

c. Real Patriots Still Exist

There are Americans who love their country not because it is powerful, but because they believe in what it claims to be. They see blind support for Israel—especially when it undermines American values or endangers its true interests—as a betrayal of the country’s founding principles. For them, dissent is not treason; it is a responsibility. They want an America that is respected, not merely feared; admired, not resented. And they understand that such an America cannot coexist with the defense of apartheid, military occupation, and the open shielding of war crimes.

6. To Muslims Abroad: Don’t Be Naïve—And Don’t Be Divided

This message may not reach you. But if it does—and you still do not see Israel as your existential enemy—then you are either comatose, or you have been bought. And if you still believe that America can serve as a fair broker between you and Israel, then you are dangerously mistaken—for it is not brokering peace, but managing your submission.

To the leaders, diplomats, and strategists among you:

No one is asking you to fight America. But you must:

• Refuse to be controlled by it.
• Use your diplomatic and economic leverage to pressure it.
• Stop allowing it to divide, intimidate, or co-opt you.
• You may hate one another, but if you had any sense of responsibility or strategic awareness, you would unite against the one power that stands in the way of your collective rise. That power is Israel—sustained, protected, and emboldened by America. I can’t help but laugh when I hear that you had a “meeting with your American counterparts.” Counterparts? In what sense? Your unity and cooperation are not luxuries. They are not merely religious mandates or strategic preferences—they are necessities. They are a condition for your survival in a world of superpowers.
• A unipolar world is harmful to all—even to the unipole itself. Allah says: ﴿وَلَوْلَا دَفْعُ اللَّهِ النَّاسَ بَعْضَهُم بِبَعْضٍ لَفَسَدَتِ الْأَرْضُ﴾ — “Were it not that Allah checks some people by means of others, the earth would be corrupted” (al-Baqarah 2:251). Build alliances with the Global South, including states like Russia, despite its past and present flaws—and others seeking emancipation from a collapsing world order—one that grows more openly hypocritical by the day, and may soon drop its mask entirely to reveal the face of Renaud de Châtillon. Pete Hegseth’s face, frankly, is not far off.

To the people:

You are looking at America from a distance. No one can blame you for focusing on the collective impact—the violence, the instability, the devastation you feel in your daily lives. And how could I possibly tell the parents of children buried beneath rubble not to hate the entity that supplied the weapons and shielded the killers?

I only ask this: take a closer look at the picture every now and then—examine its details. When you do, you’ll see that America is not a monolith. The reality inside is more layered and more conflicted than it appears from a distance. And I know that most of you already do.

I also ask that you:

Demand that your leaders act with dignity and strategic clarity—but also understand their constraints. Even China cannot reclaim what it sees as its own island, Taiwan, for fear of confronting the American military machine. Do not expect your governments to do what even superpowers hesitate to do.

Instead, work for righteous governance—without plunging your lands into chaos. There is a place for armed struggle, such as in the case of Syria under mass butchery, but most of the time, civil and principled struggle for reform is safer, more enduring, and more consistent with our religious values. Your enemies want to see you divided, disillusioned, and self-destructive. Do not give them that satisfaction.

And most importantly: be introspective. Your enemies did not make you weak—they only exploited the weakness you left unaddressed. They have benefited from your divisions, your corruption, your disorganization. Be angry with America. But be angrier with yourselves.

7. On Asymmetric Warfare and Moral and Strategic Limits

If the West stands firmly behind Israel, does that mean Muslims must suspend resistance until they are strong enough to defeat the entire Western bloc militarily? No—it doesn’t work like that. The West will not support Israel forever. It will stop when the cost becomes unbearable—politically, economically, and morally.

But until then, Muslims around the world ask: What should we do? Does asymmetric warfare have a legitimate role in resisting Israeli hegemony and oppression?

Sometimes asymmetric warfare is the only option—but necessity does not excuse lawlessness, and desperation cannot replace guidance. In Islam, warfare must be governed by Sharīʿah, not by emotion or expediency. Also, asymmetric resistance is sometimes necessary, but often insufficient—and it can never replace long-term strategy aimed at decisive, just, and lasting victory. It may delay defeat, but it rarely delivers final success unless it is part of a broader vision rooted in divine guidance, moral discipline, and strategic clarity. Here are some guiding thoughts:

We do not mirror our enemies’ crimes.
Islam forbids us from targeting women, children, and medics—even if our enemies do so without remorse. Moral clarity is not a luxury; it is a command. Yes, those on the weaker side often lack the luxury of precision. And yes, it is unimaginably difficult to maintain moral discipline while your children are buried under rubble by an occupier defending apartheid. But الدنيا سجن المؤمن—“this world is the prison of the believer”—and the Sharīʿah, when rightly understood, does not place us at an insurmountable disadvantage. It binds us to justice, not helplessness.

Asymmetric warfare is costly to the weaker party.
In Islam, leaders are not permitted to recklessly endanger their troops or populations. Sharīʿah requires that the expected benefit of armed resistance must clearly outweigh the potential harm. This decision must not rest with religious scholars alone. Their role is to outline the moral and legal parameters. But the actual assessment of benefit and harm must be made by those with expertise in warfare, politics, intelligence, and public welfare. Moral legitimacy depends not only on intent, but on responsibility and sound judgment.

The decision to take Muslims to war belongs to legitimate leadership
Islam does not grant individuals the right to unilaterally initiate warfare—whether symmetrical or asymmetrical. Acting without authority (iftiʾāt ʿalā al-sulṭān) is a violation of the Sharīʿah and a betrayal of communal trust. No individual has the mandate to drag an entire people into war based on personal judgment or zeal. On this, there is—and should be—no disagreement, not only among scholars, but among all sane and responsible people.

Public opinion matters—now and always.
The war for global perception is not trivial. The Prophet ﷺ took great care to consider how actions would be interpreted, and how they might affect the long-term credibility of the message. He once said, “So that people do not say…” (لا يتحدث الناس) when refraining from an action that could be misunderstood. Caring about how we are seen is not weakness—it is wisdom. This is even truer when we cannot defeat our enemies militarily and must rely on moral clarity, global awareness, and public support to sustain our struggle.

Build power—don’t merely react.
Allah says:
﴿وَأَعِدُّوا لَهُم مَّا اسْتَطَعْتُم﴾

“And prepare against them whatever you are able…” (al-Anfāl 8:60)
This is not just a call to arms—it is a call to capacity. Asymmetric warfare may resist occupation, but it rarely delivers decisive or enduring victory. Even in Vietnam and Afghanistan, America was not forced into military surrender—but it was outlasted, outmaneuvered, and compelled to retreat, unable to impose its political will despite overwhelming force. But Palestine is different. Israel will not leave. And America will not leave Israel—unless the cost becomes too high to sustain.

The Prophet ﷺ said three times:

‏”ألا إنَّ القوَّةَ الرَّميُ ألا إنَّ القوَّةَ الرَّميُ ألا إنَّ القوَّةَ الرَّميُ”

“Indeed, strength lies in shooting.” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim)
Today, “shooting” means delivering the most accurate and devastating strike—faster and farther than your enemy. This requires not only weapons, but excellence in science, engineering, and systems. But military power is not built in isolation. A B-2 bomber isn’t built on physics alone—it depends on an entire society cultivating long-term investment, human development, discipline, creativity, and trust.

And even that is not enough.
A society that achieves technological mastery but neglects justice and righteousness will not be honored by God. The Prophet ﷺ said:

“كيف يقدس الله أمة لا يؤخذ لضعيفهم من شديدهم؟!”

“How can Allah sanctify a nation in which the rights of the weak are not taken from the strong?”

And even justice is not the final goal. If our efforts are not for Allah, then even our achievements are weightless. Allah says:

﴿وَقَدِمْنَا إِلَىٰ مَا عَمِلُوا مِنْ عَمَلٍ فَجَعَلْنَاهُ هَبَاءً مَّنثُورًا﴾

“And We will turn to whatever deeds they had done, and make them as scattered dust.” (al-Furqān 25:23)

So let our short-term strategy and long-term vision move in harmony—toward a revival that is powerful, principled, and anchored in God. Asymmetric warfare may be a phase in our struggle, but it must not become our identity. It is a response, not a strategy; a tool, not a philosophy.

8. To Muslims in America: You Live Inside the Picture

You do not have the luxury of distance. You see this system up close. And if you allow your anger to collapse into total despair, you will never help change it. You live inside the picture. And while it’s necessary to step back at times to see the whole, your proximity also binds you to the details: to the institutions, the individuals, the mechanisms, and the nuances. You must learn to engage both the part and the whole—to see the system for what it is, and to act within it wisely and effectively.

You must:

• Channel your rage into purposeful action.
• Build institutions.
• Leverage the system’s contradictions, and use its remaining efficiencies to advance justice wherever possible.
• Work with allies of conscience.
• Speak truth to power—wisely.

Yes—hate the corrupt elements of the system and its protagonists, and stay angry at the entrenched forces that profit from your despair and feed off injustice—those who manipulate power, suppress truth, and normalize cruelty:

• The corrupt political class that sells its conscience to lobbies and careers.
• The legacy media that manufactures consent for war and buries the truth under distraction.
• The religious fanatics who long for Armageddon and sanctify genocide in the name of prophecy.
• The racists and supremacists who refuse to see your children as human, your pain as real, or your lives as worthy.

But do not reduce all of America to these forces. Let your anger sharpen your vision—not blind it. Do not allow rage to erase the virtues that still exist within this system, or the individuals of conscience who, in some cases, have done more than you or me in defense of truth and justice.

If your hatred becomes blind, you’ll be unable to act with clarity or purpose. And if you are so overcome that you can no longer function here emotionally or spiritually, no one can blame you for seeking peace elsewhere. That may well be the wisest choice for your well-being and the well-being of your family.

But for those who remain: Don’t be domesticated. Don’t be defeated. Don’t be consumed.

