Good Friday arrives this year amidst unrelenting grief. It finds us mid-genocide in the homeland of Jesus himself, as bombs scar the soil his feet once blessed, slaughtering the faithful who dare still remember him. Tragically, this reality has become a familiar one. But in this shadowed moment, two paths converge anew. Over the past month, countless souls around the world have been introduced to another saint — a man who, like Jesus, looked empire directly in the eye, and dared to reject it. A man whose story now echoes across centuries and borders in the face of a new battle.

As this Easter weekend calls upon worshippers to remember Jesus (peace be upon him), so too do millions hold the affectionate remembrance of Imam Hussain ع, whose name is lovingly sung in elegies echoing across the ashen skies of Iran and Lebanon. I speak to friends in these countries who find comfort amidst bombardment in his remembrance. Meanwhile, the churches around my neighborhood prepare for Easter. Between these two poles, the two saints have occupied much of my mind lately: their beginnings, their ends, their faith, their fire. These thoughts, coupled with the grief of watching the world do what it does, have given way to a lingering truth. Some roads are walked not once, but endlessly. The Via Dolorosa and the road to Karbala are not merely ancient cartographies of sorrow, but living paths. Paths that are perhaps more alive today than ever, stained fresh with the blood of today’s truth-bearers in Gaza’s rubble, in Lebanon’s grief, and in Iran’s resilience.

What follows, then, is a meditation of sorts, as I dwell on the memory of and parallels between these blessed saints, and watch alongside the world as their true inheritors bear an ancient burden.

I feel it necessary to acknowledge first, though, that as a Muslim, I hold fast to the Islamic belief that Jesus ع was not crucified, but ascended to God. That said, I reference elements of the Christian narrative of the Passion here not as a statement of my own belief but with the idea that my Christian readers may relate. More than that, I do so for the sake of recognizing a fundamental truth: at heart, people of honest faith, who love the One, True, Just God, carry within them the same spirit. Let us embrace that truth, opening our hearts and minds to see that the Via Dolorosa and the road to Karbala are but one road, walked in different centuries, under different skies, by the same devotion. May we have the courage to walk it, too.

In the metaphysical realm, every path is uniquely its own. But if there was ever a point where two might meet for a moment — briefly and beautifully touching, earth on earth, soul to soul — I would imagine it would be where the Via Dolorosa meets the road to Karbala.

The Via Dolorosa, the “Way of Sorrow,” traces the route Jesus took through Jerusalem as he, in the Christian narrative, journeyed toward the site where was to be crucified. Parallel to it winds the road to Karbala, where Imam Hussain’s small caravan of 72 was intercepted by the tyrant Yazid’s forces in 680 CE, forced to camp on hot, barren plains before being mercilessly slaughtered on Ashura, all for refusing to pledge allegiance to a tyrant. Both are pilgrimages of last resort, both end in what the cowardly call defeat. But defeat is a word invented by those who view this life as all there is. For knowers of truth, these trails aren’t relics of history, but living arteries of resistance, refreshed by today’s martyrs the world over.

What makes their stories so devastatingly beautiful is that neither saint walked their path of suffering as victims. Rather, their defiance in the face of empire cemented their posture as revolutionaries who understood that the scaffold, the cross, and the battlefield are not endings, but beginnings. And the revolutionary, as history so often reminds us, is always the victor. Not because he survives, but because he has declared to the oppressor that a life without dignity is not a life worth living — and in abandoning the earthly, they are rewarded with the everlasting. Via Dolorosa and the road to Karbala are not just geographic, then, but metaphysical.

Another parallel that captures this strikingly is the image of each saint carrying his own death. Jesus carried his cross, Hussain carried his burial shroud. One is the instrument of execution; the other, the garment of preparation. Both speak to the same consciousness: a soul so completely surrendered to God that death ceases to be something that happens to you and becomes something you give. The ignorant will call this passivity. The faithful know this is the highest form of agency a human being can exercise. The willingness to walk, eyes open, toward annihilation — all to fulfill a task bestowed upon them by God, and honor the truth. Hussain, after all, had to carry the weight of Islam’s existence, and Jesus the verification of divine mercy. In submitting to this, they embody what Kierkegaard referred to as ‘the knight of faith.’

Both saints were also, in their final hours, achingly solitary. Jesus prayed alone in Gethsemane as his disciples slept, just as Hussain offered his afternoon prayer alone on the sands of Karbala, his companions fallen. This estrangement of the truth-bearer is not incidental in either narrative, but structural. A corrupt world cannot abide the uncorrupted; it will isolate them before it annihilates them. When the moment of Hussain’s martyrdom is recounted in sermons every Ashura, it is precisely the emphasis on his loneliness that brings out the most intense woe. Beyond the isolation imposed by the enemy, another added layer of grief is how betrayed both men were. Jesus was notoriously betrayed by Judas; Hussain was betrayed by the people of Kufa who had offered him sanctuary, only to yield eventually to Umayyad threats. It was not only the outwardly villainous who delivered their death certificates, but those in proximity to them.

More fundamentally, both saints were — in their blood and their belief — living, breathing declarations of divine truth. They were defined by their courage, yes, but also their unwavering compassion, devotion to goodness, and commitment to justice. In the Islamic tradition, Jesus is the Word and Spirit of God. Imam Hussain, as the bearer of wilayah, was the prophetic inheritance made flesh — he of whom the Prophet ﷺ said with boundless love: "Hussain is from me, and I am from Hussain." To move against either was to move against the very light of God on earth. In their blood, both men carried forth the legacies of their righteous ancestors. Most obviously, the roots of their holy origins began with their venerated mothers. You cannot speak of Hussain without Sayeda Fatima al-Zahra, just as you cannot speak of Jesus without Mary (peace be upon them all). In Islam, both Mary and Fatima are named as the greatest women of all creation. They are uniquely beloved to God for their righteousness, their purity, their iron-spined strength. They honored what it means to have children who serve God, even if death is the price. Thus, through their own proximity to the Divine, they laid the groundwork for their sons to accept the paths they took. When the time came, Mary stood at the foot of the cross, and Fatima, though already departed from this world, is reported in narrations to have been present on Ashura in spirit, grieving over the mutilated body of Hussain. In life and death, they were mirrors of each other. Mary, too, is believed to have ascended to Heaven, just as Jesus was. Fatima, too, was denied her rights and owed respect before her death. And just as both mothers were persecuted by their societies, they had to bear witness to their sons experiencing the same. But beyond this sorrow lies a greater beauty, too. Together, mother and son form the complete picture of divine love and the pain it requires in an unjust world. Each pair walk paths of extraordinary devotion and divine mission; Mary and Fatima are the light in darkness, Jesus and Hussain are the shadows cast by standing against tyrants. The mothers sorrowed sanctuaries, the sons martyrs of mercy. They constitute, together, the full spectrum of spiritual resistance.

