We speak with Sami Al-Arian about the role Arab states could play in stopping the genocide. Nora Barrows-Friedman covers Israel’s intensifying invasion of Gaza City, and Jon Elmer brings the latest news of the resistance confronting Israeli forces.
Keir Starmer urged to take action over US president’s inflammatory speech to the UN
Keir Starmer is facing demands from Labour MPs to reprimand Donald Trump’s administration after the US president falsely claimed London wanted to “go to sharia law” under its “terrible mayor”, Sadiq Khan.
In an address to the UN general assembly, Trump said: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.”
Continue reading...Deek and Rania finally talk, and Rania – in pain and medicated – bares her heart.
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 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21
* * *
So many tears
that your sorrows seize,
Flowing deep as Euphrates…
— Marwa al-Timimi
Rania came to stand right beside Deek, and still he didn’t see her. His eyes were faraway, and now that he was close, she saw that there were dark circles under his eyes, and a recently scabbed-over wound above his left eyebrow. His left eye seemed a little puffy as well. He wasn’t doing well.
On the one hand, she wanted to reach out to him and comfort him. But on the other hand, she took a certain satisfaction in knowing that he wasn’t out there partying and living the high life. He was suffering without her.
GravitySomeone touched Deek’s shoulder and he flinched. It was Rania, dressed all in green – green scrubs, hijab, and green leather walking shoes, with an ID badge on a lanyard around her neck. She had lost a little weight, which served to grant her visage a greater degree of gravity and beauty. There was a sheen of sweat on her face, and the way her brows drew together told him she was worried, unhappy or in pain.
“Are you okay?” Rania asked.
“Yeah.” He smiled nervously. “I was just remembering when Sanaya had whooping cough.”
Rania rubbed his shoulder. “That was a difficult time. But we got through it together.” She touched her own eyebrow, then pointed to Deek’s. “You got hurt.”
“Someone tried to carjack the Porsche.”
“La hawla wa la quwwata illah billah. I knew something was wrong. Hey, could we talk in the cafeteria? I haven’t eaten in hours.”
Deek wasn’t very hungry, but he could eat a little fruit salad.
In the elevator Deek shifted from foot to foot, and didn’t look at Rania.
“Do you want to tell me about what happened?” Rania asked.
Deek waved this off. “It’s nothing. I mean, another time.”
Rania nodded. “I hear you’re staying at the Marco Polo. Must be nice.”
“My room has a fountain. It’s lonely, though.” He said this last part without thinking, and immediately regretted it. He wasn’t ready to be that forthright.
The Same PersonThe corridor that led to the cafeteria was long and sterile. Photographs of nature scenes from Yosemite adorned the walls.
“I just finished a quilt,” Rania said. “It’s brown, blue and green. The colors of Iraq’s desert, farms, and rivers. I thought of you as I sewed it. Would you like to take it to your hotel room?”
The weather was a bit hot for a quilt, but as Deek thought about it, he realized the answer was yes, he would love to have with him something that came from Rania’s hands. He would sleep better with it in his arms.
“Sure. Thank you.”
Sitting in the cafeteria, Deek watched as Rania took a disconsolate bite of a tuna sandwich.
“I’ve missed you,” Deek said.
“You could have called or come home anytime.”
“I miss the old Rania. The one who was good to me. I’ve been thinking about the past. I wish I could go back in time.”
She gave a grimace. “I’m still the same person.”
Changing the subject, Deek asked if she had received the other hundred thousand he’d transferred.
Rania did not meet his eyes. “Yes. It’s generous, thanks.”
“I sent something with the girls.”
“I haven’t seen them since this morning.”
He ate a strawberry. “You’re having a bad day?”
“A patient died.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. A child?”
Rania tucked her chin into her chest. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Deek had not failed to notice the way Rania sat stiffly in her chair, and shifted her weight from one leg to another.
“Does your back hurt?”
She seemed about to say something, but then a wave of irritation or anger washed over her, and she said, “Oh, now you’re concerned? That’s rich.”
Deek restrained the urge to get up and walk away. He speared a banana slice with his fork and popped it into his mouth.
Par For The Course“Sorry,” Rania said a little while later.
Deek gave a bitter, lopsided smile. “Par for the course.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m used to it.”
“Oh, really?”
He took a breath. This wasn’t how he had wanted this to go, but maybe this was how it had to go. “Do you remember last Thursday? I made a trade that earned one point seven million dollars. That was the moment everything changed. I jumped up and I was shouting I did it, I did it. Do you remember?”
Rania blinked several times, then nodded slowly. “Yes. I remember.”
“Do you remember what you said?”
“You have to understand. I didn’t know at that time that you had earned one point seven million dollars. And I was upset because you refused to have dinner with me.”
“Do you remember when I came to see you at the hospital the next day, just before Jum’ah?”
Rania winced. “I’m the bad guy, is that your point?”
“I could go on and on. Do you remember when Amira wanted an electric scooter and you said, ‘If there were two productive adults in this house, maybe, but with only one person working and one sitting at home eating potato chips -”
“I think I was having some back pain that da-”
“Or two months ago, when you came home with Shannon and Anisah, and they ran me down?”