Final Thoughts

In Gaza, I witnessed firsthand how non-Muslim American doctors were embraced by the people—even after it became known that they were American. The doctors were surprised. I was not. This is who we are. This is what Islam teaches.

Stay angry. But stay just.
Be sharp. But be kind.
Be strategic. But be principled.

And never forget: this is not merely a struggle for land. It is a struggle for the future of truth and justice—for the dignity of all humanity.

وصلى الله على محمد والحمد لله رب العالمين

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The post The Terrorist Entity of Israel Is Our Existential Enemy — Should We Hate America? appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Jumilla’s ban on gatherings in public sports centres breaches right to religious freedom, says Madrid

Spain’s central government has ordered officials in a Spanish town to scrap a ban on religious gatherings in public sports centres, describing it as a “discriminatory” measure that breaches the right to religious freedom as it will mainly impact Muslims.

“There can be no half-measures when it comes to intolerance,” Ángel Víctor Torres, the minister for territorial policy, wrote on social media on Monday. Rightwing opposition parties, he added, “cannot decide who has freedom of worship and who does not”.

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Yesterday, at a protest organised by Defend Our Juries in Parliament Square, London, more than 500 protesters, many of them elderly, were arrested for holding banners supporting the organisation Palestine Action, proscribed last month after invading an RAF base to spray red paint into the engines of two aircraft used to refuel planes which conduct spying missions over Gaza out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. The group has carried out a series of actions targeted at companies which supply the Israeli military and this was going on well before the genocide began in 2023; there had been calls to proscribe them before, but the decision was made once the news of the Brize Norton air base invasion broke. Nothing the group has ever done meets any traditional definition of terrorism; they have never killed anyone, nor carried out any action that endangered or was intended to intimidate the general public, but the Terrorism Act 2000 uses a broader definition that does away the need for a group to target the general public or try to kill anyone. At the time, animal rights activists were running a “direct action” campaign targeting companies that bred animals for experimentation, some of which were family farms, and their tactics were often described as terrorism. The same act also criminalises not only carrying out group activities or fundraising, but any public expression of support, such as carrying a banner or wearing a T-shirt giving the impression of support, or making statements which are reckless as to whether they give the impression of support. All this for organisations which need not be involved in actual terrorism; rather, it’s terrorism if the government call it that.

It’s no secret that some powerful people are annoyed at the continual protests in London against the genocide in Gaza. We frequently have Jewish accounts on Twitter whingeing that London “is not safe for Jews” every Saturday (as that’s the day they are usually held); one the occasion that the protesters wanted to demonstrate at the BBC’s Broadcasting House, the government intervened to ban it, on the grounds that there was a synagogue a few streets away and it was the Sabbath. There are, however, rarely arrests at these events for anything more than speech offences under the aforementioned Terrorism Act. The same cannot be said, of course, for the “peaceful demonstrations” outside hotels housing migrants or refugees arrived via the “small boat” route; these demonstrations routinely attract thuggish elements and have led on a number of occasions to violent acts that target the migrants themselves, and when people have posted on social media calling for such hotels to be burned, and are convicted of long-established crimes of incitement to violence, we see Reform supporters calling them political prisoners and calling for their release, with Rupert Lowe (MP for Great Yarmouth, leader of Reform splinter group) having indicated his intention to host her at parliament on her release; some of these same people have been congratulating the same police for arresting hundreds of “useful idiots” (fancy a supporter of Israel calling someone a useful idiot!) or “radical leftists” supporting the ‘psychopaths’ of Hamas.

Arresting more than 500 people for a non-violent speech offence isn’t a good use of public resources. As a result of years of cuts to the criminal justice system, it takes years for serious crimes to get before a court, with some victims dropping out after a year or two. I heard that personnel were drawn in from other police forces across the country to police what they knew would be a non-violent protest, because anti-genocide protests have been, since the start. We have enough problems in London; we have a spike in mobile phone thefts, while bicycle and motorcycle thefts routinely go unpunished with victims expected to rely on insurance to deal with the problem, with the result that pavements have strips reading “Mind the Grab” warning of snatch thieves and it can cost upwards of £1,000 to insure a 125cc motorcycle in London for fire and theft. When my bike was stolen a few years ago, I had to just buy a new one for £400 (which is what my old one also cost), and my bike was used to get me to town and to the park, not to bomb tents or kill doctors and schoolchildren. The police can and do refuse to deal with certain crimes for lack of resources; the prosecution service can and do refuse to prosecute because it would not be in the public interest, and there is no better example of “not in the public interest” than prosecuting someone for holding a banner (something, by the way, nobody was doing until the government banned it!) supporting an organisation that sought to arrest a genocide when the government refused to

When people criticise the police, they and their supporters commonly remind us of who we’d call on if we were raped or if our house was burgled or our relative was murdered. They fly the “thin blue line” flag, or use it as their profile picture (some police forces allow it as a patch on the uniform; the Met does not). Who is it keeps us safe, they ask? Yet it’s not much safety to be only safe if you keep your mouth shut if you have opinions the powers that be despise. The American Founding Father Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”; we are currently in that state of having neither. Our police are protecting those who deal death and oppression, denying us our freedom while neglecting our safety.

Image: Defend Our Juries.

Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

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“Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive! But you do not perceive it.”
– Quran 2:154

The Doors of Grace

Zaid Karim Al-Husayni walked in the door of his apartment and smiled, luxuriating in the aroma of Iraqi food that filled the place. He was bone tired, not so much physically, but emotionally. His heart was like an old rug, beaten to knock the dust off, only to find that the stains were permanent.

The apartment, at least, was a haven. Safaa had decorated it in the style of a traditional Arabic home. A low daybed beneath the window was piled with embroidered cushions in rose and cream, and a brass tray held Safaa’s silver teapot and two tiny glasses. Above, an ornate filigree lantern hung from the ceiling, casting warm light onto a mosaic-tiled floor of terracotta and cobalt.

Safaa had done a phenomenal job. Zaid felt so at peace here.

“As-salamu alaykum,” he called out. “Bismillah, ya Allah iftah lee abwaba rahmatik.” O Allah, open for me the doors of your mercy.

The girls ran to greet him, and he dropped to one knee to embrace them. Anna was growing like a weed, and seemed taller every time he came home. She preferred plain clothes, like jeans and oversized t-shirts, and would not wear anything colorful or frilly. Hajar, on the other hand, looked like a wrapped dollop of sunshine in a ruffled yellow dress, and with a yellow ribbon in her hair.

“Guess what, Baba,” Anna said. She had begun calling him Baba unbidden about a year ago, and he never stopped her. She knew very well who her biological parents were, and she retained her given name – Anna Anwar. But for all genuine purposes, Zaid and Safaa were her parents now. Legally as well, since they had formally adopted her.

“Hajar says she wants to marry Ishaaq. I said she should find a boy with more qualities.”

“He has lots of qualities!” Hajar protested.

“Oh, really?” Zaid smiled. Ishaaq was a Yemeni boy in Hajar’s class. Zaid had always thought the two of them didn’t get along. “Like what?”

“Like he can draw a perfect circle, and he knows all the jokes.”

“Those qualities seem good.”

Hajar smiled. “You want to play Life with us?”

Zaid stood up, threw out his arms like an opera conductor and sang, “The game of Life, the gaaaaaame of Life, you will learn about life when you play the game of Life!”

Hajar threw back her head and laughed, while Anna said, “What is that, a commercial from the 1800’s?”

“You girls go play your game,” Safaa said. “Baba and I have to talk about grown up stuff.”

“Yucky,” Hajar commented, and the girls scampered off.

The Envelope

Safaa leaned in for a kiss. He pulled her close, embraced her and closed his eyes, reveling in her scent. He tightened his arms, squeezing her, and she gave a delighted laugh. When he released her she took his hand and said, “Come. I have something to show you.”

She led him to the bedroom, sat him on the bed and took an envelope out of a dresser drawer. “Deek Saghir stopped by. He dropped this off.”

Zaid took the envelope. It was heavy and full to bursting. He knew right away what was in it. On the front there was a note: For a true hero. The least I could do.

Zaid’s mouth turned down, and a sour feeling rose in his gut. “Did you count it?”

“It’s one hundred thousand dollars.” She raised her eyebrows and grinned as if to say, Isn’t this an exciting development!

“I told him he only owed me $1,500. I’ll return the rest.”

Safaa sighed. “This again, baby? Why are you so determined to turn away money?”

Zaid’s mouth opened, then closed. He couldn’t tell her the details of what he’d done to rescue Deek. He couldn’t tell her that this was blood money. One hundred thousand? That was thirty three thousand per life taken. The cost of a new car. Was that what a human life was worth now, a car? If a man’s life was worth a mid-sized sedan then what about a child’s life? A scooter? The envelope felt like a brick of lead in his hands. He dropped it onto the bedspread.

Safaa studied him. She knew him well, and even though she didn’t know the details of what he’d done, she must have read some of it in his face. She took his hand gently.

“After you rescued Anna, I told you that you didn’t need me at all, that it was all of us who needed you, do you remember?”

“Sure.”

“Maybe that was true then. But now, baby, all we need is each other. You, me, Hajar and Anna. We don’t need this money. If you want to return it, I won’t object. But listen, sweetheart. This isn’t dirty money. It’s gratitude. You saved Deek in some kind of way, I know that. Every dollar in that envelope is a debt we all owe you, and you deserve every cent. I know you carry weight in your heart, but let me carry this one for you. I’ll take the money and spend it for our family, and I will carry the burden. I’m so proud of you—always.”

Zaid wanted to reply, but the words were caught in his chest like a butterfly in a net. He nodded.

Rather than embrace him, Safaa pushed him onto his back, straddled his torso and began to rain mock punches on his head. “Who’s the tough guy now, huh?”

