The Palestinian Struggle Through Lens of the Shahada
With audio recording
This is the audio recording and transcript of a talk I gave to a group of over 100 seekers from all over the world on February 16th, 2024, entitled “The Spirit of Palestine: Heralding a New World.” The reason why I chose to center the shahada as the primary lens in which to view this struggle is multiple fold, but mainly, it is to pay tribute, in the fullest sense possible, the faith of the people of Palestine and their unmatched commitment to it. Although not all Palestinians are Muslim, Islam is the religion of the majority of the population. It is practiced devotedly and rather conservatively. So to attempt to bring in a lens of a diluted ‘new age spirituality’—while well-meaning— onto the Palestinian struggle is, in my view, a kind of spiritual colonialism. Do not get me wrong: I am heartened by the conscientious camaraderie and allyship of enlightened souls from across the world who are awakening to (or have long been champions of) the Palestinian struggle. But at the same time, it is important to remember that Palestinians are unapologetically obedient to Allah and his Prophet ﷺ first and foremost, a concept which most Westerners might find uncomfortable. To understand Palestinians is to understand Islam itself. Islam’s approach to truth and justice seeking, while indeed universal on the macro level, entails a micro-level commitment rooted in shari’a and individual accountability guided by the ideals of discipline and obedience. I suspect these questions will become ones that the global ‘spiritual community’ and non-Muslim allies have to grapple with in the near future.
Transcript
Like the early Muslims, the people of Palestine are being starved, besieged, and attacked. So few in number, resources and military power. And yet, despite this, they rise above the fickle fire, brimstone and brutality of their oppressor with their defiant faith and singular reliance on the promise of Divine protection and aid.
Inspired by their astounding, unshakeable faith, for this talk, I would like to invite us all to view the Palestinian struggle through simple yet transformative lens of the shahadah (the testimony), the main tenant of our faith: la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad Rasul Allah.
We see la ilaha illa Allah in the way Gaza is relying on Allah alone. No army, no nation (except Yemen), no savior, no Arab leader came to the rescue. They are quite simply alone with the One, alone with the Alone. Palestine is standing in defiance in the face of a nuclear superpower and all the oppressive forces of this so-called free world, awakening people worldwide by embodying in scriptural and theological accuracy just what it means to have no one or nothing other than Allah.
Even as the whole world has conspired against them, they proudly persevere, declaring to us on the outside: that we are the ones still trapped, we are the ones besieged in our mental and spiritual cages. We are the ones afraid to speak up, trapped in unjust systems, afraid to lose jobs and connections, to be cast as pariahs, while they are proud of their ghuraba’ status, as strangers in this world.
As such, we owe them everything, because they are liberating us from worldly attachments, from fear, from weak iman. Never in the contemporary period has Islam been embodied as a collective whole so proudly and beautifully.
So no wonder then, that we all feel that they have become our teachers, and this is not just lip service, there is a clear Qur’anic basis for this.
In Surah Qasas, verse 5:
وَنُرِيدُ أَن نَّمُنَّ عَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ ٱسْتُضْعِفُوا۟ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ وَنَجْعَلَهُمْ أَئِمَّةًۭ وَنَجْعَلَهُمُ ٱلْوَٰرِثِينَ
It is our will to favor those who were oppressed in the land, making them models of faith as well as successors.
Here we are, almost 5 months into this genocide, into this harrowing moment in the story of humanity, where everything feels unraveled and upended, Allah has roused us out of complacency and it is as if he is turning us en masse to this realization that we must too, rely on Him alone. We may feel more helpless now, but the reality is, we were always helpless, each breath we took, each bite, each night we lay on our pillows in safety, was not from our own accord, but from Him alone.
But now we feel this heightened sense of vulnerability and it is a clear reminder from Allah that this abode was never meant to offer security for us, it was never meant to be a firm footing for us, that we are mere wayfarers and travelers here. It is cetainly better to get this wake up call now than in the akhira.
Yet, no matter how spiritually rooted one is, it has still been extremely difficult to witness this harrowing injustice with seemingly no end in sight. The oppressors are now counting on our fatigue and burnout, to look away, but we must resist resignation on every level.
If you look closely, you can find brief reprieves for the people of Gaza, especially the children, when they are able to play and laugh and giggle despite everything. We must hold on to these shards of light amidst the atrocity. It is though when a Palestinian child laughs the whole world laughs with it, and when it cries, the whole world cries. And similarly, we know from the Qur’an that when one soul is killed unjustly, it is as if all of humanity is killed. In this way, the Palestinian spirit represents the highest ideal of the human spirit. And thus, a free Palestine constitutes a freeing of humanity itself.