Saints are beyond comparison in their holy stature, yes, but the parallels between yesterday’s oppression and today’s has never been more abundantly clear. The similarities are not merely poetic — they are, if anything, an enraging indictment. Our current moment forces all to bear witness to the clear divide between truth and falsehood. One is either with Christ or with his killers; with Yazid or with Hussain. There is no middle ground, no matter how one may attempt to twist it through the gross language of ‘neutrality’. The name of the empire may have changed, but the oppressor’s very essence, and even blueprint, has not. What led to the shedding of pure blood then has led to the same now. Today, the lovers of Christ in Jerusalem and its surrounding grounds are subjected to the brutality of another bloodthirsty, Godless empire. The lovers of Hussain, too, are subjected to evil at the same hands, only a border away from Karbala’s holy earth. The same arrogance, the same dehumanization, the same theological justifications drape themselves over these illegal wars, only more than a millennium later.

In Karbala, Yazid’s army cut off access to water from the Euphrates, so Hussain’s camp spent three days languishing in thirst before their slaughter. Children wept under the desert sun, only to then have their water-bearer, Abbas, Hussain’s loyal brother, slaughtered as he went to retrieve some. Today, the open-air prison that is Gaza remains starved of the same mercy, with tiny bodies running after empty water trucks as the world stands idly by. In Karbala, women and children were taken captive as their tents were set ablaze, thrown into the prisons of Damascus and killed. Today, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Iranian children are pulled from rubble, their names read like a litany the world pretends not to hear.

There is one final injustice that empire always reserves for those it cannot truly defeat: mockery. Jesus and Hussain both were mocked and taunted cruelly before the oppressors dealt their final blow. Today’s innocent souls are spared no mercy either, be it at the hands of soldiers, politicians, or media — their deaths are not sufficient, their blood must be mocked, too. How treacherous and unforgiving is the repetition of history.

But it also reminds us: nobody lights a candle for Pilate. Nobody weeps for Yazid. Their names, where they survive at all, survive only as synonyms for cowardice and cruelty — footnotes in stories that were never theirs to begin with. It is Hussain who is wept for across continents every Ashura, it is Jesus whose name fills cathedrals every Easter morning. Such is the promise of a Just God, written into the very fabric of history: that those who stand for truth are not merely remembered — they live. And those who raise their hands against the light are, in the end, consumed by their own darkness. Today’s oppressors — the child-killing war-wagers — live on, yes, but we must find comfort in the truth that they too will meet their ugly end soon. They can mock and deceive and light the world on fire, but they will be dealt with eventually. And who better to avenge the fallen than those promised to return to us: the great grandson of Imam Hussain — Imam Mahdi — and Jesus, son of Mary.

And so, just as their masters were, so too are today’s truth-bearers victorious. They exemplify daily, on empty stomachs and scorched tongues, what it means to reflect the brilliance and bravery of Hussain. Hussain, who died thirsty and alone, but said “Far from us is humiliation.” In their courage, steadfastness, and faith, they remind us that the light of truth will never die, even if only a few recognize it lives. The Promise of God ensures that it will rise, recur, and reappear in the next generation, in the next resistance, in the next mother who watches her son walk toward the checkpoint and prays not for his safety, but for his courage — because she has learned, from the greatest mothers who ever lived, that some prayers are bigger than safety. The tragedy is that such bravehearted spirits constitute the few. And we, the many, the billions, have somehow convinced ourselves that remembrance of and love for these men lives in the heart alone — that it can be honored without being tested in action. That weeping for Hussain absolves us of the obligation to stand where he stood. That crossing ourselves on Good Friday is sufficient tribute to a man who carried a cross through a city that wanted him dead. It is not, never has been, and never could be sufficient. And so we must recognize something essential: the road is still open. The Via Dolorosa does not end in a museum, the road to Karbala is not a thing of the past. They are walked every day by the mothers who refuse to be silent, the journalists who film their own city’s destruction, the aid workers who stay when every instinct says flee, the young men who stand at checkpoints without weapons and do not lower their eyes. These are the true lovers of Jesus and Hussain. Not the ones who know the details of their stories best, but the ones who live them most faithfully.

The masses ask what it means to truly live. Today’s truth bearers need not ask. They know: the answer lies beneath the weight of the cross, and glimmers beneath the sun of Karbala.

Glory be to the beloveds of God, and those who live like them. Bloodsoaked feet on a beautiful path, they light our shadowed world. May we muster the courage to do the same.

You may enjoy:

Share Filhaal

The very fact that it only took me perhaps an hour, at most, to go from idea to execution — a process afforded an infinitely quicker follow through than my other ideas, who always, poor things, linger too long in the contemplation stage — has left me thinking. What took only 60 minutes: from a conversation at home to a trip to the jewelry store and then the piercing studio — sparked an internal conversation with myself that has, two months later, not yet ended.

I come from a family where natural stones are the greatest gift one could give or receive. Hands, male or female, are adorned with aqeeq, yaqut, dur-e-najaf. Perhaps the affinity sounds superficial or silly, but for those familiar with the concept, they’ll know this is a custom following a long tradition once held by great saints, including the blessed Prophet ﷺ. Because my hands are full now, I seldom think of buying new stones. However, when I came across an article on the benefits of wearing one’s birthstone, I realized that I didn’t wear mine (April’s diamond). I considered another ear piercing so I’d always have one on me, but have never quite liked the look of a cluttered ear. When I voiced this to my sister, she offered a simple solution: I should get a nose piercing. I looked at her with her dainty gold hoop, and then at my mother seated beside her, who I have only ever known with a big diamond flower smack dab in the middle of her face.

One unbelievably long needle later, I too had a diamond flower adorning my nose.