Rania went pale. “I didn’t know you heard that.”
“I was in the kitchen getting a drink. It’s not what they said that hurt me, though. It was your silence. And the time when I tried to hug you, and you pushed me away and said I looked like a bum, and you were embarrassed to invite people over.”
Rania sat back and crossed her arms. “You sound like one of your computers spitting out data. You have a whole list of my mistakes. How about keeping a list of all the good I’ve done for you and our family?”
It’s A Shock“I’m just saying, the most recent incidents were the straws that snapped this Iraqi camel’s back.”
Rania stood, leaving her sandwich uneaten. “I apologize. I was obviously a bad wife.”
“No. You were the best wife in the world for almost our entire marriage. Anyway, before you go, we need to talk about money. Could you sit please?”
Rania sat reluctantly, arms still crossed across her chest.
“I set up a corporation called Milestone. It will send you thirty thousand dollars every month, starting on the first.”
Rania’s eyes grew wide. “Thirty thousand dollars? For how long?”
Deek noticed a young medical technician – a tall blond guy with a chunky, papaya-shaped body – eating a slice of carrot cake and watching them under his brows. He motioned to Rania to keep her voice down.
“Ongoing. Also, Sanaya and Amira will receive smaller monthly payments. And take this.” He removed an orange and black card from his pocket and handed it to her. “It’s a Milestone debit card. It has a monthly limit of ten thousand dollars. The pin is the month and year we got married.”
“What if I don’t remember the month and year we got married?”
Deek raised his hands in a shrug. “Then we’re both in trouble.”
“And this is all from the cryptos?”
The question annoyed him. “Do you still doubt that? You saw me slaving away in that closet like a zoo animal for five years. You think, what? I robbed a bank? Or became a drug dealer?”
“No, habibi.” She passed a weary hand over her eyes, and Deek felt a surge of compassion. He’d come here to tell her he loved her, and to ask her advice about how to handle the money. Not to fight. Yet the anger and resentment had spewed forth.
“I know it’s from the crypto,” Rania went on. “I believe you. It’s just a shock, can you understand that?”
“Yes of course. There’s more. I’ve made a lot of money.”
“I think we’ve established that.”
“More than you realize. I need guidance on what to do with it.”
“Why ask me?”
Deek’s heart fell. This wasn’t what he’d hoped for. “Because you’re my wife. This money is for us, our family. It will change all our lives, inshaAllah.”
Rania’s jaw hardened. “I don’t care about all of that.”
Deek’s mouth opened, then closed. What was he supposed to say? Wanting to push her, to get a reaction, a protest, an argument, anything, he said, “Do you still want half of everything I earned?”
Rania’s face hardened. “Now you’re just trying to provoke me.”
Deek looked away. “It’s literally what you asked for.”
Rania stood blinking for a moment, then her face hardened into resolve. “You picked a bad day to come at me with this.” She turned and walked away.
Deek remained sitting. Too late, he remembered Rania’s back pain, and the patient she’d lost. Why hadn’t he kept his stupid mouth shut? With rounded shoulders, eyes fixed on the table, he forked an apple slice and munched on it. He felt bitter and disappointed in himself, in Rania, and in the world. Weariness washed over him again. It seemed he was tired all the time lately. He finished the fruit salad and trudged out to the car.
In the parking lot, he started the car, headed toward the parking lot exit – then circled back around slowly, thinking. What was waiting for him at the Marco Polo? The gorgeous hotel room was starting to feel like a prison cell.
Again he cruised toward the exit and again he circled back. He stopped the car in the middle of a row and put his forehead to the steering wheel. He could not go back inside the hospital. Rania would burst her top. It was time to leave. He raised his head – and saw a vision that made his breath stall in his chest.
A One Way TripRania stood frozen outside the pediatrics doors, pain radiating down her back and hip. She fingered her badge, thinking.
Going through those doors would mean making a choice. It was a one way trip, like a newly built ship heading downriver and out to sea, never to return to the shipyard. She wasn’t ready for that.
She buzzed the intercom, and informed the nurse at the station – Chea – that she was taking another 20 minutes off for personal reasons. Then she turned her back on the double doors and ran, or tried to. With the third or fourth stride, the pain made her stumble, and she put a hand against the wall. Standing up straight, she settled for walking fast.
Each step was a shot of agony in her lower back and hip. It felt like someone had attached a small vise to her right hip bone, and was steadily tightening the screw. But she clenched her teeth and took it like a woman.
It was hopeless. Deek was probably gone. But she continued all the way to the parking lot, where she walked up and down the rows in the cool evening air, searching for the little black Porsche. There was no sign of it.
She stood, feeling desolate, then was about to go back into the hospital when a voice called out, “Rania?”
She turned and there was Deek, sitting in the passenger seat of a small blue SUV. He’d pulled up to the passenger loading roundabout. She opened the front passenger door and climbed into the car, settling back into the seat with a groan.