Zaid laughed and called out for the girls. They came running, and he said, “Mama is beating me up, help!” With squeals of delight, the girls grabbed pillows and began to hit Safaa. The envelope fell off the bed and rolled under a nightstand. In that moment, Zaid forgot Deek, who was like a living Janus coin. He forgot Badger, and the teenage girl he’d returned home, and Bandar, and even Panama, and luxuriated in the joy of a moment like a precious pearl in a long string of gems. Allah had always been good to him, and always would be.

“I surrender!” Safaa pleaded. “Help, Zaid!”

He gave a mock villain’s laugh, and grabbed a pillow.

Letters and Books

He was still laughing when the cordless phone on the nightstand made a sound like a bird’s warble. He answered with a smile, but it faded as his father said, “As-salamu alaykum Zaid.” There was a softness to his tone that surprised Zaid, but worried him.

They’d spoken only once or twice since Zaid’s return from Panama. It wasn’t that Zaid blamed him for Mom’s behavior. Just that they had little to say to each other. After a lifetime of seeking attention from an emotionally absent father, a lifetime of hoping and wishing for a dad who would play with him, attend his school events, talk to him, notice him, Zaid had finally given up.

Although… His father had written to him regularly when he was in prison. They were not emotional, “I love you and stand by you,” kind of letters. That wasn’t his father’s style. More like, “I’m working on a major engineering project, your mother has been diagnosed with high blood pressure, Uncle Tarek sold the store…” That kind of thing. Yet even these dry notes were more than many had done, and – Zaid knew – were an expression of love.

On top of that, his father had sent books. Every month, Zaid received a new book, and even though Zaid never requested any particular book, his father always seemed to send something appropriate. Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, about the desperation of the Russian political prison system. A collection of Palestinian poetry of resistance. The incredibly detailed Life of Muhammad by A Guillaume. A sci-fi novel about a bodyguard pursued across multiple worlds by an alien race. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, and Muhammad Asad’s Road to Mecca. And so on.

Zaid couldn’t keep more than five books in his cell by regulation, so he would read the books and then donate them to the prison library.

He still sometimes thought of that library, and what new prisoners must think coming into the pen and finding – instead of the usual collection of Louis L’Amour westerns – an eclectic collection of sci-fi books, Arab poetry, and Islamic treatises.

His father, absent though he may have been, had earned himself a lot of goodwill in Zaid’s heart with those letters and books.

Bad News

“Wa alaykum as-salam wa rahmatullah. It’s good to hear from you, Dad.” Saying this, Zaid realized that he sincerely meant it.

His father cleared his throat. “Thank you. I appreciate that. I have bad news, however.”

Panic rose like a geyser in Zaid’s chest. “Is it Mom?”

Safaa said something to the girls, and they trotted out. She closed the bedroom door, then returned to sit very close to Zaid, taking his hand.

“No,” his father said. “Baby Munir died last night. He went into a seizure and his heart stopped.”

The world narrowed. The breath he was about to take stalled. He heard something like an intake of air from the other side—maybe a sympathetic reflex, maybe nothing—and then his father continued, “Faiza called me this morning. She’s handling it. There will be a small memorial in Amman. I don’t know yet what the arrangements are. You can do whatever you think is appropriate.” His words were precise, like measurements on a blueprint—accurate and clear, with an almost imperceptible hint of concern.

Zaid didn’t speak for a long moment. There were more tears inside him than water in the Mediterranean, that warm and fruitful sea that kissed the shores of Gaza, but from which the Gazans were not allowed to fish.

The tears did not come, however. There would be a time for that.

“How is Aunt Faiza?” he asked finally, and the question came out smaller than the grief that had already rolled through him, and now lay like foam upon the surface of his inner sea.

“She’s keeping it together,” his father said. “She asked after you. Said you were the one who always talked to her when she needed to not fall apart.”

“Are we…” Zaid wasn’t sure what to ask. “Are we doing anything?”

“I cannot go to Amman right now, if that’s what you mean. You may do as you desire. Do what’s right.”

The “do what’s right” landed like a hand on his neck. Zaid had spent so much of his life trying to figure out what that phrase meant when it came from his father—was it obedience? Was it presence? Was it performance? He had no translator for grief that arrived wrapped in the same language that had once been a whip.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and it came out brittle. His father made a small sound that could have been either acknowledgment or impatience.

“Take care of Safaa and the girls.”

“You take care as well,” Zaid managed, then realized that his father had already hung up.

Money’s Purpose

“What is it?” Safaa asked quietly.

“Baby Munir died.” The words were hollowed out by a lifetime of grief for his homeland and his relatives who had suffered and died. The old, complicated catalog of feelings—guilt, frustration, love, helplessness—rolled through him, heavy as the envelope that had tumbled under the nightstand and now lay somewhere out of sight.

The envelope! The money. His mind spun. The $100,000 had felt too heavy earlier, the numbers like a ledger of lives—how many had been paid for, how many had slipped away. Now the same stack of money was a bridge. Deek’s mess of debt and salvation folded back on itself: the man he’d pulled from the jaws of death had, without asking, given him the means to keep another small part of his own family from vanishing without acknowledgment.

Even as he thought this, his mind recognized the coldness of the mental arithmetic, and he recoiled. What was wrong with him? This wasn’t a trade: saving Deek’s life in exchange for a consolation prize for Faiza. Who was he to measure Allah’s grace, or to act as if he had a part in managing the balance? Astaghfirullah.

“Ya Allah,” he whispered, “Forgive me for counting what only You can weigh.” He let the impulse settle into something purer: he would send Aunt Faiza the money not to settle a debt or to manipulate the mizan – the heavenly scale that weighed all people’s deeds – but as an act of love. Nothing more..

Safaa put her arms around him, whispering Islamic prayers and words of comfort.

“I’m going to send Aunt Faiza thirty thousand dollars to cover the funeral costs, and to help with her living situation, inshaAllah.”

Safaa rubbed his back. “Of course, habibi. Whatever you want.”

“Allah have mercy on Deek Saghir,” Zaid said. “May Allah grant him good in the dunya and the aakhirah.”

“Ameen.”

Jamilah Al-Husayni

“I need to call Jamilah.” His cousin Jamilah Al-Husayni had a special fondness for Baby Munir. She deserved to know what had transpired.

Jamilah lived and worked in a rehab clinic on the Northern California coast.

Jamilah lived and worked in a rehab clinic on the Northern California coast. She returned every four or five months to visit her mother and brother in Madera, but no one knew her phone number and precise address except Zaid—‘for security,’ she’d insisted, because the patient she cared for needed privacy.

“You’re a private eye,” she’d once told him with a wink. “You know how to keep secrets. That’s why you’re the only one with my phone number. I expect discretion.”

Zaid had taken this act of trust seriously. Her number was saved in his contacts as simply “C” for cousin. As he pressed the call button, the room was quiet—only the soft rustle of the girls playing somewhere down the hall, the ordinary sound of life trying to push past the weight in the air.

Her voice came through, a little breathless. There was a whipping sound like a strong wind. “Zaid? Hold on, I’m sitting on the patio and the wind is coming off the ocean. Let me go inside.”

Zaid heard a door slide open and closed, and the background noise quieted. “It’s been too long. Where are you now?”

“In Fresno,” he said. “Home. Safaa is with me, you’re on speaker.”

“Safaa!” Jamilah exclaimed. “I miss you so much. We need to get together. How are the girls?”

Safaa’s tone was subdued, knowing what was coming. “They’re great, alhamdulillah. Anna calls us Baba and Mama now. Hajar wants to marry a boy named Ishaaq because he draws perfect circles.”

Jamilah laughed. “My cousin Shamsi has a checklist too, but that’s not on it.”

“I need to tell you something,” Zaid said. “It’s not good news.”

There was a pause, and when Jamilah spoke again her voice was subdued. “I think I know. Baby Munir returned to Allah, didn’t he?”

“Yes. Who told you?”

“No one. And I wasn’t actually sure.”

“He died last night. Allah have mercy on him,” Zaid said. “Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi rajioon.”

Without missing a beat, Jamilah recited an ayah from the Quran in Arabic, then translated:

“Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive! But you do not perceive it.”

The ayah hit Zaid like a cold ocean wave, shocking him. SubhanAllah! His father had said that Munir had “died,” and Zaid had parroted the statement to Safaa and Jamilah. But no! We never speak of the shuhadaa that way. I know better. But sometimes I forget.

“You’re right,” he said. “Jamilah?”

The line went quiet, save for a faint hum that rose and fell. Had the line been disconnected? “Hello? Jamilah?” The sound continued. Safaa touched his arm and mouthed, “She’s crying.” Zaid closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited.

The Dream

Almost a full minute later, Jamilah spoke, and her voice was surprisingly strong. “The heart grieves, and the eyes weep, but we know the promise of Allah is true.”

Zaid mouthed the word, “Wow,” to Safaa. Who was this woman he was talking to? Jamilah had changed so much in the last few years. The younger Jamilah had been impulsive, angry, and sometimes arrogant, but this Jamilah was pious and wise beyond her years. His cousin kept a lot of secrets, but Zaid was sure that something profound must have happened to remake her in this way.“I knew something had happened,” Jamilah went on, “or was about to. I dreamed of baby Munir last night.”

Zaid didn’t expect the small hitch in his chest, the way his breath caught. “What did you see?”

“Falastin,” she said, and the word came out like a prayer. “Palestine. * (see author’s footnote). Not demolished homes and kids shot by snipers. Not murdered journalists, kidnapped children, bulldozed farms. No bombs falling. No. I saw a new Palestine being built in Jannah, block by block, street by street, town by town.

There is a new Falastin being built in Jannah, and it is glorious. Streets paved in gold bricks catch the sun and hold it like a promise. All the millions of Palestinians who hold keys to demolished or stolen houses? Those houses are being perfectly rebuilt with stones from the hills of Palestine. Everywhere there are arched doorways and domed roofs decorated with carved plaster swirls and rosettes. Courtyards with bubbling fountains, colorful tiles, and marble floors, and every home is finished with inlaid jewels and mother-of-pearl.