In the subcontinent, it’s far from uncommon for a woman to have a nose piercing. My mother, grandmother, sister, aunt, friends, etc., have all worn a stud or ring, and so by comparison I was quite late to the party. It is, though, in many ways a symbol of womanhood. The decision to get it when I did, then, could not have come at a more apt time in my life. I had found myself on a hamster wheel of epiphanies over the last few months, particularly in the weeks leading up to the piercing. The reality of muliebrity, and existing as a young woman in male-dominated spaces, had dawned upon me with particular force. Words fail me now as they did then; it is an experience that defeats language at the moment it matters most — tightening the throat, stilling the pen, and leaving only the crushing weight of the thing itself.

I write this, too, just having spent the last few months in Islamabad, where such epiphanies come with countless (and merciless) added layers. Only but a moment in the hilly city’s main supermarket is needed to offer one the full picture of its diversity. The image of woman will vary from those clad in Western dresses with fresh blowouts to the (very) occasional blue burqa. It’s nothing worthy of widened eyes, but something that makes me consider how no matter what, here and everywhere, a woman is a woman before all else. She is recognized and judged as such, whether covered or not, makeup-wearing or not, wrinkled or botoxed. You are seen before you are heard — veiled or unveiled — looked at before you are listened to. Every tiny thing about you is examined and poured into an assumption, including something as seemingly meaningless and minuscule as a piece of jewelry. It is a reality every bit as exhausting as it is absurd, and yet, it is a truth as old as time itself. A grief, too, that defies expression.

Accordingly, Islamabad’s daily gift to me was a catalogue of sighs and swallowed complaints. Alas, though, this is the universal inheritance for women, and always has been, from times and tribes beyond my imagination. This remembrance compelled me to recall the living room of my family home in Islamabad. Childhood memories are scattered with scenes of playing within its warm boundaries, the paintings that adorned its walls etched in the archives of my joy. One such was the portrait of a woman from nearly a century ago, who, like me, also wore a large nose ring, and also had her fair share of complaints. The woman in question was my great grandmother Mehrbano, my nana’s mother. An Iranian woman living in pre-partition India, she was renowned for her beauty and grace, as well as for the jewelry of ‘sixteen brides’ that made music as she walked. I have known her only through such passed down stories and that living room portrait, but recent circumstances have afforded her memory a comfortable seat in the foyer of my mind.

She would have been dismissed, by any casual observer, as perhaps a woman of surfaces. But she was also a woman who, despite her apparent privilege and fortune, experienced great trial and tribulation. When she decided to divorce her husband, her father and brothers disowned her. For any woman to do so at the time was already taboo — for a woman of such status to do so was unthinkable. With three young children, nonetheless, and despite the pressures of the era and its norms, she persisted, refusing to give up when it would have been easier to do so. God, ever so Merciful, rewarded her patience with victory. She went on to remarry my great grandfather, have five more children, and live a life that defied the smallness of the world she was born into.

She was eclectic and fierce, just as steadfast as she was spirited. But she was also someone who, based on appearance alone, would have been reduced to nothing beyond label or looks. I know, though, that she married my great grandfather for love, and he was a man so thoroughly intriguing, so devoted to his intellectual pursuits and passions, that I know something in her had to have mirrored that fire. Their home hosted dinner parties decorated with intellectuals and poets, where discussions of Pakistan’s eventual creation blossomed. I know as well as any woman how often we are minimized in recollections of history and its great happenings, and so I imagine that dining room in Delhi and wonder about Mehrbano’s place in it. What she’d say — because she wasn’t one to shy away from sharing — which ideas she helped cultivate, which beliefs she too held with conviction. How desperately I wish I could know, travel in time and catch a glimpse. But in this desire lies another sorrow, for her death before partition meant she would be put to rest across the border. With India’s visa prejudice, I wonder if I’ll ever be able to visit her grave, or roam the streets she once did.

Regardless, as the hamster wheel continues to spin, I’ve been thinking of her devotion to getting what was rightfully hers, of her commitment to having her voice heard. Women have, in every time and place, exhibited a kind of strength that is forged differently from that of men — not because men lack it, but because they are not subjected to the particular ordeals that make our sacrifices so costly, our commitments so quietly heroic. But woman is the first teacher after all — it is she who educates a child, and in that contributes to the shaping of society in the most fundamental of ways. What she speaks up for, what she endures, what she refuses to accept — these decisions form the architecture of the world. Carrying the weight of this knowledge, as every woman does, makes strength not only a virtue, then, but an obligation. It is not easy, of course, but creation never is. How shameful, then, that such truths are buried beneath language that has a vocabulary only for what one wears. I think of the women targeted by this now more than ever — those of Mehrbano’s native Iran, who carry their obligation like none other, the backbone of a 47 year long revolution that continues to challenge the world.

Although I never could meet her, I suppose in some ways I know her still. I’m always told I carry my mother’s face, who looks like her father, who looked like his mother Mehrbano. I’d like to hope that beyond some physical resemblance, a nose piercing, and our shared faith*, I perhaps inherited a sliver of her courage. So when I grow weary of this world and its trials for women, I remember her and all those before and beside me. I’ll resist the urge then, amidst small minds and wandering eyes, to dwell in despair over the gazes of the earthbound. I’ll find solace in a greater fact, because diamonds bring clarity to the wearer, after all. What grief is to be held when the sky needs lifting? The remembrance of Al Basir, the only One who truly sees, is enough to set one free — and Who could be sweeter company?

Share Filhaal

*Though she was Shi’i, which I feel was a defining element of her identity and spirit, out of her eight children and dozens of grandchildren + great grandchildren, interestingly enough, only my mother, siblings, and I share that label.

On a warm February evening in Karachi, the deep azure of the Arabian Sea blends so seamlessly with the night sky one would not believe they are separate entities. Birds adorned in white rest gently upon the lapping waves, sometimes rising slightly as if to dance above them, but only slightly, and only sometimes.

They decorate the scene with such ethereal ease you’d hardly remember they have wings — wings that can take them anywhere, liberating them from the city they chose instead to share with us. I ask my Lord to forgive me for the envy I feel at the thought. It’s as if they belong here just as much as those who swim beneath them, though I know that the tides will change and they will leave, and I will too. Ivory against navy, they nearly glow, emissaries from heaven extending their grace to the sorrowed eyes of this frail city’s frailer humans. The sounds of the still evening cascade around us — symphonies so delicate in their embrace they feel nearly transcendental. But they remind me too, of those that long to be sung, and are suffocated instead.