“What’s this car? Another impulse buy?”
“Sort of. I sold the Porsche.”
“That car didn’t even last as long as one of my diets.”
“It was cursed. Allah have mercy on it.”
She gave him an incredulous look, then burst out laughing.
All These Things And MoreDeek was stunned when he saw Rania wandering the parking lot like a woman in the desert, searching for an oasis. Was she looking for him? What was this, a scene in a romantic movie? More likely she wanted to blast him for the things he’d said.
Girding himself against the coming storm, he called her name.
When she entered the car, then laughed at his comment about the Porsche, he was caught off guard, not to mention relieved. This was like the Rania of old, who could disarm him with humor, and whose laugh could have broken down the walls of Babylon.
“Deek, habibi,” she said. “You did a lot of talking. Can I talk now?”
“Sure.” He cruised to a parking spot and shut off the engine.
“Look at me,” Rania said.
He met her dark eyes, tight with anxiety or pain.
“I am deeply sorry that I was not nice to you the last several months.”
“The last two years,” Deek interrupted.
She dropped her chin to her chest. “The last two years. The financial pressure was crushing me, and I reacted badly. But not everything is so black and white as you think. Look at this.” She took out her phone, scrolled for a moment, then showed him a text message. It was a group text from her to Anisah and Shannon, and it read:
As-salamu alaykum sisters. Your comments about my husband today were neither invited nor appropriate. I should have spoken up at the time but I was caught off guard. Deek is a good man and I’m proud to be with him. I think it’s best if we press pause on our friendship.
“I sent that the same day. I’m sorry I didn’t speak up right at the moment. I was shocked by their words and my tongue got tied.”
Deek’s chest swelled upon reading the message. He wanted to nod and say, That’s my wife! But he merely said, “I didn’t know.”
“There are many things you don’t know, Deek Saghir, and you would do well to remember that. Anyway. I also regret being friendly with Dr. Townsend, but please know that I never did anything inappropriate with him, and never would.”
“If you had, I would have drowned him in the river.”
Rania snorted. “You and drowning in the river. Always talking about drowning yourself or drowning somebody else. It’s creepy.”
“You know I grew up on the banks of the – “
Tigris River in Iraq
“The Euphrates, I know. And I grew up on the Tigris, so what? I dream of swimming in the river, Deek, not drowning. Swimming.” She made swimming motions with her arms.
This made Deek smile, but he did not want to smile, and made a conscious effort to erase it.
“And,” Rania went on, “just for the record, I do not care about him at all. I love you. I love your strength and determination. The way you set your mind to something and never give up. You mentioned Sanaya’s sickness, all those years ago. Do you think I have forgotten, or could ever forget, the way you sat with her at night, making dua’ to Allah to save her? The little gifts you always bring me, the way you massage my feet when I come home after a long day at the hospital? The thousand times you sat on the floor with the girls, teaching them to play chess, and hearts, and Chinese checkers. Your kindness, your generosity. You see someone in pain, you help them, it’s your way. All these things and more I love about you, my great Iraqi prince. If my love for you on our wedding day was hot and passionate, then it is a still burning flame, as powerful as ever. I’m trying to hold on to you, but it’s like holding on to an electric eel. You have to do your part as well.”
Prince Of Lands“So I’m an eel now.”
Rania threw up her hands in frustration. “That’s what you got out of everything I said?” She took a breath and let it out, calming herself. Calling up a memory, she smiled.
“Deek, habibi, do you remember the poem I recited to you at our wedding?”
“What poem?” This was a deflection. Of course he remembered. It was an ancient Iraqi poem by the scholar Marwa Al-Timimi. Deek had been so touched by Rania’s recital that he had memorized it.
Rania recited the poem now:
If Allah makes you a prince of lands,
Riding steeds through desert sands,
Owning cattle, barley, date,
I will share your blessed fate.
And if He wills it all away,
Leaves you hungry, in dismay,
Friends depart, you lie in dust,
By your side I’ll stay in trust.
Should you laugh with joy profound,
Back teeth gleaming, cheerful sound,
Or if you weep with tears of lime,
Bitter streams through sands of time—
So many tears that your sorrows seize,
Flowing deep as Euphrates,
Whether joy or grief you view,
I stand with you.
***
Come back next week for Part 23 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.
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The post Moonshot [Part 22] – A Still Burning Flame appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.
Food handouts and employment are increasingly tied to Afghan families’ agreement to strict Islamic education
When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Nahid, 24, was midway through an economics degree. She had hoped to work in a university after she graduated.
Instead, Nahid now spends her mornings at a religious school in the basement of a mosque in the western city of Herat, sitting on the floor and reciting scripture with 50 other women and girls, all dressed in black from head to toe.
Continue reading...