Throughout this atrocity, we have seen babies take their first steps under bombs. We have seen elderly men make wudu’ under the rain. We have seen disheveled boys covered in rubble dust share their rations of water with kittens and dogs. We have seen a Gazan man in love spend the few remaining shekels in his pocket to buy red roses for his young giggling wife. We have seen the wide-eyed child Lama, the youngest reporter in Gaza, broadcast stories of her people’s pain. Although it is painful, the fact that Allah has given us an open, tender, feeling heart to stand as witnesses to the insatiable, haunting beauty of the human spirit in Gaza is itself a blessing.
I am sure you have also seen some videos of Gazzawi people stealing moments, finding refuge in the sea, saying, “you can take everything from us but you cannot bomb the sea.” in Gaza, the sea is their solace, after weeks of nonstop bombardment and displacement, there, they steal brief moments of peace. I see that as a metaphor for us to flee to Allah. run to Him, to flee to Allah, like it says in surah Dhariyat, verse 50:
فَفِرُّوٓاْ
إِلَى
ٱللَّه
So the batin, (interior) reality of these tests and hardships are a mercy, because they turn us back to the source, they make us run to the water, make us run back to Allah.
For me this image of our beloved Gazans swimming in the cold winter sea, and the stunning, peaceful Mediterranean coast, sits in juxtaposition with the ugliness of the occupation, the brutality of Israel’s hate. It couldn’t be more stark. I love that this is a virtual khanqa, because when we think of majalis al ilm or remembrance like this one, we think of physical zawiyas or spaces, and we know that they are described as pieces of heaven in which angels dwell, where angels visit.
Because warfare is ultimately a matter of narrative, there is great power in reclaiming our imagination. So let us reframe things: underneath the thahir (external manifestation) of this destruction and the rubble, the batin (the interior reality) of it Gaza is that is a piece of heaven, not only because the of the musk of the martyrs and their beautiful resilience, and how strengthened the iman of millions and even brought many people to Islam.
Let us take back the narrative and uphold Gaza as a source of light for all humanity, as a giant locus of dhikr on earth, of nonstop remembrance of Allah, a jewel by the sea, coveted by the salivating greed of colonial powers, its biggest wealth is faith: not only is to home of the burial ground of Hashim bin Abd Manaf, the Great Grandfather of the Prophet saws, the birthplace of Imam Shafi’i, it has more huffath (memorizers of the Qur’an) per capita than anywhere else in the world. It has been conquered, invaded and colonized numerous times, but it always remained triumphant, and today is also a ribat, a stronghold for protecting Bayt il Maqdis and the hollowed sanctuary of Al-Aqsa.
The sea of Gaza stands as a symbol of hope, and a reminder of God’s all encompassing mercy that is always there, as a refuge, waiting to flood us with its transcendental embrace that occurs when we let go and submerge ourselves in the ocean of tawhid.
Just like they can’t bomb the sea, no earthly army can bomb the faith of a believer whose heart is tethered to the throne of God, no one can destroy or take away that power.
Therein lies the secret of the Palestinian people and the source of their power.
A lot of Muslim mystics described this affair of living, this dunya as the ocean of life.
This brings me to the second part of the shahada, in describing the Palestinian struggle through “Muhammad rasul Allah”:
Our Beloved ﷺ described the dunya in oceanic terms as well, he said:
"This world in comparison with the Hereafter is like the amount of water one of you gets when you dips your finger in the sea." That’s it, just a film of water. So, realizing this is very much a balm for the heart, a matter of Prophetic perspective, that we should not give this dunya more that it is worth.
And how many Palestinian have you seen look to Allah, to the akhira as their ultimate destination? Their unparalleled faith was even praised, described, and prophesized by the Prophet saws himself more than 1400 years ago, who said:
“A group of people from my Umma will always remain triumphant on the right path and continue to be triumphant (against their opponents). He who deserts them shall not be able to do them any harm. They will remain in this position until Allah's Command is executed, where are they? Baytul-Maqdis and the precincts of Baytul-Maqdis.”
If you want to take away one message from my talk, let it be this: just as the Palestinian people will not be harmed by those who desert them, those who abandon you on for the sacrifices you will make on this path and struggle towards liberation will not harm you either.