And so I return, not without resistance, to my original woe, of what is and what appears to be. In this life, in this body, in this land, I must speak in metaphor. I am stripped of the right to clarity, to honesty. Language becomes victim and aggressor in my throat, lodged there as a ghost now haunting every rise and fall of my chest. In this life I am what others see, never what I say. I am afforded the praise given to the mourning doves and yet barred from offering a song. Days pass and the phrases make a mockery of my stubborn hope with their refusal to die; they resurrect themselves with each sunrise as if to mock the breath I almost take but am never allowed. In their apparent immortality lies the very tyranny that birthed this truth.

Amongst men who have forsaken God and forged all they have, with gazes that never lower and tongues that know no truth, I save my life by swallowing my spirit, dying a million deaths to prevent another. What a heavy grief to carry something half dead half alive, something you cannot bury, something that cannot breathe. So I make my offerings, smiles and silence, and in the peak of this anguish am reminded of the saints whose names I carry, whose memory offers sacred solace in the midst of such profane. It is their glory, and their glory alone, that lingers in my blood and my bones, the only oxygen keeping me alive amidst this unceasing entombment. In the shadows of the birds I almost hear them whisper, echoed reminders sneaking out of the blue; nothing is truly hidden. It is not I alone, but God too, who bears the knowledge of what ought to be said, and what, for now, cannot be.

There is always a dawn to come, even if one does not live to see it. The prison guards and profiteers, the judges and juries who impose the existence of these metaphors shall ultimately submit to the only truth there is and ever will be. When that sun rises, no threats, nor image, nor honor, shall hold me hostage, neither shall any grief bear any weight. When that sun rises, when liberation lifts the physical and announces the truths I must now only lament, my million little deaths will be forgotten. They will vanish into the blur of blue that once was, and I, freed at last, will fly like the birds of the Arabian sea.

This is the second post in my Quran reflections series; you can read the first edition here. I acknowledge that a more thematic architecture might serve these scattered, simple reflections better, yet they remain what they are: scribbles from my notebook that I have simply chosen to make visible. Their seemingly random constellation reflects this honest genesis.

Disclaimer: I am not a religious scholar or tafsir expert, and this is a basic reflection from a trying believer. The thoughts I share here are purely a product of my amateur understanding and curiosity, and are not intended to be presented/perceived as an authoritative interpretation. God forgive me if I displease Him in any way, and may He accept from us our sincere seeking.

“We have revealed to you the Book as an explanation of all things, a guide, a mercy, and good news for those who ˹fully˺ submit.” [16:89]

The Holy Quran, our blessed gift, drips with majesty and evokes awe in every syllable. The undying beauty of it lies in the truth that it was sent as a mercy and a guide to humanity, as a comfort and a compass. We are called to read it not only to know our faith and Creator, but to discover ourselves and better understand both the visible and the veiled. We are invited, ever so gently, into the infinite Light.

Every verse is a universe of its own and a testament to the glory and mercy of the Creator. Each, thus, is worthy of and has warranted devoted and individual scholarly exploration, as has been done so through tafsir for the last 14 centuries. It is crucial for a proper understanding of each verse to understand the surah it’s within, the verses preceding and succeeding it, and the context in which the surah was revealed, for all of these factors significantly shape the actual essence and validity of each interpretation.

Awe envelops me anew whenever I turn to this sacred Book, but there are some verses I often find myself consistently amazed by. That is not to say the entire Word isn’t a perpetually unfolding miracle, but there are some statements I find so magnetic and charged, so inviting into their mystery, that I find myself devoured by my curiosity and longing to be close to the Divine. I recognize my limitations in appreciating the Quran fully as it deserves due to my lack of fluency in Arabic, but its glory is that even when translated from its original tongue, it still touches the heart in a way that nothing else can.

When I come across certain verses, it is as if time has slowed to a gentle stop. Noise vanishes, my surroundings become irrelevant, my modern distraction ridden brain calms. I always, without fail, have to stop and give in to this change inviting me towards reflection, no matter how many times before I have encountered it or how well I think I understand it. Each time, such is the miraculous nature of the holy Book, my mind and spirit seem to be resurrected in complete and utter wonder. It’s as if I’m seeing those words for the first time, and am at once inundated with thoughts and queries of their magnanimous nature.

So, here are twelve of those verses and some reflections, starting with one that has been at the forefront of my mind and heart recently:

“O believers! What is the matter with you that when you are asked to march forth in the cause of Allah, you cling firmly to the Earth?” [9:38]

SubhanAllah. I love the questions in the Quran. What a mighty mercy they are. This verse has been on my mind ever since I recently attended a beautiful talk by Dr. Mohammed Tahir, a British-Iraqi surgeon who traveled to and worked in Gaza throughout the genocide. Even the thought of his story brings tears to my eyes; he is a man of unwavering faith, a living embodiment of Husayni courage and conviction, Allah bless him. When he quoted it, the room, though already attentively listening, seemed to energetically shift. The silence thickened with new weight, as if we all felt the crushing heaviness of our collective shame descend upon us.

How much clearer can this verse be? What is the matter with you? Allah asks us. A reminder that we are our own greatest enemy when we defy our very purpose: which is to serve Allah and His cause. For those who have been listening, we have heard this question countless times in this age; the people of Gaza, the children of Gaza, tiny yet more mighty than us all, have been asking us over and over again: Where are you? Do you not see us? In other words — what is the matter with you?

Sadly, we live in a time where the people of righteousness are those who ask this and those without the answer dare to say we are all one and the same. Allah forgive us, for cling we do, to this temporary cold Earth, one that no matter how hard we try to make permanent, shall never be. So little is being asked of us, and yet the sound of silence deafens where there should be the thunder of marching feet — masses moving, mobilizing in service of all that is good and true. It seems with every passing day that my life is now a cycle of repeatedly echoing this question to the void, wondering what is so wrong with humanity that we have allowed our world to drown itself in the ugly sins of apathy and laziness. This poisonous laziness is our refusal to march when called to — and we are being called to every moment, every day…yet we cling firmly to the Earth, who we desecrate more and more each dusk and dawn. SubhanAllah. ‘What is the matter with you?’ the Divine asks. Can you fathom it? The Creator of the Heavens and Earth, the One who spoke existence into being, asks you, asks me, asks us: What is the matter with you? Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me, I say. I wish I knew.