Recently there has been a movement, spearheaded by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (the football hooligan and racist rabble-rouser known as Tommy Robinson) and his associates to fly both British and English flags off buildings and lampposts, as well as the more traditional flagpoles, pretty much wherever they are. The campaign has been accompanied by the usual claims from Reform supporters and the like on GB News that anyone who objects is a snob, or a woke lefty who despises the ‘real’ white working class. Matt Goodwin posted a video taken from a car driving down a street in Rednall, on the south-western outskirts of Birmingham, in which flags had been attached to every lamppost (in this case Union flags; in other cases they have been St George’s Crosses or a combination of the two), and in the accompanying tweet called it “act of resistance against mass uncontrolled immigration, broken borders, the decision by politicians to house illegal migrants in the heart of their communities, and the loss of their national identity”.
The other day I saw a video, on a motorcycling channel on YouTube, titled “Does the Saint George’s flag offend you??”. The simple answer to this is no. (YouTube apparently blacks out any flags that are posted by emoji in the comments; this was assumed to apply only to that flag.) But the context and atmosphere in which these flags are being posted does. We have seen footage of louts painting flags on other people’s property, while racially abusing Asian people who just happened to drive onto the scene to do shopping. We have seen footage of council workers being assaulted, in one case by someone trying to remove the ladder he was standing on, while removing unauthorised flags or just while working on the pole or mast the flag was attached to. If flags are flown from public property such as lampposts and not attached properly, they can become a safety hazard, for example by falling into a cyclist’s or motorcyclist’s face, obscuring their vision; if they just fall off, they become litter. In many cases the flags were the wrong way up, representing a signal of distress, not a show of pride. It’s quite right that some councils want to remove unauthorised flags; it doesn’t mean they “hate the English” or “despise the working class”. It means they want to keep their districts clean and looking civilised, and keeping their character.
In a recent debate at the London Assembly, a Tory assembly member named Emma Best, having made some now common accusations that “the Left — people like you, people like the mayor — exaggerate and lie about members of the Right, and this … will lead to more violence” (having already mentioned the murder of Charlie Kirk), suggested that the best way to ‘reclaim’ the St George’s flag would be to fly it at City Hall and across the GLA and TfL (Greater London Authority and Transport For London) estate. The deputy mayor did not answer the question adequately, mumbling about how she had been born here and supported the English football team, and thought that Britain at its best was seen in the Second World War and in the welcoming of refugees from Ukraine, as “a place of inclusion and tolerance”. The TfL estate consists of things like railway stations and depots as well as bus and tram stations and maintenance depots; a brief glance at the Google Street View images of many TfL rail stations shows that they do not have flagpoles. Of those I looked at, only Embankment had one, and sometimes this was empty and sometimes it carried the Union flag. To fly flags at stations would require flagpoles to be installed, which would cost a lot of money that could be spent on improving the service; station staff also have enough to do without having to worry about raising or lowering flags when it’s deemed appropriate.
But the other answer to Emma Best’s question is that the flying of flags is something we do on special occasions, to celebrate or to commemorate. Aside from government buildings, and at military bases and the like, we see them at war memorials as well as on village greens. Companies use it to indicate a British product, though this can often mean British design rather than British manufacture. We do, of course, see flags flying when a British sports team is in an international tournament and when it is the English football team, the flag will be the English one. However, there is nothing traditional in this country about flying flags everywhere and attaching them to every lamppost, least of all by people who do not know how to fly them properly, and the persistent display of flags outside of competitions has a menacing overtone, reminiscent of its use for sectarian purposes in places like Northern Ireland. And it’s nothing for us to be proud of to have thugs roaming the streets, waving flags in people’s faces who didn’t ask for it, painting them on other people’s property without permission and then attacking or threatening council workers who try to remove them, or anyone they meet who looks different from them. It’s not a spontaneous display of national pride; it’s an ugly wave of incivility and thuggery from the worst of British.
Democratic leaders in US House ignore constituents on Palestinian rights as Trump targets activists for those rights.
More than 1,000 Palestinians arrested in occupied West Bank city of Tulkarm in one day.
The United States set out a revealing, if thoroughly predictable, stance this week after Israel’s strikes on an American-requested negotiation with Hamas at Qatar. American Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Jerusalem and reaffirmed his support for the Israeli regime and commitment to the removal of the same Hamas with whom Doha had been facilitating talks. It is unclear what reception Rubio will get as Qatar meets with other Gulf states to discuss its response to the Israeli attacks.
Pattern of Israeli Attacks on Negotiators
Yahya Sinwar (right) and Ismail Haniyeh (left) attending the funeral of Hamas official Mazen Foqaha in Gaza City on March 25, 2017.
The Israeli attack on Doha marked another case where Israel struck at negotiators under American protection. In summer 2024, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who led negotiations, was assassinated in Tehran after having already lost much of his family as an Israeli pressure tactic.
A year later, Israel interrupted American negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program by wiping out the Iranian military command—almost including chief negotiator Ali Shamkhani, who was initially reported to have been killed but survived—and then inciting the United States into an ill-conceived assault on Iran.
What makes this attack different is that it took place in a Gulf state that is nominally an ally of the United States, even as Israel has repeatedly flared at its diplomacy with Hamas.