Just as Gaza confronted the biggest Pharaoh of our time alone, so must we walk the path of Prophethood and confront the Pharaoh within us and in our communities.
Spiritually speaking: Israel represents the unhinged, unexamined ego gone rogue, the narcissist gaslighting, lying, wallowing in a victim complex, Gaza represents the nafs mutma’inna, the satisfied soul, the one who is solely reliant on Allah, the purified soul who is at peace its Lord.
So observe yourself more closely throughout this struggle for collective liberation, do we use Sufism as a crutch to bypass our ethical and moral responsibilities in this world? Or do we to truly live ‘la ilaha illa Allah’ and walk without fear to champion the oppressed and call for justice whenever we can as part and parcel of our spiritual practice?
Observe yourself the next time someone tyrannical makes weak excuses for evil, do you cower and shrink? Do you nod in agreement out of self-preservation, so as not to rock the boat? Or, like Sayiduna Musa, do you find ways to raise your voice for in the face of a tyrant, even if it shakes? Where is your moral courage at that moment? Or are you afraid to speak so as not be abandoned, to be deemed more accepted in this dunya (lower abode)?
So if this atrocity in Palestine is not leading us to do this work of deep auto-critique, this work of re-calibrating, of smashing the idols of the status quo and revolting against our cowardice, we are going to lapse back into “normalcy” when a ceasefire happens and the nafs will be elated to go back to business as usual.
But “normal” is a myth, it is a pacifier. It isn’t real. There can be no “business as usual” after this.
Gaza has exposed all masks, it acted like a filter between the sincere and the hypocrites. It has acted as a Revealer, exposing the disgusting duplicity of the so-called rule-based order. It is reminiscent in its qualities to the Calipha ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab, often known as ‘al-Faruq’ for his strict distinguishment between truth and falsehood. Gaza the Faruq is spearheading the resistance to an age-old imperialist, supremacist, anti-prophetic project.
Especially as people on the divine path, will we join the lionhearted Palestinian spirit and unravel and liberate our own selves and our communities from the shackles of our self-imposed mental and spiritual cages?
Whenever I feel very discouraged by all this cruelty we are seeing, I find solace in the words of the Shaykh al-Islam, Shaykh Ibrahim Niasse, the great loved of the Prophet ﷺ who said in his tafsir: “the harsher and uglier the oppression, the more beautiful the victory will be.” Therefore, freedom is not only a possibility, but a guarantee, because scripture and history have shown us time and again that no injustice lasts forever. If retaining one’s faith and humanity in the face of this atrocity is the true measure of victory, then the Palestinians have already won. The promise of dawn is always preceded by pitch darkness. The question, therefore, is not simply one of liberation. For that is an inevitability.
The question then, becomes of what actions, what sacrifices we will stand behind when that day comes.
To return to the oceanic imagery of Allah’s pervasive mercy, the only way to remain safe and victorious in these choppy waves is to hold firm to the rope of Prophecy.
Remember, that told us verbatim that they hate Prophecy, they chant “Muhammad maat”, before bombing Gaza and they use those chants to heckle worshippers at Al-Aqsa, too.
So this is very much a matter of spiritual warfare. People forget that defending Prophecy comes with great enmity. Just as Sayidna Ibrahim defied Nimrod, just as David stood in the face of Jalut, just as Musa confronted Pharaoh, and just as Sayidna Muhammad ﷺ stood against the jahiliyya of Quraysh, the path of prophecy must come with great sacrifices.
To think that one can be Muslim without the need to speak truth and justice in the face of worldly tyranny, in my view, wholly misses a holistic understanding of Islam and the Message of his Prophets, may peace be upon them. So let us cultivate that moral courage through a living connection with the Prophet, enlivening a connection with him ﷺ , in our hearts, knowing that he is alive and returns our salams. He is literally within us, he is in us, per the Qur’anic narrative.
[Read more about the Living Prophet, here.]
Let us connect with the soul of the beloved of God, ﷺ, who he himself was tortured, hungry, injured, alone and grieving. We know that he gazed upon this moment in the future, with such concern, such love for the People of Palestine, the heralds of a new world, a more just world.
So alhamduililah for the Palestinian spirit for embodying and enlivening within us the shahada of la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammadan Rasul Allah. Let us pray and hope to be with them, if not, let us love them, and be with whom we love.
May we witness and be a part of a free Palestine and a free world very soon.