“Whenever someone is touched by hardship, they cry out to Us, whether lying on their side, sitting, or standing. But when We relieve their hardship, they return to their old ways as if they had never cried to Us to remove any hardship!” [10:12]

I love love love when Allah addresses us so frankly in the Quran — when He references these very real, intimate moments we all experience. What is beautiful beyond measure about verses like this is that they remind us not only of how profoundly similar we are across all time and space, but of how Allah, in His omniscience, truly sees us through every phase of our existence. He is the all-seeing, the all-hearing, the all-knowing. In that is both resplendent glory and grace, as well as awe and angst. On that note, I am, as I assume most people would be, overtaken by guilt when I’m confronted with these words. Instinctively, my body adjusts to straighten my posture, my eyes widen, and my lips begin whispering repentant apologies.

Praise be to Allah; He is the ultimate desire, the truest Beloved. In His embrace I find refuge, in any distance I create I find only discomfort, forcing me to return. True contentment lies not in the absence of sorrow, but in anchoring oneself to the Divine — through joy and through grief’s inevitable companionship. In times of blessing and trial (though those too are a blessing), recognizing the presence and mercy of Allah is the key to unlocking the peace we desperately seek.

This verse also reminds me of a familiar scene often played out in film and television: a non-religious character, when struck by catastrophe, suddenly begins pleading to God. God rightfully condemns them for their ingratitude and selective belief. However, this verse speaks to us all. It is easy, perhaps, as a person of faith to look down upon such people for their lack of belief otherwise — but your devotion will never strip you of your Adamic origin. You do not miraculously transcend fallibility simply because you believe in God continuously, not merely in moments of extremity. This verse serves as an urgent reminder to acknowledge our weaknesses, the inherent fragility of our faith, our humanity. Let us be persistent in our devotion to the only One worthy of it…if there is anything we shall commit to consistently, let it be Him. Let us strive to be grateful to and present with God in all seasons, and let us recognize in His boundless glory that He is deserving of our praise amid both radiant sunrise and the descent into a dark night.

“The human being never tires of praying for good things; but when adversity afflicts him, he despairs and loses hope.” [41:49]

In Greater Sins by Ayatollah Shirazi, it’s narrated that in one tradition1, the second greatest sin, surpassed only by shirk, is said to be despair. Not murder, violence, or adultery, but, in fact, the abandonment of hope. SubhanAllah.

We live, it seems, perpetually balanced upon a trembling seesaw — forever swaying between hope and hopelessness, euphoria and desolation, ascent and descent. How much simpler, how much lighter our existence might become if we truly understood that adversity, too, is a blessing veiled in difficult cloth. Perhaps then we might not commit this grave sin. Losing hope is a slow, deliberate death we consciously inflict upon ourselves. In surrendering to despair, we become both executioner and victim in one breath, slaying hope with our hands. How innocent and guilty we are all at once, how easily we fall into the devil’s silken snare. But perhaps that, too, is what makes us human, what distinguishes us from the angels: the perpetual struggle to rise again.

I think of moments where I have fallen into that suffocating abyss, as we all have at one point or another. It is as though one exiles oneself from light, locks the door, and throws away the key. When we’re in that dark space, devoid of hope, we abandon tawakkul — trust in Allah — and in doing so, we not only rob ourselves, but insult the Divine. What an unthinkable ingratitude, to doubt the very One who fashioned mercy from His own essence! As Dostoevsky said — a sin that can only be described as our worst, for in doing so, we have betrayed and destroyed ourselves, ultimately, for nothing.

With the state of the world today, too, I consider how despair is no longer a private sin, but a crime against humanity. I recently heard someone say that if you’re feeling hopeless, you’re too comfortable, and subhanAllah, how true. Hope is not a luxury for the fortunate; it is a collective trust we owe to one another. To abandon it is to abandon the wounded who seek its light — to drag them with us into the depths of a darker night.

“And indeed We have employed every kind of parable for mankind in this Quran. And man is the most contentious of beings.” [18:54]

I am perpetually struck by this verse because of its piercing clarity and undeniable truth. What is humanity if not fundamentally contentious? Our world grows noisier than ever before, cacophonous with argument and discord, and yet the merest glance at history reveals how we have, with tragic consistency, remained faithful to our quarrelsome nature across millennia. We have, as God says here, debated the Divine needlessly so, as though the finite could reason with the infinite. None, alas, can escape the gravitational pull of the original sin: arrogance. We dare quarrel with God only because of our nafs, our ego’s ravenous hunger to satisfy itself. In doing so, we only lose, betraying the blessing of aql Allah has bestowed upon us.

“…Whoever takes a life—unless as a punishment for murder or mischief in the land—it will be as if they killed all of humanity; and whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity.” [5:32]

People often invoke this verse to illuminate Islam’s moral code and inherently peaceful doctrine, and rightfully so. In this time of watching the Palestinian genocide unfold, though, this verse seeps into me with such a heavy, devastating sadness that my understanding of it has been completely transformed…how could it not have been? I think of every soul unjustly torn from existence by the war-machine, by violent fanatics, by evil incarnate. Every man, woman, and child stripped from this life with no mercy — each a universe of potential, full lives stretching before them, dreams waiting to bloom. Truly, if there is any single truth we have been forced to witness in this apocalyptic time, it is the death of humankind itself.

God is articulating in this verse that if you sever one life, it is as if you have annihilated all of humanity — a statement reflecting the cosmic magnitude of this sin, yes, but also, I believe, speaking to something far deeper: each person is a universe unto themselves, infinite and irreplaceable. In this way, God is reminding us of the sacred, inherent worth and inexplicable value of each person. Each human being has such a necessary place in this world, their life interwoven so completely with the collective tapestry, that to erase their presence is to strip the world of an entire potential future. Consider for example the butterfly effect, which suggests that one seemingly infinitesimal action can irrevocably alter the trajectory of history. Now think for a moment if a switch was flipped and all of humanity was killed in an instant. It would be the end of the world, essentially, which, of course, will eventually be a reality, though we do not know when. Allah specifically says elsewhere in the Quran that only He knows when the Hour will come; it goes without saying that only He can usher it, for He is the one and only Creator of the world, and only He has the ability and right to bring its end forth. If one were then to unjustly kill another, thereby in the view of God killing all of humanity, is it not as if one has ended the world? In a more direct sense, as the butterfly effect suggests, they would have — because they stripped the world of a reality it could have had2. Only Allah can give life and take it, for any of us to do so unjustly is to infringe on His right, and who are we to do so?