Qatar’s Mediation HistoryThough Israel, and such sympathetic regimes as the United Arab Emirates, have often accused Qatar of backing “radical Islam” – a buzzword for any remotely independent form of Muslim politics -, in fact, Qatar’s mediation has often been done at American insistence.
In 2012, for instance, Barack Obama’s government requested that Doha take in Hamas’ civilian leadership, which was then distinguished from its military command, in an effort to break up the group between its exterior and interior leadership. A year later, Qatar was used as the venue for a Taliban diplomatic office as the United States attempted to wedge between the Taliban’s “interior” and “exterior” leadership as well as draw the group away from Pakistan.
It was Doha that ended up mediating a ceasefire between the United States and Taliban in 2020, which only collapsed after prevarication from Washington and a Taliban assault that captured Afghanistan a year later.
A Trap for Hamas NegotiatorsIndeed, the Hamas negotiating team led by Khalil Hayya was essentially lured into a trap: having been promised negotiations, they and their Qatari hosts were instead subjected to an Israeli attack of which the United States could not have plausibly been unaware. Such niceties as diplomacy are, of course, irrelevant to an Israel that treats not only Hamas but Palestinians at large as a virus to be expunged in its ongoing genocide, but it is also clear that the United States is quite content to let Tel Aviv run amok even at the cost to its reputation.
Rubio, an especially ardent Zionist who cut his teeth by arguing that Obama was insufficiently committed to an Israel that actually thrived on his protection, has unsurprisingly been an enthusiastic cheerleader of whatever Tel Aviv does and is more committed to censoring criticism of Israel among his populace.
Qatar’s Ambiguous Role in American Power
Qatar and the American military base.
Qatar has played an ambiguous but important role in the American balance of power. On the one hand, unlike “more-loyal-than-the-king” regimes such as Abu Dhabi, it hosts political leaders from various Islamist groups and occasionally flirts with anti-autocratic Islamists such as the Muslim Brethren; on the other, it hosts the largest American base in the region, Udaid.
It has long been argued that this would protect Doha against a backlash of precisely the sort that the United States has just permitted from Israel. This theory now stands exposed, and it was with unsurprising indignation that Qatari foreign minister Mohammad bin Abdul-Rahman announced Doha’s right to respond however they see fit.
Related:
– The Witkoff Massacre: Slaughter Of Starving Palestinians Undercuts Trump Pretensions
The post What A Rubio: United States Throws Weight Behind Israel After Aggression On Qatar appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.
New report by the Sexual Violence Prevention Association also details systemic Israeli rape of Palestinians.
I often think of Sandra Bland. She was stopped for a minor traffic violation in Texas, arrested, and found dead in her jail cell three days later. The official story was suicide. Many of us never believed it. What we saw was a young Black woman silenced — her light extinguished, her death written off, her humanity erased by a system that preferred convenience over truth.
I think of Sandra now because the world is watching something similar happen to Palestinians. They are being bombed, starved, displaced — and now, even silenced at the very stage where nations are supposed to speak. Recently, the United States barred Palestinian officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, from attending the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The message is unmistakable: not only can Palestinians be denied their homes, their lives, and their futures — they can be denied even a voice.
At the same time, nearly all Palestinians holding Palestinian Authority passports are now barred from traveling to the United States. This includes students, workers, and the sick in desperate need of medical treatment. Earlier this month, even humanitarian visas for critically ill children from Gaza were halted. Think about that: children who needed surgery, chemotherapy, or urgent care were told they could not enter the U.S. because of who they are.
This is not just policy. It is not just “security.” It is erasure.
The 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide not only as killing members of a group, but also “causing serious bodily or mental harm” and “inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” What else do you call systematic starvation, denial of medical care, displacement, and silencing? What else do you call the banning of an entire people from the halls of the UN, where the world claims to uphold justice?
This is genocide.
Some will recoil at that word, insisting it is too extreme, too loaded. But if we are too afraid to name it, then we are complicit in its continuation.
Genocide does not happen only in gas chambers or on battlefields. It happens when a people are denied the right to live, to move, to heal, and finally, to speak. It happens not only with bombs but with paperwork, policies, and visa restrictions.
And it happens most effectively when the world shrugs.
I write this not only as a journalist, but as a Muslim who believes deeply that silence in the face of oppression is a betrayal of faith. The Qur’an tells us to stand firmly for justice, even against ourselves or our families. To watch Palestinians denied even a seat at the United Nations and say nothing would be to side with the oppressor.
Sandra Bland’s face in that mugshot looked hollow, as if the life was already draining from her before the world declared her gone. Palestinians today are being made to look the same way — as if they are already erased, their voices already muted. But I know, as we all know, that they are alive, they are human, and they will not stop speaking.
And so neither can we.
If Palestinians are barred from traveling, then we must carry their stories. If they are denied the right to speak at the UN, then we must speak their names in every space we can. If their passports are deemed worthless, then we must remind the world that their humanity is priceless.