Families sit in their courtyards eating platters of grilled fish, musakhan, maqluba, bread, hummus, and olives. Children play football in the street, and these kids are strong and smiling, with eyes like bright stars.

There are vast orchards of tall olive trees, heavy with fruit. Cows and sheep graze the grass-covered hillsides. Fishermen return with great hauls of sea bream and sardines. Artisans make cheese, linen, and olive oil, just for the joy of it.

No one is hungry, no one is frightened or grieving. Laughter, love, and dhikr fill the air, and the sun shines as gently as a kiss. All those who believed and did righteous deeds have gardens beneath which rivers flow, just as the Quran promises.

I was there. It is real. I stood there, on those streets. The air smelled like sea salt, fresh bread, za’tar, and jasmine. Everywhere I heard the sound of people reciting the Quran. The adhaan sounded from a shining silver masjid, and the sound was so sweet it made me weep. People streamed to the masjid from every direction, men in white thobes and kefiyyehs, women in traditional red and black dresses with tatreez embroidery. They strolled to the masjids happily, swinging their children, and praising Allah.”

“That’s incredible,” Zaid said. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.” Beside him, Safaa wept quietly, covering her mouth. He put an arm around her and held her tight.

Jamilah went on, and Zaid heard a tremor in her voice now. “Munir was there. I recognized him right away. He looked a lot like you, Zaid, when you were young. He wasn’t a baby, but a boy of ten years old, healthy and laughing. Thick brown hair and a big smile. He was doing a freestyle rap praising Allah, and other kids were standing around him, smiling and listening. He glanced my way and grinned, like he knew who I was.

And guys, those Palestinians… All the shuhadaa were there, and all who have been imprisoned and tortured, but they were whole people. They carried no weight, they weren’t healed because they were never broken. Because we Palestinians do not break.”

Still Me

Zaid didn’t answer immediately. The sound of his own breathing filled the silence, thick and raw. He felt something behind his eyes, warm and wet. He swallowed it down. “Tell Faiza,” he said. “Tell her what you saw. Let her know he’s somewhere better. That she’s not alone in carrying him.”

“I will,” Jamilah said. “I’ll call her tonight, inshaAllah.”

Zaid exhaled. “You’ve changed so much,” he said quietly. “Remember when I ran into you in San Francisco, and you were sitting on that armchair on the sidewalk, wearing your cycling outfit? Sometimes I miss the crazy Jamilah of the past, but I think the new Jamilah is a lot happier.”

He heard the sound of Jamilah’s smile. “There are places that try to break you, and places that build you back up. “I’m in a place that builds people back up. You’re right, I’ve changed. I was foolish and arrogant back then. I’m still me, Zaid. Just… Some of the edges have been softened. Things are clearer. Safaa, you’re so quiet. Are you still there?”

Safaa wiped her nose on Zaid’s sleeve, then said, “You’re a special person, Jamilah.”

“And you, Safaa, are the rock that my cousin leans on, and the light that shows the way.”

Safaa smiled and brushed tears from her cheeks.

“Should we do something for Faiza?” Jamilah wanted to know.

“I’ve got it covered,” Zaid said. “I’m sending her a good amount of money. Courtesy of a brother named Deek Saghir.”

“In that case,” Jamilah said, “Allah barik feek, ya Deek Saghir. Allah bless you, whoever you are.”

After the call, Zaid remained sitting, thinking about Jamilah’s dream. Allah had given her a true dream, which was one of the signs of imaan. He felt it acting as a salve inside him, softening the ragged edges of his wounds. He clung to it as a talisman, believing in it fully.

The dream did not erase the suffering of the Palestinians. The evil being committed against his people was unfathomable. But after all he’d been through, Zaid had come to grasp a certain truth: the dunya did not make sense without the aakhirah. In the dunya, people sometimes got away with their crimes, and innocents died without recompense.

By changing the time scale, by adding a dimension to human existence, and by factoring in a Day of perfect judgment when every stone and tree would be a witness, the aakhirah changed everything.

* * *

Footnote: this dream of Falastin in Jannah was dreamed by one of the residents of Gaza a few months ago. It was narrated to me by someone who heard it from that person. It was specifically a dream of a new Gaza being built in Jannah. I fully believe it to be true. In this story I changed it to Palestine more generally.

[Part 17 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

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:

Gravedigger: A Short Story

The Deal : Part #1 The Run

The post Moonshot [Part 16] – A Palestine In Paradise appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Poetry allows our hearts to hover in that mysterious realm that lies between life and death, to catch glimpses of our soul

• Making sense of it is a column about spirituality and how it can be used to navigate everyday life

I have been well-acquainted with grief. As a Shiʿi Muslim, it permeates my religious consciousness and finds expression through annual mourning rituals. I find nourishment in mourning: from a young age I have lent my ears to lamentations and shed tears for martyrs felled in far-off lands.

Recently though, grief, paid a more personal visit when news reached me of my grandmother’s passing. In response, I turned to my favourite poem, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam A. H. H., which ranks among the most profound and poignant elegies ever penned, in any language.

I sometimes hold it half a sin

To put in words the grief I feel;

Ali Hammoud is a PhD candidate at Western Sydney University. He is broadly interested in Shīʿīsm and Islamicate intellectual history. More of his writings can be found on his Substack page

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Blaze at heritage site, built as a mosque in the 8th century before being turned into a church, quickly contained

A fire broke out in the historic mosque-turned-cathedral in Córdoba on Friday but the monument was saved as firefighters quickly contained the blaze, the Spanish city’s mayor has said.

Widely shared videos had shown flames and smoke billowing from inside the tourist attraction visited by 2 million people a year.

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Catastrophic blood shortage in Gaza means treatable, small wounds are fatal.

Over 85 Muslim scholars, imams, community leaders, and institutions today released a joint statement expressing their view that the governments of Muslim-majority countries, including Arab Muslim nations located near Palestine, can take “immediate and concrete action” to secure an end to the Israeli occupation’s escalating genocide in Gaza.

Signatories to the statement argue that these Muslim-majority nations have the unique opportunity, legal authority, and moral basis to take various steps, such as:

1. Ending any economic, diplomatic, intelligence, and military relationships with the Israeli government, including the so-called Abraham Accords.

2. Announcing consideration of an embargo on global oil and gas sales that directly or indirectly contribute support to the Israeli government’s genocide.

3. Banning the use of their country’s airspace and the use of any military bases within their country to support the Israeli government in any way.

4. Opening their side of Gaza entry points like the Rafah crossing and facilitating the travel of aid trucks, medics, journalists, demonstrators and others who wish to approach the crossing and demand entry.

5. Organizing a unified diplomatic mission to a Gaza crossing with senior government officials personally leading an aid convoy and refusing to leave until Israel allows unlimited aid to enter freely by land routes.

The full statement reads:

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful. All praise and thanks belong to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds. May peace and prayers be upon Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his companions.

Al-Nu’man ibn Bashir reported that the Messenger of Allah, may peace and blessings be upon him, said, “The parable of the believers in their affection, mercy, and compassion for each other is that of a body. When any limb aches, the whole body reacts with sleeplessness and fever.”

We, the undersigned Islamic scholars, religious leaders, and institutions, write today to share our view that the political leaders of the world’s Muslim-majority nations should take greater, concrete action to stop the ongoing genocide of our brothers and sisters in Gaza.

We wake up every morning to see new images of men, women and children in Gaza whose rib cages protrude through their skin because of starvation, whose heads have been hollowed out because of Israeli snipers, or whose bodies have been charred like charcoal because of a bombing.

We also see the Israeli occupation stealing more swathes of land across Palestine and threatening to expel surviving Palestinians from Gaza. We see mercenaries opening fire on crowds of starving Palestinians seeking food.

We see that, even under increasing international outcry, an insufficient trickle of aid enters Gaza while the death toll from both starvation and Israel’s indiscriminate attacks rises daily.

Despite the efforts of various human rights groups, brave journalists, nations like South Africa, and millions of protestors around the world, the Israeli occupation is now reaching the final stages of its campaign of extermination and expulsion.

The common regional response to Israel’s crimes—a foreign ministry issuing a statement of condemnation that calls on unnamed members of the international community to stop the genocide—has not stopped the genocide. Neither have calls for the deadlocked, ineffective and unrepresentative UN Security Council to take action.

Business as usual in international affairs is simply not working.

We believe that the governments of the Muslim-majority nations of the world should not wait for the “international community” to grow a conscience. This is especially true of Arab Muslim nations surrounding Palestine.

We believe that these governments have the unique opportunity, legal authority, and moral basis to take greater, immediate and concrete action to pressure the Israeli occupation to end this carnage.

Although a genocide should matter to every single human being regardless of their faith, this genocide against a predominantly Muslim population carried out by an openly racist, anti-Muslim government should especially matter to the ummah of Prophet Muhammad . So should the fate of Palestine, including Masjid Al Aqsa.

Although we recognize the geographic, financial and military limitations that some governments in the Arab Muslim world face, it appears to us that these governments have many unused tools at their disposal.

Some of these governments control the most important parts of global oil production. Some of them host military bases used to resupply and support Israel. Others control airspace that is critical to the Israeli government and its ability to rearm. One controls a border crossing with Gaza. These nations have leverage. They just haven’t used it.

We therefore today express our view that the governments of Muslim-majority nations should go beyond harsh statements and diplomatic entreaties. Specifically, we believe that these governments could help end the genocide by:

1. Ending any economic, diplomatic, intelligence, and military relationships with the Israeli government, including the so-called Abraham Accords.
2. Announcing consideration of an embargo on global oil and gas sales that directly or indirectly contribute support to the Israeli government’s genocide.
3. Banning the use of their country’s airspace and the use of any military bases in their country to support the Israeli government in any way.
4. Opening their side of Gaza entry points like the Rafah crossing and facilitating the travel of aid trucks, medics, journalists, demonstrators and others who wish to approach the crossing and demand entry.
5. Organizing a unified diplomatic mission to a Gaza crossing with senior government officials personally leading an aid convoy and refusing to leave until Israel allows unlimited aid to enter freely by land routes.