“Your Lord has not abandoned you, nor does He despise you.” [93:3]

This verse evokes deep emotion in us all, I’d like to think…it speaks to us in language both direct and intimate, reminding us that the Word is both a direct address to the holy messenger ﷺ and to humanity. Yes, Allah is addressing the holy prophet specifically here, for this was revealed after 6 months of no revelation, which led to him falling into a depression — but the inclusion of these words in the eternal Book is also Allah addressing every single human being who will ever read it. He is reminding each of us of His nature: loving and present. How many times, how explicitly does He tell us that He is love itself, more tender than any mother could be, more boundless than our minds can fathom? He is present — even in suffocating silence, even in the the depths of loneliness — ever-merciful, ever-near.

I am struck too by the beautiful, tender humanity of our blessed RasulAllah, whose blessed nature warranted such loving consolation — his gentle heart, his innocence, his capacity to feel. This also reminds me of what is narrated in Surah Maryam: the Holy Virgin Mary, at the unbearable apex of her suffering, expressed that she wished ‘she had died and been a thing long forgotten’. Here we find God’s most beloved creations — His favorite man and His favorite woman — expressing with such raw vulnerability their emotional devastation, their human anguish. It is a profound reminder for all of us that it is no transgression to feel as we do, that Allah does not despise us for our tears and our pain. Rather, He exists as an eternally present comfort, praise be to Him.

“Perhaps you dislike something which is good for you and like something which is bad for you. Allah knows and you do not know.” [2:216]

Oh how I adore this verse with such intensity…I will never, could never, tire of its boundless wisdom. I feel like a flower blossoming anew whenever I encounter it, kissed again by the golden rays of first light.

There is a true comfort in surrendering to the truth that Allah knows and we do not…it is a devilish deceit to believe that knowing everything will somehow save us or offer us solace. We can’t even know everything in the first place — but to limit ourselves in the belief that we are 100% certain about some things is only to do ourselves a disservice. When we truly acknowledge that Allah alone is all-knowing, and that He embodies perfect wisdom, justice, and mercy, we liberate ourselves from the tyranny of our limited understanding.

I am reminded too in this verse of the jihad al nafs3, the sacred battle against our own desires and ego. When we construct our lives around what we like and dislike, we crown ourselves, not Allah, as the architects of our destiny. What a devastating loss that would be!

“Whenever one of them is given the good news of a baby girl, his face grows gloomy, as he suppresses his rage.” [16:58]

It is a sorrow that will never leave me: the knowledge that for far too many, the ultimate crime in this world is being born female. I will never, ever understand how despite the Word of God saying this so clearly — that it is good news to have a baby girl — so many supposed believers of this message live their lives demonizing the daughters of this world. They condemn them to a life of servitude and unending struggle, in brazen defiance of what Allah has decreed. Fourteen centuries have passed and still, the darkness described in this verse persists across cultures and continents, among both Muslims and non-Muslims who perpetuate this ancient treachery. Their faces grow gloomy indeed, their rage thinly concealed. And yet, we can find solace in the immutable truth that Allah has declared in His unchanged, perfected, eternal Book: to be female is nothing less than a gift. We can find solace in the truth that this world and its people are temporary, but the justice of Allah is eternal. Praise be to God, who knows the deepest truth of all things.

“Indeed, those who believe and do good will have the Gardens of Paradise as an accommodation, where they will be forever, never desiring anywhere else.” [18:107-108]

The final four words of this verse move me so…I fail to find the words to sufficiently express what my heart and soul whisper. To never desire anywhere else…to be so free. Let us pray to taste even just a sliver of such liberation, to sit in its light, even if just for a moment.

“Then perhaps you would kill yourself through grief over them, [O Muḥammad], if they do not believe in this message, out of sorrow.” [18:6]

I am always deeply saddened and moved when I read this verse, because it captures with such clarity the magnitude of the beloved Prophet’s heart…the weight of his ache, his love, his immeasurable goodness. What more perfect title could exist for him than Rahmatul lil-alameen…mercy to all creation.

Imagine feeling so deeply for the souls of others that your grief reaches this pinnacle. He was the very embodiment of compassion, of empathy, of love made manifest. I am overwhelmed with adoration for him when I read this, and consumed with shame at how I feel we have collectively failed him in every conceivable way. If nearly two billion people claim belief in this message, supposedly, yet fail to actualize it, does this not warrant profound grief? And if we, ordinary human beings, feel such sorrow at the state of our Ummah, we cannot even begin to approach the magnitude of his pain. Let us thank Allah for the immeasurable blessing of our beloved messenger, and beseech Him to forgive us for our endless shortcomings and failures.

اللّهُمّ صَلّ عَلَى مُحَمّدٍ وَآلِ مُحَمّدٍ

Allah, send your blessings upon Muhammad and the household of Muhammad.

“And of His signs are the night and the day, and the sun and the moon. Do not bow down to the sun, nor to the moon, but bow down to God, Who created them both, if it is Him that you serve.” [41:37]

It is not uncommon, I believe, to encounter people who worship the miracle, not the miracle-maker. They speak so intensely of figures and phenomena, of those that shed light on the Divine, that they seemingly forget their glory exists only because they are signs of The Glorious. The sun and the moon, in all their beauty and illumination, are yet another creation of the Creator. They are a means through which Allah provides for us, not the providers themselves.

I used to wonder as a child why shirk was so emphasized as the worst of all sins — and this verse makes me ponder that perhaps because it is so slippery in nature. Shirk possesses a treacherous, almost imperceptible nature, a seductive whisper rather than a roar. Even the righteous can stumble into its snare through the veneration of miracles rather than the Miraculous One — and in this very subtlety lies its lethal power. Let us always anchor Allah at the absolute center of all our endeavors and gratitude, for He alone is worthy. Let us return, again and again, to the One whose signs fill the heavens, yet whose essence transcends them all. May every awe we feel guide us back to its true object — the Origin of all wonder, the Light behind every light.