Sandra Bland’s family still fights to this day for accountability, because they know the truth: she did not die by her own hand. She died because a system decided she did not matter. The same system is now telling Palestinians they do not matter. We cannot let that lie stand.
To the readers of this piece, I ask: do not grow numb. Do not tell yourself this is politics too complicated for you to understand. It is not complicated to say that children deserve medicine. It is not complicated to say that a people deserve representation. It is not complicated to say that denying a whole nation the right to speak is not democracy — it is erasure.
History will remember whether we looked away or whether we stood up. I pray we choose the latter.
Because when you silence a people, that is not security. That is not diplomacy. That is genocide.
Related:
– Watch, Learn, And Speak Out: Films And Documentaries About Palestine Made Available Online For Free
The post When You Silence A People, That Is Genocide appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.
Charlie Kirk I am not sure I knew of the existence of Charlie Kirk when he was assassinated in Utah last Wednesday. I saw a tweet from a Muslim account on Twitter which drew attention to his well-known (in the US maybe) stance on gun control, that a few gun-related deaths were worth it to keep Americans’ Second Amendment rights. He was killed by a sniper, believed to be a young man from a conservative Mormon family in southern Utah, as he held court under a marquee bearing his slogan “Prove Me Wrong!”. In the immediate aftermath, Trump and his supporters rushed to blame the “Radical Left”, trans activists and even the Democratic party for the murder, while mainstream Democrat politicians published videos condemning the killing. I saw plenty of content, however, which while not condoning the murder made no secret that they believed Kirk’s death was no tragedy, was nothing to mourn, or was a comeuppance for his pro-gun views. Meanwhile there are also people proclaiming themselves ‘grief-stricken’ by the killing and condemning anyone who does not share their grief, accusing them of condoning murder, or of “virtue signalling” while actually betraying a vicious streak.
Last Thursday, the day after Kirk’s murder, a British lawyer on YouTube calling himself the Black Belt Barrister uploaded a video in which he proclaimed, “regardless of your own personal views, I’m sure you all share a sense of shock, horror and for many of you, even if you didn’t know them, a profound sense of grief for the cowardly and unlawful killings of Charlie Kirk and, of course, Iryna Zarutska”. Iryna Zarutska was a Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina; racists have posted content alleging that the killing was part of a “race war”, drawing attention to the commuters who failed to act until it was too late (having seen the video, it does not appear that she was in danger of dying until she actually collapsed — she did not appear to be bleeding heavily, for example — and the killer was still in the carriage, armed). The two killings were entirely unconnected, the latter with no political motive, just a random killing by a man with a history of severe mental illness, and thousands of miles apart. He then goes on to accuse people who rail against the far right, racists etc., and accuse them of fostering hatred which leads to incidents like the murder of Charlie Kirk. All this before anything was known about who shot him. As for the reaction to Iryna Zarutska’s murder, the only vile or hateful comments I could see were those that implied that she was killed because the killer was Black and she was white, and that the others in the carriage (again mostly Black) did not spring to her aid for the same reason. There were comments like “don’t take your eyes off these people” as if every Black person was a madman looking to stab the next white person they see. All nonsensical, demented, racist drivel.
But I’m not grief-stricken about Kirk’s death. Not only because I didn’t know him, but also because he actually was a hateful, racist misogynist who also stood in the way of protecting children from violence. His last words, in response to a question from the audience about mass shootings in the US, were “counting or not counting gang violence?”: he was trying to divert the conversation onto Black-on-Black crime, which is mostly irrelevant to the matter of US mass shootings. His supporters want us to be empathetic to his wife and children, but he shows none to families who have lost loved ones, including children, to mass shootings. I am never going to be especially sad about the loss of a person like that. Gun control actually would not have saved him because the gun control being advocated in the USA relates to automatic or assault weapons, which does not appear to be what was used here, and better background checks and safety devices to prevent accidental discharge. Even in the UK, while we have had no school massacres since Dunblane in 1996, we have had a mass shooting by a sniper (the west Cumbria shootings of 2010). However, this was still a man who thought others’ right to their lives — schoolchildren and teachers — were worth much less than his own right to an automatic firearm capable of killing multiple people in seconds. While we may agree that his murder was wrong and that the killer should be punished, it stands to reason that when a person with such contempt for others’ lives loses his own, many people will not be especially aggrieved.
There has also been a chorus of disapproval at the mere use of words like racist and bigot to describe people who espouse racist and bigoted views. We are being told it creates the climate of hatred that leads to such acts as Charlie Kirk’s murder. History in fact shows that racism leads to violence to an extent that accusations of racism simply do not. With the exception of Cambodia, every genocide in recent times has been motivated principally by racism, as have countless other systems of oppression: chattel slavery, segregation, Apartheid. This is not to say that no injustice ever results from false accusations; we only have to look at the history of the Labour Party since 2015 to see that. But in this country at least, nobody died as a result of those false accusations of antisemitism (arguably it contributed to the Gaza genocide by making speaking out against it costly, especially in the first year or so, but nobody was killed because they were called antisemitic, even if they were expelled from a political party or even lost their job). Racism kills, both through direct violence and through the ways prejudice works its way into our police, education and health systems (deaths in custody, higher maternal mortality rates, etc) among other things. Many of the people coming out with this rhetoric are the same people who have been moaning about “cancel culture” for the past decade while enjoying columns in major newspapers, ample time in the broadcast media, ample representation in national and regional legislatures and so on; Kirk himself ran a “professor watch” website, ‘exposing’ academics he disagreed with, while his allies are now trying to drum people out of jobs for failing to manifest the required grief over his death, or repeating his less savoury opinions. These include a female primary school teacher who repeated his views about guns, a stance which results in people like her dying or seeing their pupils killed by young embittered men with guns no civilian can get hold of anywhere else, whose own congress representative joined the campaign to get her fired.