Over the past two years, people around the world have bravely protested to demand an end to the Israeli occupation’s genocide in Gaza. These protesters—many of them not Muslim, Palestinian or Arab—risked their jobs, reputations, and safety to stand up for our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Now the governments of the Muslim world have an opportunity to reflect the wishes of their citizens by taking brave, unified action to help our brothers and sisters in Gaza.

We believe that if they take the aforementioned steps and use other appropriate tools at their disposal in an attempt to stop the genocide, the entire Muslim world and people of good faith around the world will rally around them.

We close with a prayer.

May Allah grant the highest rank of Paradise to our brothers and sisters who have been martyred in Gaza, heal those injured, and comfort those who have lost loved ones.

May Allah forgive the ummah for failing to do more to help our brothers and sisters in Gaza.

May Allah guide the political leaders of the Muslim world to take effective action for our brothers and sisters in Gaza and uphold justice for all.

May Allah inspire all of us to strive for justice with sincere intentions, wise decisions, effective strategies and successful outcomes.

May peace and blessings be upon Prophet Muhammad , his family, and his companions.
Ameen.

CURRENT SIGNATORIES
Individuals

• Imam Mohamed Abdel Salam,  Puyallup Islamic Community Center (PICC)
• Dr. Ismahan Abdullahi
• Imam Sedin Agic
• Aftab Alam, President, The March 15th Forum
• Shaykh Ibrahim Ali
• Hafiz Ikhlas Ansari
• Nihad Awad, National Executive Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations
• Sheikh Abdullah Ateeque
• Shoaeb Basha, Executive Director, American Muslim Health Professional
• Dr. Hatem Bazian, President of Northern California Islamic Council
• Noorgul Dada, Chairman, Noor Islamic Cultural Center
• Imam Mohamed Dahir
• Dr. Abdelhafid Djemil
• Imam Seyed Ali Ghazvini
•  Imam Khalid Griggs, Executive Director, ICNA Council for Social Justice
• Dr. Ayman Hammous, Executive Director, Muslim American Society
• Dr. Suleiman Hani
• Dr. Altaf Husain
• Imam Ahmadullah Kamal, IQRA Cultural Center
• Muhi Khwaja, American Muslim Community Foundation
• Yasser Louati, Comité Justice & Libertés (Committee for Justice and Liberties)
• Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Deputy Director, Council on American-Islamic Relations
• Shaykh Suhail Mulla
• Imam Saeed Purcell
• Dr. Yasir Qadhi
• Imam Mohamed Mukhtar Sayid
• Emad Sabbah, President and Co-Founder, Ethaar
• Imam Ali Siddiqui, Former Chairman, Peace with Justice Center, LaVerne, CA
• Chaplain Ahmed Shedeed, President, Islamic Center Of Jersey City
• Dr. Omar Suleiman
• Dr. Hebatullah Taha, President of the Board, CAIR Los Angeles
• Imam Suhaib Webb
• Hena Zuberi, Editor-in-Chief, MuslimMatters

Organizations

• • Ahlulbayt Islamic Center of Columbus
  • American Islamic Cultural Center
  • American Muslim Health Professionals (AMHP)
  • American Muslims for Palestine (AMP)
  • Arizona Muslim Alliance
  • Australian Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN)
  • Center for Education and Research Nahla
  • Center for Religious Tolerance (Masjid Usman) San Diego
  • Comité Justice & Libertés (Committee for Justice and Liberties)
  • Council of Sacramento Valley Islamic Organizations (COSVIO)
  • Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)
  • Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center
  • Ethaar
  • Greenview Madani Center
  • Hamzah Islamic Center
  • Hershey Islamic Center
  • Husaynia Islamic Society of Seattle
  • Islamic Center Of Jersey City
  • ICNA Council for Social Justice
  • Imam Council of Metropolitan St. Louis
  • Islamic Council of Victoria
  • Islamic Association of North America (IANA)
  • Islamic Center of Pennsylvania
  • Islamic Center of Irving
  • Islamic Center of Morgantown
  • Islamic Center of San Diego
  • Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA)
  • Islamic Community Center of Atlanta
  • The Islamic Society of Central Delaware
  • Islamic Society of Chester County
  • Islamic Society of North America (ISNA)
  • Islamophobia Studies Center
  • Islamic Center Masjid Al-Sabereen
  • IQRA Cultural Center
  • Kurdish Community Islamic Center
  • Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA)
  • The March 15th Forum
  • Muslim American Society (MAS)
  • Muslim Community of Nassau County
  • MAS Sacramento Region
  • Muslim Anti-Racism Collaborative (MuslimARC)
  • Muslim Community Of Folsom
  • Muslim Girl
  • Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA)
  • Muslim Students Association (MSA National)
  • North American Imams Federation (NAIF)
  • Noor Islamic Cultural Center
  • Prince George’s County Muslim Council
  • Rihla Community Services
  • Sacramento Area League of Associated Muslims (SALAM)
  • Shia Muslim Council of Southern California
  • Tri-City Islamic Center
  • US Council of Muslim Organizations
  • We Love Our Neighbors
  • World Council of Muslims for Interfaith Relations

If you are an Muslim institution, scholar, imam, or organizational leader, and you would like to sign the statement, you can do so here.

The post Over 85 Muslim Scholars, Leaders and Institutions Say Muslim Nations Can Take “Concrete Action” to End Gaza Genocide appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Conservative People’s party in Jumilla votes to stop civic centres and gyms being used for activities ‘alien to our identity’

A local authority in south-east Spain has banned Muslims from using public facilities such as civic centres and gyms to celebrate the religious festivals Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha.

The ban in Jumilla, in Murcia, is a first in Spain. It was introduced by the conservative People’s party (PP) and passed with the abstention of the far-right Vox party and the opposition of local leftwing parties.

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Ruwaida Amer speaks about how she struggles to write or even walk because of the starvation. Jon Elmer reports on the continued high casualties of Israelis in Gaza. And Ali Abunimah on the distraction of recognizing a Palestinian state.

The Colne Valley Viaduct, Buckinghamshire

Recently Radio 4 broadcast a series about HS2 (in ten fifteen-minute parts, starting here), and how it went from being a mere idea on a bit of paper to being a grand infrastructure project, braving objections from well-heeled landowners and householders in the Chilterns and other green and pleasant parts of the country, with big ideas about linking to the Channel Tunnel line and having two branches to the north-west and the north-east to being cut back to merely a shuttle between London and Birmingham. Towards the end, the programme quoted an unnamed chartered surveyor’s explanation for why building anything costs so much in this country: “because we live on a small, highly populated, property-owning, democratic island”; France has more than a thousand miles of high-speed railway, with much more empty countryside for it to sweep through, while China has nearly 30,000 miles of high-speed rail but has centralised power and fewer protest rights. There’s some truth to this, but the crucial point is that this is a small and densely-populated country; that we are a democracy is presented as almost a bad thing, that it would be so much easier if the government could just move people aside at will.

France is twice the size of the UK; China is many times the size of either. France’s major cities are much more spread out than ours are; none of our major cities, except Newcastle, is more than 200 miles from London. By contrast, the French LGV Est (eastern high-speed line) from Paris to Strasbourg is 250 miles long; the series of lines that links Paris with Marseille is 459 miles long. While high-speed lines are planned for the much closer northern cities such as Rouen, Le Havre and Caen (a similar distance from Paris as Birmingham is from London), these are unlikely to open before 2040 if at all, while the main lines to Lyon, Brussels and the Channel Tunnel have been open since the 1990s. Birmingham should not have been a priority for HS2; the priority cities should have been Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, and Glasgow was never even part of the scheme. Likewise, of the cities on the eastern leg, only Leeds and maybe Sheffield should have been in on it; Nottingham, Derby and Leicester are already served by the Midland Mainline and none of those places has a population approaching Liverpool’s or Manchester’s. The priority there should be electrification, not replacing a perfectly good rail link directly to central London with a circuitous one to a western suburban station.

Our biggest problem when it comes to infrastructure is that we have chosen wasteful, grandiose prestige projects over smaller but more beneficial ones. The major demand when it comes to rail in the north of England is better east-west links; it is said that you can tell which trains are going to London because they are newer and in better condition. East-west lines in the north are heavily dependent on unelectrified, two-track lines where through trains share space with local stopping trains. Whole tracts of Britain’s rail system remain unelectrified, resulting in diesel pollution especially around termini such as Marylebone and St Pancras in London; in other areas, partial electrification has meant that special “bi-mode” trains have had to be built, carrying diesel for 100 miles or more for use only on the section of track they left out (such as the lines into Bristol and Bath). Meanwhile, collapsing infrastructure is left unrepaired for cost reasons, even as we press ahead with grandiose projects like HS2. In London, Hammersmith Bridge has been left to rot for years, requiring traffic on a major artery to crawl along unsuitable roads around Kew Bridge; in north Kent, a stretch of the A226 has been closed for the past two years following a landslide, and as of March this year “there has been no funding within our budgets for … the continuing work required to progress the remedial scheme to tender and construction” according to the county council. A rail bridge in Woodford, east London, was also closed for “safety reasons” in July 2023 and only last month did the council resolve to replace the bridge and “fight for funding”, wording which suggests that winning is not guaranteed.