“Say, ‘Consider this: if your water were to sink ˹into the earth˺, then who ˹else˺ could bring you flowing water?’” [67:30]

This is the closing ayah of Surah Mulk, which I try to read before going to sleep each evening. No matter how exhausted I am before and while reading, each time without fail, this verse awakens something within me. I’m left eyes half open but mind fully active, imagining a world without water.

It’s simple yet profound; a reminder that Allah alone is the Creator, the Sustainer, the Source. I envision the sea and imagine it emptying into nothingness — its vastness evaporated, its depths gone still. What would we do then, I wonder? What could we do? SubhanAllah, nothing! We are nothing but witnesses, no matter how much we wish to believe otherwise. Man will never be creator, something that ought to be echoed now more than ever.

Today, we find ourselves in an age where men have truly convinced themselves they are gods — or at the least, that they have forged gods through technological molding, via ill-fated LLMs. Their worship of the temporary: technology and their temporal selves, has left a massive stain on society in the shape of their grotesque sin. Our collective future is increasingly now shaped by the ‘innovations’ they proudly speak of as feats for humanity, the sound of birds’ songs replaced by their booming declarations of man-made divinity. In reality, of course, everything they ‘create’ is spiritually corrosive and environmentally destructive, eating away at the fabric of our existence. The data centers that power their tyranny swallow oceans of water, accelerating a crisis they are powerless to solve.

Yet, whenever I feel I’m drowning in the pool of sorrow this truth has carved, nearly hopeless (but not!) — I remember this verse. I don’t know how water scarcity will progress or how scientists plan to solve the issue, but I do know one thing. If our water were to sink into the Earth — no billionaire, algorithm, or artificial anything could bring us flowing water. How could they?

Share Filhaal

Is he in an apple? It sounds almost absurd, the most fragile of interpretations, yet I can’t let the idea go. The apple — symbol of Eden, of the first temptation, the fruit that tore open the distance between heaven and earth. Sacred because it belonged once to paradise; profane because it became the vessel of our fall. In that way, he exists in a liminal space between the holy and the human. To place a dervish there is to imagine redemption spiraling within sin, a dance that turns transgression into transcendence. The apple becomes not a mark of disobedience but the site of remembrance, where surrender restores what desire once severed. Perhaps the artist meant to depict this; that to live is to whirl endlessly between the sacred and the fallen, until devotion engulfs one in a light so bright that all he sees is the glory of the garden, liberated from the constraints it hides.

Or is he in a leaf? A reflection of the earth we call home — green, grounded, ever turning toward light. He is the most connected to it after all; his spin, too, is a return to harmony with all that breathes. He too is grounded, turning as leaves do in the wind: helpless yet graceful, submissive yet alive, each motion a surrender to the rhythm of God. In his whirling there is no resistance, only release — an echo of creation itself, revolving in quiet praise.

And if it is a heart… whose? His own? Or perhaps ours, the collective heart of humanity? Maybe he lives inside us all, spinning in the hidden chambers of our being. Beneath the hum of blood and breath, there he is — twirling on, pure and persistent, untouched by the corrosion of time. His dance becomes the pulse of faith itself: it is not the beating of an organ that keeps him alive, but the remembrance of the Divine who created it.

Every night I look at it again. The dervish in his apple-leaf-heart — an emblem of balance, of beauty born between loss and love, between Eden and Earth. I think of how I wish I were him, liberated in the whim of a whirl, the only sound around me the hum of my beating heart, quietly calling out Ya Hayyu Ya Qayyum. Then I remind myself that even when the heart feels fractured or faith feels faint, there is still a dervish spinning somewhere within us. His motion is quiet but constant, heard by those who listen closely enough. I look at him again, and remember that faith, too, is a kind of eternal spinning. Perhaps we may stumble from time to time, but as we spin and spin, slowly, we lean into the light.

I place a necklace of poetry

around the neck of the moment,

and flee the limitations of time.

— Hanane Aad, The Tools of Patience

(Translated by Aad and John Wilmot)

It must have been nearing midnight, an early August evening in 2018. I was about to close my laptop and surrender to sleep when something caught my eye. I was mindlessly scrolling Facebook, for God knows what reason, when I noticed the word URGENT illuminate my blue-lit screen.

Curious, I skimmed the post, reading a plea from a grad student for someone to step in as president of the King’s College London Poetry Society before the deadline, for otherwise, it would cease to exist. Seeping through the screen before me was a sadness so thoroughly present in the poster’s tone that, without thinking, I messaged her after barely a moment’s deliberation.

I now consider that perhaps it was not so sudden after all.

My great-grandfather was a barrister who despised the fact. Despite the years of study that carried him across blue seas and skies to London and Lincoln’s Inn, he spent his days not in the courtroom, but in the company of his true beloved, a book. In the 1920s, his haveli was renowned for its dinner parties — night after night, he welcomed a dozen souls, many a time people he had never met before, drawn from every class and creed to enjoy an evening of fine food, discussion, and of course, poetry. Among his guests often sat his close friend and legendary poet, Muhammad (‘Allama’) Iqbal.

It is a profound sorrow that post-partition, the depression invoked by the loss of his home meant he spent most of his days in silence. What could never die, though, was his love of a poem. Poetry was an inheritance grief could not erase, for it lives beyond border, belief, and time. His son, my beloved grandfather, breathed poetry as though it were oxygen. He carried it in memory and on his tongue, in Persian and Urdu, in verses he recited with a tenderness so deep people often asked to hear him recite. His house was adorned with it, stanzas etched into walls and woven into air. For my mother, who grew up beneath his voice, poetry was akin to scripture, holy in its timelessness and reverence. Poetry followed her throughout her life, even shaping it; she and my father met in a bookshop while reaching for the same book, Kahlil Gibran’s Mirrors of the Soul.

In my own life, it has served as a tool for me to connect with myself, my family, my faith, and every aspect of my existence that fails to find solace in the material. In university, as a part of my society events, I used to host weekly poetry readings. One evening, there were only a handful of us, including a Portuguese student who only wrote in his mother tongue. When it was his turn, none of us understood a word, but we listened anyway. His poem was long, steady, without pause. He offered no translation, but it was beautiful nonetheless; I found myself listening as attentively as I would had I understood the language, almost straining myself, leaning forward slightly, as if to catch what I felt it was giving. We applauded when he finished, and he smiled shyly. I still think of that evening fondly; such is the power of a poem: to move beyond comprehension, to speak to the soul even when the mind cannot follow.

