Ali Hammuda – Palestine Reimagined #11 Understanding Tragedy
AI: Summary ©
The speaker discusses the importance of not letting anyone become a victim of evil, and the need to manage the pain of suffering. They also mention the importance of not allowing anyone to become a victim of evil and the need to focus on the negative consequences of suffering. The speaker emphasizes the need to address the misunderstanding of victory and the need to focus on the negative consequences of suffering.
AI: Summary ©
None of this can erase the undeniable truth
that the people of Palestine or anyone else
who is brutalized,
if they meet Allah Almighty with patience they
die upon their religion and if they are
gifted with martyrdom
then they have emerged victorious.
Palestine will remain to be a place of
tension between
truth and falsehood.
Muslims are to brace themselves for challenging years
to come with many episodes of both glory
and pain.
During those moments of pain, we will ask
the same questions:
Will we be able to repel injustice or
will we be set back?
Will they stay put on their land or
will they be ethnically cleansed again?
And if it ends up an favorable outcome
for a few days or months or even
years as we see homes flattened or children
slaughtered or communities displaced,
many will automatically assume defeat or that Allah
has commanded us. It's a knee
jerk reaction
during the moment of a
tragedy. But would it be the case would
it be an actual portrayal of reality?
I share with you the following words to
prepare us for those painful chapters so that
we view it all correctly,
so that we are not consumed by the
moment of sadness, so that our iman remains
safe during tragedy.
You cannot understand Palestine if you don't understand
matter.
A term that has
unfortunately
in the eyes of some become synonymous with
cruelty or indiscriminate
killing or irresponsible
behavior.
I draw on the word martyrdom
Simply to remind of a concept
that has been forgotten by the modern man
in the West to console
the hearts of the bereaved.
Shahada, which we translate as martyrdom
means witnessing
in the Arabic language.
One interpretation
as per why the martyr is given the
name shahid or witness is
because Allah and his angels
witness
that he is an inhabitant of paradise.
Interestingly the online etymology dictionary links even the
English word martyr to the concept of witnessing
SubhanAllah
According to the Quran,
Shahada
is the greatest status humanly attainable after that
of nubuwa, prophethood, and then siddiqiyah
to dedicate yourself to the truth confirming the
truth of Islam and living by
it. And furthermore, shahada includes those who, for
example, die in a plague or die by
drowning
or burning or childbirth
or
defending life, wealth or family
or by a building collapse or falling off
a mountain. In fact, Imam Ibn Hajar, he
said that
we have gathered in the causes of martyrdom
more than 20 ways of attaining it
via the authentic reports.
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala he said
He chooses
martyrs from among you.
So those
righteous souls that rose as martyrs
were never random deaths.
That bomb for example that erupted,
causing the death of some and the sparing
of others, That's not
arbitrary.
Those who died were fine people who had
previously led fine Islamic lives and so they
were nominated by Allah Almighty for the status.
So no suffering for them in their grave.
No
suffering on the day of reckoning.
Near the King Allah the Sovereign.
So that in of itself is a huge
victory and a huge consolation for the oppressed.
And that is why Haram ibn Millhan,
a messenger
of prophet Muhammad
who was deceitfully slain by Jabbar ibn Salma
in the event of Bir Umaunah,
who drove a spear through his back
and the point emerging from his chest.
He exclaimed
at that moment
Fuzdoo
warabulqada
I have triumphed
by the Lord of the Kaaba
Before then
passing away at the sea
But those words of I have triumphed by
the Lord of the Kaaba continued to haunt
Jabbar.
Leading him to question how haram could claim
victory
now that he had died.
Then he was told that in the Islamic
faith haram's death was considered martyrdom shahada.
And is therefore a supreme victory.
And this revelation, this news
pushed Jabbar to journey to Madinah,
where he ultimately took his Shahada and became
a Muslim.
So never allow the sight of brutality, death,
destruction
to cause you to lose sight of the
bigger picture of life.
That we are fundamentally
passersby in the life of this world.
We are here to carry out a short
exam,
and then we pass away and move on
to the next phase of the long journey
that ends with paradise or *.
So if it's not through war,
illness will be what claims us. If it's
not through illness, then it's a car crash
that claims us and so on. But we
must all die.
As Ibn Nubatatas Sabti, the poet, he said:
Whoever does not die by the sword will
die by another means. He said,
the causes of death are so many, but
the outcome, meaning death, is the same.
So whilst
everyone shall die, it's a minority who are
chosen as martyrs.
Whilst death is a standard for everyone,
Ma'at Adib is unique.
When we see the human cost
of Zionist brutality,
some will instinctively
ask,
what did they do to deserve this death,
those poor people?
Why not however reframe the question
In light of what you have just learned
by asking
What must they have done to deserve the
gift of Mahdi?
The same approach should be taken when confronted
with the sight, the heart wrenching sight of
innocent children who are brutally killed, a scene
that upholds the deepest emotions of most human
beings at least.
It's natural to question the tragedy.
But again, instead of asking
if they experienced so little of life,
what did they do to deserve dying so
early?
Why not reframe it and ask,
how kind is Allah to give them the
eternal embrace of paradise despite having experienced solitude
of life?
That child despite the pain of losing him
or her, gets the results that you and
I have to spend a lifetime chasing and
sacrificing for. Without needing to do anything but
to pass through the gateway of death.
That's of course not to desensitize
us from the pain or to normalize the
killing of a child, God forbid.
But the idea is to manage the pain
when it happens.
And it was the prophetic way of consoling
those who've lost children.
In short,
when pain befalls us in Palestine or any
other part of the world,
issues of faith
and doubt can arise when we apply an
inaccurate
and deficient
definition of victory.
Limiting it to the strategic one, the military
one
or to the saving of lives or protection
of land or safeguarding of assets.
These are the people with this misunderstanding
who you will hear leveling blame at Allah
Almighty and objecting at his Qadr, Qadr, his
decree.
Why have you abandoned us? Why have you
allowed this to happen?
No. It wasn't that Allah has abandoned us,
nor that He had failed at His promise.
It's simply a question of us having misunderstood
of what his promise looks like. So then
we hold Allah accountable for our misunderstanding.
None of this can erase the undeniable truth
that the people of Palestine or anyone else
who is brutalized,
if they meet Allah Almighty with patience, they
die upon their religion.
And if they are gifted with martyrdom,
then they have emerged victorious.
And this triumph
cannot be erased by bombs or tanks or
ethnic cleansing or genocide.
Those images of steadfastness
and contentment with all what Allah Almighty has
decreed. They are recorded now in people's memories
and recorded in history. The matter is settled.
These are the criteria for success and victory
that we must use not only in Palestine,
but in every part of the world
that experiences
a similar injustice.