I think the reason we are reluctant to build more infrastructure is that we are somewhat more precious about more modest beauties than they are on the Continent. We are more romantic about the countryside and more protective of it, not least because it is a major destination for recreation and tourism; Italians cannot afford to be so precious about the Alpine scenery and rely on mountain passes to get between cities, or to France and other neighbouring countries. Doubtless more people see that scenery from a train window or from one of those motorway viaducts than on any skiing trip. We are also half the size of France and our productive land is smaller still, and we can only cover so much of it in concrete before we are left with neither natural beauty nor productive farmland. The exorbitant amount of money wasted on the unnecessary HS2, a scar through some of our prime countryside, could have been spent on much needed improvements in the north and on patching up road and rail infrastructure elsewhere; we have ended up building a shuttle service between two close-together cities that only the rich will be able to afford to use, and might not bother with anyway if the old route is cheaper and more convenient.

Image source: 42 Walkers, via Wikimedia. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution (BY) 4.0 licence.

Lack of unity has weakened Palestinians as they face “darkest moment.”

A monthly digest of key developments in Palestine showcasing powerful images by photojournalists.

[Content warnings: violence, rape, antisemitism, Islamophobia]

 

In Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World, Mark Twain wrote, “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.”

For Arnesa Buljušmić-Kustura, a survivor and scholar of the Bosnian genocide, writing about the aftermath of a well-documented war was—and is—no easy task. She describes Letters from Diaspora: Stories of War and Its Aftermath on its back jacket as “a fictionalized portrayal of immigrants living in Diaspora based on the real stories Bosnian people have shared with her throughout her years of living in the United States.” 

This sentence provides the audience with all they need to know—while the stories are fictionalized, they are not falsified.

Falsification is a modification designed to intentionally misinform readers. Fictionalization is reimagination, specifically to provide others with a fresh perspective.

In fictionalizing, an author may change a name, rephrase a sentence, or alter the structure of a testimony—but the essence of the story is preserved. In Letters from Diaspora, Buljušmić-Kustura has done just that—compile and combine survivors’ stories she’d heard with her ear and transform them into stories with heart.

“Fifty years after the world said ‘Never Again’ to the horrors of the Holocaust, genocide took place on European soil,” says the organization Remembering Srebrenica. Despite years of multicultural and multiethnic coexistence, rising racism and Islamophobia led to neighbors killing neighbors. Serbs and Croats pitted themselves against Bosniaks, who were primarily Muslim. 8,000 believers were senselessly murdered, and their remains are still being dug up to this day.  

“While it has been [30] years since the war and genocide, the Bosnian population remains unhealed and too traumatized to speak publicly of the horrors they lived through,” the author’s note prefaced (Buljušmić-Kustura, 12). This statement echoes again in multiple letters. Rabija, whose first letter serves as an introduction to the silence surrounding the Bosnian genocide as a whole said, “We are afraid and yet we speak very little about the fear that we feel. I often wonder if my Bosnian friends do not speak about our past for fear it will repeat itself again.” (Buljušmić-Kustura, 21-22)

It’s understandable why a survivor may not want to be noticed so publicly and to live their lives recounting horrific incidents to audience after audience. Some may also not want to relive those terrible memories over and over again. Others feel significant pressure to put their identifying information out into the world, where it lives forever on ink and paper. To combat this, assigning a pseudonym to a survivor’s story can be liberating. The anonymity grants dignity; a rawness that might not otherwise be shared with others. Should a reader come across a survivor in real life, the reader would have no idea—and the survivor may prefer that, to continue navigating through their lives free of interrogation, no matter how innocent. Protection is as much of a priority for the dissemination of survivors’ accounts as is publication. By weaving some stories with others and assigning new names to each one, Buljušmić-Kustura directed this masterfully. Indeed, with some of the details given, it takes an expert to handle with care. 

“I saw them burn.” This is just one harrowing part of Jasmina’s letter. “I saw his body on the footsteps of the home I believed would hold our children one day. Is [thirty] years enough time to get over that? How can I get over that?” (Buljušmić-Kustura, 26)

Fictionalization is also helpful in cases of protecting a survivor’s physical safety. Genocide deniers and members of hate groups routinely threaten the safety of survivors, directly and indirectly. Neo-Nazis, for example, once fought to march to assert their First Amendment rights to freedom of expression and protest in Skokie, IL. Skokie, in 1977, was home to hundreds of Holocaust survivors, and those citizens were rightfully opposed to a thirty-minute show by those Neo-Nazis to wear swastikas (Goldberger). The ACLU accepted the case, and after a lengthy legal battle, the neo-Nazis were told to demonstrate in Chicago instead. A few years later, the wider community responded to that demonstration by building the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie.

It’s a similar situation of safety for Bosnian-Americans, especially those who choose to return to their cities of origin. Hana shared in her letter, “[W]hen I returned to my hometown, two of the men that forcibly took my body were in the line next to me. They were free. They were happy even. […] Is that the kind of injustice I must live with? To know that the men that held me captive for a year, that abused me every day for a year, are able to go on and have happy lives?” (Buljušmić-Kustura, 42)

“I saw them burn.” [PC: Tim Mossholder (unsplash)]

A confrontation is a risk for survivors of any tragedy. In multi-layered chaos like prolonged war and becoming an international refugee, many cannot feasibly track their tormentors down. Even if they do, as Selma did, they often see the system fail them:

“I interned at The Hague. I saw the faces of those responsible for the deaths of my loved ones and one by one they gave them sentences that were too lenient, in my opinion. In some cases, they did not even give any sentences. I saw the faces of genocide and yet I could do very little to give them the punishment they deserved.” (Buljušmić-Kustura, 50)

The last reason, flexibility, may seem to center around the writer, but it can still revolve around the survivor. Writers are charged with telling a story. To do so requires not-so-simple decisions of craft. Detailed responses from interviews may have to be cut out due to word counts and page limits. When speaking to multiple survivors, some of the accounts are repeated, for no fault of their own—but unfortunately, audiences often complain of too much similarity between them. There’s a pressure to only highlight the unique parts of every survivor’s story; otherwise, they might not be read.

Buljušmić-Kustura did this masterfully in diversifying each letter, even the ones about loss. Safet mourned how Islamophobia and racism severed the ties between him and his Christian Serb friend (Buljušmić-Kustura, 30-34).

It’s the details like this that give the audience empathy and each account memorability. Sabahudin perhaps said in his interview that his mother, father, brothers, and neighbors were brutally slain. But a certain pain evokes within us when the author poetically ends one part of his testimony with “All of their blood creating one large puddle.” (Buljušmić-Kustura, 58) 

Our stomachs coil. Our eyes water. It’s as if Letters was sent to our personal mailbox, and we’re communicating with a long-lost friend. A human being, like us.

There are tender moments, too. We feel as though Ivana is chatting with us, sharing how she was a Christian at the start of the war and became a Muslim after it ended, despite the vile propaganda around her. (Buljušmić-Kustura, 60-66) Alma predicted that after another exhausting American party, she would return to her own home and think of how weddings were done in Bosnia. “I won’t dance, but I’ll close my eyes and I’ll send my mind back in time to the days I used to dance all night, until my feet bled.” (Buljušmić-Kustura, 72)

So let us uphold a real survivor’s dignity, safety, and story through fictionalizing. In doing so, we put the “art” in articulating—to share a story well-told and well-remembered.

 

Related:

– History of the Bosnia War [Part 1] – Thirty Years After Srebrenica

– Rising To The Moment: What Muslim American Activists Of Today Can Learn From Successful Community Movements During The Bosnian Genocide

The post The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing But The Truth?: A Case For Fictionalizing Testimonies Of Atrocities appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

It's impossible to concentrate when your stomach is empty.

"Every day there are martyrs and injuries... People are being killed for a parcel of food."

Ministers have accused us of ‘infiltration’ and posing ‘a threat to national cohesion’. They’re old racist tropes given a dangerous new life

Being a Muslim in a country with a long colonial history, which has also had to deal with terrorist attacks carried out in the name of Islam, is an everyday challenge.

In January 2015, for example, I was as profoundly shocked as everyone else in France by the massacre of the Charlie Hebdo journalists in Paris. As the country mourned, I was invited by a major radio station to comment, but was first asked, live on air, to “dissociate” myself from the attackers.

Rokhaya Diallo is a Guardian Europe columnist

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Matt Single

Last Wednesday, BBC’s Radio 4 broadcast an episode of their File on 4 Investigates programme which exposed a ‘school’ (not actually a school as such, but a centre for home educators) called Hope (Home Of Positive Energy) Sussex, based outside Hastings, which appeared dedicated to fostering ‘awareness’ of conspiracy theories in the children being taught, and the parents who come in with them, with the clear intention of nudging them in that direction. The programme is titled “We Are Not A Conspiracy School”, but this is clearly what the place is. The ‘community’, which hosts music festivals and talks by among other people Katie Hopkins and Kate Shemirani (a nurse struck off for spreading misinformation about Covid at the height of the pandemic, and who influenced her daughter to refuse treatment for cancer, which she subsequently died from), was founded by Matthew Single and his wife Sadie who were former members of the British National Party who were expelled (and fined) for leaking its membership list in 2008, then disappeared from public view before reappearing as anti-vax theorists. The programme noted that Ofsted had expressed concerns about the institution but had been unable to investigate as it did not have the statutory powers to do so.

There was no doubt that the ideas they were promoting were outlandish, anti-scientific, and rooted in paranoia. The programme noted that the two founders were the Singles, but the website lists two co-founders, both female, named only as Katy-Jo and Sadie, but all three were heard on the programme. One of them told the interviewer that she did not believe in viruses; they also told him that schools only teach one theory about the origin of the universe and life on earth, namely the Big Bang theory (which is untrue, from personal experience). A man was heard telling children to fire ball-bearing guns at a TV, which we were told had the letters ‘BBC’ on it. The ‘community’ is secretive, its headquarters (a former agricultural college) unwelcoming to journalists from the “mainstream media” and has only a sign reading “No Trespass, Strictly By Appointment Only” (though its other entrance is marked with a yellow flag with a smiley face on it, for the benefit of festival attendees); the journalist met them at a recording studio. The founders told the interviewer that they were not brainwashing their children at all, and could not as the children were free to ask questions, and did so, having been taught “critical thinking”. However, it was clear that the community existed so that like-minded people could withdraw from the world and teach their children free from what they call “the bonds of a malevolent State, intent on imposing ever tighter control over us all”.