We’ve had nearly two years of watching a genocide on social media, with the most appalling acts of depravity and cruelty plain to see, obviously innocent people shot dead for no reason, doctors, nurses and ambulance staff murdered as they do their job (or the rest of their families killed while they work), stories from visiting medics of repeatedly seeing children shot in the head by snipers, journalists murdered and then slandered by their killers; some of those lecturing or trying to silence us have been “standing with Israel” all this time, openly excusing or justifying it, or even celebrating it and mocking the dead and those who fought heroically to save them — as Kirk himself is on video doing. These include the ‘moderate’ Democrats now publicly commiserating with the Trumpists and falling over themselves to distance themselves from political violence when it’s on American soil. These people have had the past two years to demonstrate the decorum they expect from us when a public figure is murdered; they did not care to do so then but they expect us to now. So, there will be no crocodile tears here. He was not killed by one of ours, but was an enemy of ours and had contempt for us. His death is no great loss and will not be mourned.
Michael Mann has downplayed Gaza’s hunger crisis.
We speak with Craig Mokhiber about what the UN can do to intervene in Israel’s genocide. Nora Barrows-Friedman covers the latest news on Israel’s attack on Gaza City. Jon Elmer delivers news of the battle on the ground in Gaza. Asa Winstanley questions whether Jeremy Corbyn’s new UK party will be anti-Zionist. And Ali Abunimah shares recent actions by European countries to oppose the genocide.
The fantasy genre has always called to me ever since I was a little girl. I loved the idea of magic and the supernatural, especially if the main character was a girl. These stories showed me how characters I could relate to could overcome difficulties with bravery, ingenuity, and support. Reading books was a brief escape from my challenging childhood home.
Some of my favourite fantasy authors were Tamora Pierce, Garth Nix, and Ursula Le Guin. After much resistance, I eventually got into Tolkien and loved his lush prose. The common themes I loved throughout all the fantasy books were relatable characters facing impossible odds (extra points for strong female characters!). I overlooked the fact that most, if not all, of these characters were default white.
Another unfortunate unifying theme that tied them together was the absence of the Islamic worldview. In the fantasy stories that I grew up consuming, there was no Necessary Being. There was either a total absence of the Divine, or human beings with supernatural powers instead of an Omnipotent God. This is still deeply concerning because every type of media we consume can either bring us closer to Allah 
or further away.
The massive popularity and ongoing appeal of fantasy franchises like Harry Potter surely tell us something. Why do children like this genre so much? It’s exciting, interesting, and reminds us that there is more to this world than what we can understand with our senses. We know this as truth – the unseen realm and supernatural beings such as angels and jinn do exist.
“Fantasy novels are a creative expression of this curiosity about what we cannot explain through the material world alone.” [PC: Gabriela (unsplash)]
Human cultures across time and space have been intrigued by the Unseen, especially during eras that were not so oversaturated in technology. Once upon a time, our ancestors were so much more embedded in the natural world. In South East Asia, where I was born, it was common for humans to interact with jinn before Islam arrived on our shores. Alhamdulilah for the guidance of the Shari’ah, which forbade further contracts to be made with jinn, and instead, taught us to place our complete trust in Allah.
Fantasy novels are a creative expression of this curiosity about what we cannot explain through the material world alone. When fantasy novels are written by Muslims who love Allah and the Prophet 
, imagine the possibilities of the kinds of fantasy novels we can write.
Beyond books, cartoons like K-Pop Demon Hunter are an incredible hit. This is an animated film about a K-pop girl band, who are secretly demon hunters, that must save their fans from a group of demons who have taken the form of a K-pop boy band.
My daughter watched the show with her friends during a playdate, and I made sure that we discussed it afterwards. That cartoon was a good opportunity to bring up a few points:
I am a big believer in talking to our children and listening to what they’re going through in every aspect of their lives – schoolwork, friends, Islamic studies, and media consumption. It’s not a good idea for parents to just let their kids watch or read whatever they like, as children are still developing their moral compass, spiritual understanding, and frontal lobe (the part of the brain that influences decision-making, emotional regulation, and personality). Cartoons, just like audiobooks, can be a family bonding activity and a good way to discuss reality versus fantasy. It’s an invaluable life lesson worth repeating: everything we consume can either bring us closer to Allah or further away.
