In the Dhikr of Allah is peace

If I must die,you must liveto tell my storyto sell my thingsto buy a piece of clothand some strings,(make it white with a long tail)so that a child, somewhere in Gazawhile looking heaven in the eyeawaiting his dad who left in a blaze–and bid no one farewellnot even to his fleshnot even to himself–sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up aboveand thinks for a moment an angel is therebringing back loveIf I must dielet it bring hopelet it be a taleLast poem of Refaat Alareer, academic, writer, poet, and the voice of Gaza for the English-speaking world. He died with his family yesterday.

We live in troubled times, a huge sign of which is the very sharp increase in mental illness of different kinds. Ranging from anxiety to much more serious ailments, resulting at the extreme in despair and suicide. In 2021, 48,183Americans died by suicide and there were 1.7 million suicide attempts. An estimated 49,449 people died by suicide in 2022. The rate of suicide is highest in middle-aged white men, the most privileged section of the population who accounted for 69.68% of suicide deaths in 2021. The strange thing is that this is happening in the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world. While in Palestine there are no suicides. Not one. People are being massacred but they have set such an example of Ridha bil Qadha and Shukr that it has become the reason for a lot of people converting to Islam. We don’t know what Allahﷻ has decreed for Palestine and Palestinians, but if we look beyond the material visible world, we will be able to see the gates of Jannah open above Gaza and the angels escorting the souls of the Shuhada into everlasting grace and beauty. We will be able to smell the perfume of the most beautiful musk as the curtains between the A’alam ush Shahada and A'alam ul Ghayb are parted for those who Allahﷻ chose to honor. Like it happened with the Mongols, who destroyed Baghdad and the Abbasi Khilafa and then became Muslim and became the defenders of Islam, the West which is blindly supporting genocide will wake up as it sees the true strength and power of the human being, which is not in weapons or money but in heart and spirit. As someone said, ‘Courage is made in Palestine.’

Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are demonstrating a level of this, which I am not sure, has ever been seen in the history of humankind. To mention just one clip I saw, a journalist asks a Palestinian man, ‘You have no bread, no water, no electricity. How will you live?’ The man smiles, looks up at the heavens, raises his index finger and says, ‘But we have Allahﷻ.’ You can see the wonder on the face of the journalist. The reality is that you can’t kill someone who refuses to die. Because death is not the death of the body but the death of the heart and spirit. The body will perish, no matter where we live. But the heart and spirit live and die by different rules. They live when they are connected to Allahﷻ and a weakness in that connection makes them sick and a break, kills them. The response of the Palestinian brother points to the meaning of real wealth. Truly Rasoolullahﷺ would have been proud of these people. I remember the Hadith of Rasoolullahﷺ in Musnad Ahmed.

عَنْ أَنَسِ بْنِ مَالِكٍ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ وَدِدْتُ أَنِّي لَقِيتُ إِخْوَانِي قَالَ فَقَالَ أَصْحَابُ النَّبِيِّ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ أَوَلَيْسَ نَحْنُ إِخْوَانَكَ قَالَ أَنْتُمْ أَصْحَابِي وَلَكِنْ إِخْوَانِي الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا بِي وَلَمْ يَرَوْنِي

Anas ibn Malik (R) reported: Rasoolullahﷺ said, “I wish I could meet my brothers.” The Sahaba said, “Are we not your brothers?” Rasoolullahﷺ said, “You are my Sahaba, but my brothers are those who have faith in me, yet they never saw me.” Wallahi, this Hadith belongs to the Palestinians in Gaza In-sha-Allah.

Allahﷻ mentioned those who know Him and love Him and said:

ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُوا۟ وَتَطْمَئِنُّ قُلُوبُهُم بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ أَلَا بِذِكْرِ ٱللَّهِ تَطْمَئِنُ...