HOPE are cranks and I would not recommend them to anyone looking for support if they are home educating, but the programme did not find any evidence of children being physically abused, which is at least as important as the issued raised here. It’s important that home education and home-educating parents in general are not judged by the extremists as there are schools you would not send a dog into either, especially at secondary level. I know families that home educate and most did so to remove their children from environments where they were bullied, or faced racism or other prejudice, or because there was a necessity stemming from a medical condition or disability. There are some children the school system simply makes no effort to accommodate, and education departments encourage parents to home educate; there are school leaders who take pride in harsh ‘discipline’, humiliating children over petty uniform infractions, locking toilets to prevent “internal truancy” during lessons regardless of how adequate they are for the numbers of children needing to use them during breaks, or such problems as girls getting periods unexpectedly. Some parents want to protect their children from the depredations of such “leadership teams” or from whatever bad influences other children have been exposed to and nobody should be standing in their way.

Cryptocurrency is Deek’s last chance to succeed in life, and he will not stop, no matter what.

Previous Chapters: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13| Part 14

“(When) wealth is hoarded—its owner neither enjoys it during this life nor receives any recompense for it in the Hereafter.” — Ibn al‑Qayyim, Madarij al‑Salikin (Ten Useless Matters)

Ashlan Gardens

Still sitting in his Porsche, Deek called Marco, who answered with, “How did the Moon Walk Motel work out for you?”

“I got ki-” He’d been about to say, I got kidnapped, until he remembered he must not talk about that.

“You got what?”

“I, uh, got killed by that sagging mattress. Are you free? I want to take you to The Purple Heifer for dinner. My treat.”

“Purple Heifer! Did an uncle die and leave you a fortune? Heck yeah, I’m free.”

“Pick you up in an hour.”

Before the Purple Heifer, Deek had another stop to make. He stuffed $100,000 into a Marco Polo envelope, sealed it, and jotted a note on the envelope:

For a true hero. The least I could do.

He didn’t know exactly where Zaid Karim’s office was, and wasn’t about to drive around the East Belmont ghetto carrying a fortune in cash. Instead, he headed for Zaid’s apartment, which was on Ashlan Avenue near the national guard base. Deek and his family had been there for dinner a few times, and he was confident he could find it.

He ended up wandering around the Ashlan Gardens apartment complex for ten minutes until he found an upstairs apartment with a sticker on the door that said, “Laa ilaha il-Allah” in Arabic.

Coriander and Lime

When Safaa answered the door wearing sweat pants, an embroidered Arab shirt, and a loose orange scarf, Deek was momentarily nonplussed. He always forgot how much she looked like Rania. Safaa was taller than Rania and more slender, but their oval-shaped faces and large dark eyes were nearly identical, as were their rich brown complexions.

Thinking of Rania, he was suddenly hit with a pang of longing. What was she doing at this moment? Did she miss him? Was she lonely?

“Deek!” Safaa shook her head at him, smiling. “Why are you giving my cousin a hard time, huh? You even made Zaid go looking for you.”

The scent of Iraqi cooking emanated from the apartment. Deek could identify the distinct smell of caramelizing onions and garlic, the lemony-floral lift of coriander, and the sour-bitter tang of sun-dried lime. Safaa and Rania’s mothers were sisters, and the two of them had no doubt learned to cook all the same dishes. Deek could probably guess exactly what Safaa was cooking, based on the scent.

In the background, he heard the two girls arguing about what ingredients to put on a banana split.

“If you make it all chocolate,” Anna was saying reasonably, “it’s not a banana split. A banana split is supposed to have vanilla, strawberry, and chocolate.”

“You’re not the banana split police,” Hajar countered.

“Zaid’s not here,” Safaa added. “He and Jalal found that missing girl. They’re taking her home.”

Deek had no idea what Safaa was talking about. Zaid had rescued yet another missing girl? Unbelievable! The guy was a hero from a fairy tale.

“Are you going to adopt that one too?”

Safaa laughed. “No, silly. She’s nineteen!”

“Oh, uhh…” Deek held out the envelope. “This is for Zaid.”

Deek held a fervent hope that neither Zaid nor Safaa would be offended by this payment. Zaid had implied that Deek’s money was dirty money. That was unfair. He’d worked hard for this wealth, and he wanted to do something for the man who had put his life on the line for him. How else could he show his gratitude? He wasn’t a sage who could change a person’s life with a word. He wasn’t physically powerful, nor was he the kind of charismatic friend whose companionship everyone yearned for. But Allah had blessed him with wealth. This was what he had to give.

Safaa accepted the envelope, then read the note. “That’s so sweet! Zaid will love it.” She hefted the envelope, lifting it up and down. “Deek… this feels like cash. Is this money?”

Talking to Safaa was so weird. Even her mannerisms resembled Rania’s. Knowing that his own wife, at such a moment, would find something to chastise him for, and fearing that Safaa might do the same, he decided to beat a quick retreat.

“I have to go,” he blurted. “Thanks for everything!” And he was gone.

The Purple Heifer

Deek picked up Marco in front of the SRO. His friend stood amid the riffraff of the neighborhood, holding a trumpet case and looking as carefree as a bird on the breeze.

At about 5’8”, Marco was shorter than Deek, but aside from that, he could have been an actor or model. Even at the age of forty-five, his golden bronze skin – courtesy of his Puerto Rican heritage – was smooth. His black hair was thick, and naturally fell into waves that caressed his ears. He wore old hi-top sneakers, jeans with holes in the knees, and a clean but faded Miami Heat t-shirt. Deek knew that these worn-out clothes were not a deliberate fashion choice but simply the result of poverty, yet Marco managed to make it all look casually stylish.

Marco stuffed his trumpet case behind the passenger seat and climbed in. His hands roamed over the dashboard as he exclaimed, “Dude! What the heck is going on?”

Deek grinned. “I’ll tell you in a bit. Why did you bring the trumpet case?”

“Purple Heifer has a live piano player. I thought I might join in for a number.”

“They’ll let you do that?”

“I’m well known in the Fresno jazz scene.”

“I didn’t know that.”

Marco gave him a wry look. “There’s a lot you don’t know.”

The Purple Heifer Steakhouse at the corner of Shaw and Cedar had been a Fresno fixture for decades. It was known for its flame-grilled steaks, wild-caught shrimp, crab cakes, lobster tails, exotic burgers, and more. It wasn’t the most expensive restaurant in town, but to guys like Marco and Deek (or the guy Deek had been last week), it might as well be a millionaire’s resort.

Approaching the restaurant, Deek could smell the cooking beef from half a block away. The popular eatery was huge and dimly lit, which was one of the reasons Deek had chosen it. He asked for a corner booth. The piano player, a sixtyish man in a black suit and top hat, was playing a lively yet smooth song that might have been Brazilian jazz. The restaurant was busy, with a lot of conversations happening at once, but the music managed to float above it all, and Deek found himself tapping his foot to the beat. He was excited for what was about to happen, and couldn’t wait to see his friend’s reaction.

A Gift

Once they’d ordered, Deek set a backpack on the table.

“This is for you.”

Marco poked the backpack with a finger. “Books? I have plenty of books in storage. No space in my room.”

“Not books.”

“Better not be a practical joke like one of those expanding snakes, I’m serious.” Feeling the backpack tentatively, he unzipped it and peered inside, then, miffed, gave Deek a lopsided frown. “So it is a joke! What is this, Monopoly money?”

“It’s as real as the Porsche.” Deek lowered his voice to a whisper. “It’s two hundred thousand dollars. It’s yours, as a gift from me for your friendship.”

Marco wobbled in the chair as if he might fall. Deek half rose, reaching for his friend. Why did people keep reacting like this to the sight of money?

Marco gripped the edge of the table with one hand and waved Deek off with the other. “I’m okay,” he said, and the words sounded squeezed. “Where did this come from?”

Briefly, Deek explained what had happened in the last week, though not delineating the full extent of his wealth.

Three Reasons

Marco reached into the backpack and felt around, touching the money. Then he closed the backpack and sat back. Sweat had broken out over his forehead. Finally, he pushed the backpack across the table to Deek, rumpling the tablecloth and nearly knocking over Deek’s water glass.

Marco’s lips were tight. “I can’t accept this.”

“Why not?” Deek’s voice came out louder than he intended, and he lowered it to an intense whisper. “You’re living in an SRO. I want to help you.”

“Three reasons,” Marco spoke slowly but firmly. “One, my friendship is given freely. It requires no payment or gift.”

Deek tried to reply, but Marco held up a hand. “Two, it’s a little insulting, as if you don’t believe that I can create my own better future. Three, make no mistake, there’s a part of me that would be happy to take this cash. But how long would it last? Two or three years? I might buy a car, which brings further expenses, and rent an apartment, buy nice clothes, pay off my student debt, and voila – the money’s gone. Then what? I come to you asking for more? At which point you begin to doubt my sincerity. No, our friendship must be a steady, controlled reaction, not an exothermic burst that blazes with heat, then dies.”

“I would never – “

Again, Marco held up a hand. “Look, Deek. With the money you have now, people are going to swarm around you. They will want to sell you things, borrow from you, make business deals, solicit donations, learn your crypto methods, or pretend to be your friends in order to freeload. You will begin to doubt everyone’s intentions. I won’t be one of those. You will always know I am your true friend, because I will always pay my own way.”

People Help The People

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to squeeze in a song before the food comes.”

As Marco spoke to the piano player, Deek gripped his water glass so tightly that it cracked. He was fed up with people acting like he was the devil trying to corrupt them with a gift of wealth. If Marco were hungry, would he refuse a meal? If he were sick, would he turn away a blood transfusion? Why did people behave so bizarrely when it came to money?

