by MrE Commenter
It is past 1:30 am and I have given up trying
to sleep.
Seeing the death and destruction of innocent
lives in Gaza is hitting me like little else has ever done. May be its because I
have three nieces and nephews, and it is only too easy to imagine them in that
situation, asking me the same question that Gazan elders have to face:
“Are
we going to die in our sleep tonight?”
“Why
are they bombing us?”
“Am I
going to be killed tonight? I was going to wear my favourite dress”
The only response I could possibly give to these
questions is silence, and in that silence are echoes.
The words that are echoing in my mind are HasbunAllahu
Wa Ni’mal Wakeel (roughly translated as Allah is sufficient for us and He
is the best disposer of affairs). These words echo in my mind, not because I am
trying to stave off any sense of responsibility for the genocide by fobbing it
onto the lap of God, and leaving it to Him to sort out.
No, these words echo in my mind, they echo with the same
voice that I first heard them – shouted into the smoke-filled air by a man who
had just seen his home being obliterated.
It was the voice of a man who has just seen every
possession in his life being vaporised, in one short moment. And this is being
repeated time and time again, in one neighbourhood after another, all across
the Gaza Strip.
 |
| If the word PAIN was to be redefined it will be for this man who has just lost all his grandchildren at once |
These are people who have survived decades of occupation,
put together something that could possibly be called ‘life’ against all odds –
only to have it torn from their grasp.
For these people every job, every schoolchild, every
meal, every day, every smile, every breath and every action is an act of
defiance against the occupier. A moment in their lives is more valuable than a
month full of my sleepless night.
It’s now past 2:30 am and I am no closer to falling
asleep. But when the morning comes, Insha’Allah (if Allah wills) I will
dedicate the day to doing something worthwhile for my Ummah, and the day after
that, and the day after that, and so on. May be then – just may be – I’ll
deserve to sleep at night.