It’s also never a good idea for parents – as tired as we often are – to mentally check out while our kids zone out to their favourite TV shows. We are responsible for nurturing them with praiseworthy habits, and in this day and age, a huge part of that is being aware of what kind of media they’re consuming.
We must talk to our kids about what they’re watching and teach them how to critically analyze the kind of themes the movies/books are teaching them, from both an Islamic and a healthy mindset point of view. This is how we can instill that active sense of learning in our kids from a young age, instead of allowing them to be default passive consumers. Teaching them the value of analyzing the media they consume might even encourage them to become God-centered creatives as well, if they are artistically inclined.
Writing My Own Fantasy BookWhen I drafted my first middle-grade fantasy novel, How to Free A Jinn, I didn’t know if it would land a literary agent, let alone a publishing deal. I specifically wanted to write a fantasy novel from the Islamic worldview; the vast majority of fantasy novels I read have a total absence of Islam, and I wanted to add something beneficial to the existing body of fantasy literature. I wanted to write a book from the Muslim worldview, about a girl who has inherited the consequences of the pre-Islamic practice of making a contract with an ancestral jinn. I wanted readers to immerse themselves from a viewpoint I hadn’t read yet: a neurodiverse young Muslim girl who loves her faith, family, and culture. There’s nothing quite like seeing the lived experience of relatable characters on page.
For so many decades, I have consumed media from characters from different worldviews. I wanted my own children, as well as other children, to experience something from my own worldview, for a change. It took less than a year to land my US literary agent, and at least another three more years before my Australian and then my American publisher took a chance on my book.
I wanted other Muslim kids to see the love and bickering that happens in our families, and I wanted them to read about being only twelve and already facing hard decisions. Most of all, I wanted to write a character who made mistakes, but ultimately chose a path pleasing to Allah .
In Malaysia and Singapore, my book was incredibly well-received. So many of my readers shared that their families also had very similar jinn stories. It was so heartwarming to see young Malay girls cosplaying as Insyirah, my book’s main character, by wearing noise-cancelling headphones on top of their hijabs! To my surprise, there was a spectrum of reaction in Australia. Many Muslim readers and their families were very enthusiastic, because it was high time for our stories to get traditionally published. On the other hand, there were WhatsApp messages circulating, warning Muslim families not to read my book because it encouraged black magic – clearly, whoever started that rumor hadn’t even read my book!
How To Free A Jinn by Raidah Shah Idil
As my book will reach the US, Canada, and the UK at the end of this year, I hope and pray that the Islamic schools there will be more open to welcoming my book and the ensuing discussions in their schools. My book can actually be a launching pad for healthy discussions around the unseen, e.g., recognizing the difference between good jinn and bad jinn, staying away from sorcery, understanding the difference between mental illness and jinn possession, and, above all, turning back to Allah , always.
On the topic of jinn, a concerned Muslim parent asked me why I had ‘jinn’ in my title. I explained that the jinn stories in my novels could be taken literally, or metaphorically (ancestral trauma and resilience) – and either way, I didn’t want to mislead my readers by suggesting that my book was something that it wasn’t. There’s nothing inherently wrong with talking about jinn, as long as the actual lesson of the story is Islamic! I was shocked to learn that there are Muslim kids who honestly believe that Iblis is a fallen angel. I corrected this Christian misconception and taught them that angels do not ‘fall’ or sin, unlike jinn and humans. Iblis is a jinn who was elevated to the ranks of angels until he disobeyed Allah’s Command to prostrate to Prophet Adam 
.
Muslim children are already exposed to the fantasy genre at school and at home, either in books or through cartoons and movies. I believe in having proactive conversations with our children from a truth-based worldview. I also believe in writing our own high-quality fiction so both Muslim children and even non-Muslim children can enjoy reading our books, and perhaps one day, come to Islam too.
Reading fantasy novels is not the same as engaging in forbidden black magic. Those are two completely separate topics. If anything, a well-written fantasy novel can be a warning against engaging with black magic! If parents don’t feel equipped to have these conversations, then it’s time to learn and consult with experts who do. I’m not encouraging the outsourcing of hard conversations – this is a skill that gets better with practice – but I strongly believe that the natural bond between parents and children can be used in our favor when it comes to their media consumption choices, for as long as our kids trust our judgment and want our approval. That window of influence will reduce as they get older, so while they’re still young and long for connection with us, let’s make the most of it.
In a nutshell:
is a Necessary Being who creates and maintains our contingent universe)We come from a rich oral storytelling tradition teeming with fantasy elements; when done mindfully and consciously with Allah in mind, fantasy novels can be a subtle and effective da’wah tool, inshaAllah. Muslim parents should not irrationally fear the impact of fantasy novels on our children, but navigate the genre with thoughtfulness and awareness of Islamic morals and values.
Related:
– [Podcast] How To Free A Jinn & Other Questions | Ustadha Raidah Shah Idil
The post Muslim Kids Reading Fantasy Novels – Yea Or Nay? appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.