Marco had his trumpet out. The piano player began a slow song, and Marco soon joined in. The song was moderately paced but sad, like a man pleading for forgiveness from a lover he had never meant to harm. At first, the despondency of the song deepened Deek’s bitterness, but Marco’s trumpet rose and fell like a bird riding the currents between land and sea. Deek’s breathing eased, and he sat back in the seat and closed his eyes. The restaurant became hushed as conversations were stilled. When the song was over, applause broke like a crashing wave.

Marco tried to leave, but the audience called for an encore. For the second song, they played a mid-tempo jazzy number, and Marco sang. Deek had heard Marco sing little snatches of tunes before, but never a full-throated number like this. His voice was low and strong, like the running of a river swollen with spring rain. He belted out a song about a man in love with a woman on an October night, and wanting to dance with her beneath the moon.

“I didn’t know you could sing like that,” Deek enthused afterward.

“As I said, there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“I would really love to hear you recite the Quran in Arabic one day. It would be amazing to hear it in your voice.”

Marco nodded. “Could happen. I like a challenge.”

The food came, and they ate, but the atmosphere was subdued. Deek sawed away at his steak and potatoes, and Marco picked at a shrimp platter. Later, Deek could not have said what they talked about, or if the food was tasty. When the check came, Marco tried to pay his share. Deek held the check away from him and returned it to the server with a hundred-dollar bill.

“What was that first song?” Marco asked. “The one that was sad at first, then swept up like a tidal wave.”

“People help the people.”

“That’s ironic.”

Marco gave a slight smile – the first Deek had seen since the money reveal.

Shadow In The Lot

It was dark when they exited the restaurant. The parking lot was half full, and a movement in the corner of the lot caught Deek’s eye. That part of the lot was empty except for a small, battered car parked beside a cinderblock wall. A man ducked into the car and closed the door. From this distance, Deek could not be sure, but the man had looked vaguely like Shujaa, the Yemeni youth who had sold him the Porsche.

“Did you see anyone over there?” he whispered, pointing.

Marco leaned forward, squinting into the shadows. “By that car? No.”

Deek’s eyes bored into the darkness. He could walk over there… but it was very dark. The man could have been anyone. He shook it off. “Let’s go.”

When he dropped Marco off at the SRO, his friend punched him gently in the shoulder and said, “I’m happy for you, brother. I will always be here for you.” Marco dropped two twenty-dollar bills onto the dashboard. “For my dinner.”

Before Deek could protest, his talented and handsome friend shut the car door and walked away quickly. Deek considered chasing after him, but there was no way he could leave this car -and all the cash inside it- unattended in this neighborhood.

In fact, looking around at the neighborhood, Deek felt suddenly nervous. A group of young men, pants riding low on their hips, stood in the recessed doorway of a building across the street. Their attention seemed unnaturally focused on Deek and his Porsche. Only a few steps away from the Porsche, a white woman with the lean body and aged, sore-spotted face of a meth addict took a long swig from a wine bottle, then threw the empty bottle into the street, where it shattered with the finality of the very last broken promise. A man in a filthy tweed coat, his bare chest exposed, probed a trash can, looking for the treasure of a recyclable can.

Two girls in black clothing and boots, their hair shorn on one side only, faces bearing so many piercings they could have opened a jewelry shop, strolled through the chaotic scene with no sign of fear.

Starfish

Quickly, Deek locked the doors, then stuffed the backpack full of money deep under the passenger seat. He was about to put the car in drive and take off when his eyes settled on a thin, blond-haired boy who could not have been more than thirteen or fourteen years old, curled up with a puppy in a recessed doorway. The boy wore old jeans and a gray sweatshirt that was several sizes too large. He was not asleep, but lay looking out at the street. Peering more closely, Deek saw that the boy had a small pocket knife in one hand. His other arm curled protectively around the puppy.

He suddenly felt ashamed. Here he was, walking around with hundreds of thousands of dollars, while there were kids on the street with nothing to eat and no safe place to sleep. But this was the way of the world, wasn’t it? Luxury perched on the back of poverty. And it wasn’t him who had made it like this.

But maybe he could be part of the solution.

He remembered a story he’d heard once about a boy on the beach. Thousands of starfish have washed up onto the beach, where they will die. The boy picks them up one by one and throws them back into the sea, saving their lives. An old man comes along and says, “You can’t save all these thousands. What you’re doing doesn’t matter.” The boy throws another starfish into the sea and says, “It matters to that one.”

People help the people. That was the only way to make sense of this crazy world. He slid his hand into his pocket, intending to take $1,000 out of his wallet to give to the boy. Discreetly, of course.

Ambush

His driver’s side window shattered. He shouted in shock and surprise. Shards of glass rained upon him, and instantly he felt a blinding pain in his left eye. He cried out and put a hand to his eye. With his other eye, he saw a brown arm snake inside the car and unlock the door, and the next thing he knew, he was yanked out of the car.

He fell onto the filthy sidewalk, landing on something wet that crunched beneath him. Leftover soda in a cup, he hoped. He tried to stand and fight in spite of the terrible pain in his eye, but a foot drove into his stomach, forcing the air out of him and making him grunt in pain. He vomited semi-digested steak and potatoes onto the sidewalk. As he was retching, a fist crashed into his cheekbone, then another into his mouth, and another and another, hitting his nose, jaw, ear, and skull. He tasted blood in his mouth, hot and metallic. But apparently that last shot hurt the attacker’s hand, because the man cursed in Arabic.

Deek recognized the voice. It was Shujaa. It had been him after all, back at the restaurant! He should have trusted his gut.

Rage rose inside him like a high tide on a rough sea. “Not again!” he thought. “I will not let this happen again.”

Deek was many things, good and bad, but he was not a coward. The Iraq of his childhood had been a place of hardship and violence. He’d seen bodies in the streets and had witnessed the aftermath of battles and bombings, yet had gone to school, to the store, and played football in the street. The words “surrender” and “give up” did not exist in his vocabulary. His entire personality was based on persistence and determination. When he was kidnapped last week, the only thing that stopped him from fighting back was that his wrists and feet were bound. Otherwise, he would have struggled and fought to the point of death.

As Shujaa pulled back his foot to kick, Deek rolled into the young man’s legs and wrapped them with his arms. Shujaa shouted in surprise and fell. Deek heard a cracking sound as the young man hit the ground, and Shujaa’s body went completely still, half on the sidewalk and half in the street. One arm lay in the dirty gutter, and the knuckles of both hands were bloody.

Come And Try

Pushing off the sidewalk, Deek rose to his knees. Shujaa lay at his feet, unmoving, a small rivulet of blood trickling from the back of his skull. Perhaps he was dead, Deek did not know.

With his good eye, Deek saw that the group of young toughs from across the street had approached. They stood only a few meters away. A twenty-ish and muscular man with a shaved head, dressed in blue basketball wear and a bulky blue coat in spite of the warm weather, stepped forward.

“Y’all put on a show,” the man said. “But we gon’ take that car now.”

Deek held a hand to his agonizing left eye, as if he could isolate and capture the sliver of glass cutting his eye open. His lips were split, and he couldn’t breathe through his nose. His stomach felt like it had been taken out, trampled by a horse, and put back in. His right hip throbbed with pain. Yet not for a moment did he consider stepping aside and letting these gangsters take his car. Casually, he undid the clasp on the knife sheath and drew the long, wicked blade.

Holding the knife down at his right side, but clearly visible, he said, “Come and try then.” He would cut them all down, just like Zaid Karim would do.

Another of the young men, thinner and younger, also dressed in shades of blue and purple, and with braided hair to his shoulders, reached into his coat and drew an automatic pistol. He tilted the weapon sideways and pointed the barrel at Deek’s head. “Ain’t no try. Hasta luego, fool.”
The man was going to kill him. Deek’s eyes widened, and his breathing slowed. How could it end like this? Shot to death over a stupid car?

So be it. La ilaha il-Allah. He raised the knife and took a step forward.

The barrel of the gun flashed, there was a loud bang, and something struck Deek in the face. He stumbled backward yet did not fall. The gangster had shot him. The man had shot him in the face, yet somehow he was still alive.

Trumpet

He had no vision in his left eye, so it caught him completely by surprise when Marco stepped in front of him from the left and swung his trumpet as hard as he could. It struck the side of the gunman’s head with a loud gong, and the gangster fell like a brick, the gun skittering away. The other thugs shouted, but Marco threw the trumpet at them, darted forward to grab the gun, and began firing shots into the air.
The gangsters scattered, comically holding up their pants as they ran.

Marco tucked the gun into his waistband, snatched up the trumpet – which was now dented and bent – and hurried to Deek.

“Get in the car, bro. We have to get out of here. Put your knife away.”

“He shot me.”

Marco gripped Deek’s head and studied the left side of his face. “It’s a graze. Right along your left eyebrow. You’re very lucky.”

Swaying on his feet, Deek peered across the street. Where was the boy? The homeless blond kid? People help the people. He was going to throw a starfish into the sea. It would matter to this one. But the boy was gone, frightened away by the violence of the street. Poor kid.

Once again, the world was telling Deek that his money was no good. But money was what he had to offer, so he and the world would have to come to a compromise. Either that, or they would fight a ten-round heavyweight match, and only one would stay standing at the end. And right now, at this moment, Deek was still standing.

The street was dark and dirty. Someone had lit a tire on fire in an empty lot down the street, maybe to stay warm. Sirens were approaching. The thugs could return at any moment, maybe better armed this time. Shujaa was still bleeding and unconscious on the ground. Deek gestured to him: “Him too. We can’t leave him.”

* * *

[Part 16 will be published next week inshaAllah]

 

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:

Hot Air: An Eid Story [Part 1]

As Light As Birdsong: A Ramadan Story

 

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