Perhaps its sweetest power is that poetry has ever so generously shared its sacred reality across traditions; it lives universally and eternally as people’s power, prayer, and persistence. It transcends language and the limits of the material to ever so softly usher us into a higher realm of feeling, of being. A gentle transition from the physical to the spiritual, from the outer world to the most hidden chambers of the heart. In these truths alone it is sanctified as a mercy.

From the very beginning, poetry has held a special place in the Islamic tradition. The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ loved the poets who placed their verse in the service of truth, reminding us that a single line of poetry could pierce like an arrow, defending the oppressed and glorifying God. Words were thus always held in the highest regard, holding the truth that they have never been mere ornament, but witness, weapon, and worship. The Sufis have carried on this legacy best. When the heart yearns for the Divine, when intellect fails to name the unnameable, only poetry can carry the weight of that longing — a weight they have masterfully carried time and again. Whether Rumi or Hafez, Bulleh Shah or Shah Abdul Latif, in whatever tongue and time, they each transformed verse into a ladder of ascent. Recited, sung, whirled to, their words transformed the act of reading into a new level of living. In them, the boundaries of language collapsed: Persian, Arabic, Punjabi, Sindhi, Turkish, Urdu — all became vessels of the same ocean. To this day, their poems echo in qawwali gatherings, in folk songs, in whispers of zikr, reminding us that poetry can be prayer, and that beauty is a path to God.

Just as it functions as a balm, so too does poetry as a blade in the hands of the oppressed. When tyrants rose, poets have sharpened their pens into swords. In Pakistan in the eighties, Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s Hum Dekhenge became a revolutionary anthem, so feared by the military dictatorship that it was banned — yet still sung, still remembered. Even now, forty years later, amidst the country’s endless political turmoil, people return to those lines as a comfort, and a reminder, that justice shall prevail. Today, who better an example of this than Refaat Alareer, the Palestinian poet-martyr who, before being killed by the genocidal entity who feared his pen so deeply, left us his final words:

His life was taken, his home destroyed, but his poem remains — carried in the mouths of millions, in marches and vigils, in whispered prayers. His voice continues, because poetry refuses the silence that tyrants set the Earth on fire for.

This power to resist tyranny is mirrored in the struggle against a more intimate silence, a truth I was reminded of while reorganizing my home library recently. While doing so, I came across a book written and gifted by a family friend, which caught my eye immediately with its title: Tragedy and Defiance: The Lives and Poetry of Sylvia Plath, Forugh Farrokhzad, and Parveen Shakir. Even just reading the introduction, I was reminded at once of how poetry for women throughout history has been a tool of resistance, not only against rulers, but against silence itself.

If you read the excerpt shared above, you’ll see how the writer so beautifully captures the true power poets wield: to bring people together, heart to heart, no matter how much time or difference separates them. They become healers, muses, guides, and in that way, somewhat akin to saints.

Thousands of miles away, I have felt the energy of such saints, just as I have felt the echoes of this inheritance live on in the corners of my American life. The walls of my local mosque, for instance, are beautifully adorned with Persian poetry. In my parent’s house, it’s tradition to host regular gatherings that always begin and end the same way: with the recitation of a poem. Verse remains the opening act of any event, the blessing that sanctifies the evening before food or music or laughter. Sometimes, one verse isn’t enough, and friends and family alike go on and on, until time no longer seems real, blurred in the blissful haze of a poem's breath.

What else could play this role? Poetry weaves beauty into the fabric of our lives. It infuses faith with feeling, culture with depth, and ordinary evenings with eternity. It is both fragile as a breath and enduring as scripture. It is a mercy, and when nothing else remains, it is what remains.

Some of my fondest memories to this day are those of my little adventures with that university poetry society; I think of the friends it gifted me, the journeys I made and the journeys that made me. I think back to that evening in August 2018, to the many that followed, and to the countless nights that led up to it — nights my great-grandfather also spent in the touch of London’s moonlight, in the peace of a poem. A lineage carried not only by blood but by verse, stretching across continents and centuries, from Delhi to London to Islamabad to Washington. From Hafez to Ghalib to Iqbal to Faiz; from Pessoa to Rilke to Oliver to Glück. Sometimes I come across a verse by any one of these greats and feel closer to them than anyone. Depending on my day, mood, and phase of life, the same can be said about so many beloved writers whose pen I praise God for allowing me to know.

A poem lingers in the silence after its recitation, in the rhythm of breath that once carried it, in the memories of those who once were and the promise of those who will one day be. A poem slips past the limits of body, of border, of time. It outlives homes lost to partition, voices swallowed by exile, and even the poets themselves. It is our prayer and protest, memory and mercy. It is a way of saying what cannot be said, of holding on when everything else is falling away. And so when I read, write, or listen to a stranger recite in a language I do not know, I feel the continuity of that truth. The certainty that as long as we breathe, ache, and be — that which will rise to meet us is that which shall never die — a poem.

You may enjoy:

What follows is the tale of a town that once was; a town that is no more, but which holds still in its silver grounds a mercy that cannot die. This town had no name, and no future, but never was it devoid of people — no — it had, indeed, plenty of souls adorning its orbit.

When the time came, as it always must, this town met its end ablaze. That is not to say it was abrupt, however. Its scarlet-coated skies slowly dissipated into shades of charcoal, choking its residents until those who didn’t burn to the end suffocated their way there.

The real tragedy was that it was the purest of the towns souls who suffered the most, swept away by winds so cruel that it had to be calculated, for no accident could take credit for such evil. Men, women, children, and the Earth itself all wept and wailed until silence took them. This went on for a very, very long time, until nobody knew what time was any longer.

The flames grew hotter and larger each day, mountains of ash swallowing people in their shadows. Picture it: fire rising on every horizon, red and grey consuming the air. The land wrapped in burning, smoke strangling the sight of all who do not wash it from their eyes. You can just nearly still smell it.

This town had always been on fire, but the blaze grew brighter each day, for centuries on centuries, until the final moments of this town’s existence came at a time where its children knew light only through the fury of an ever erupting volcano, never the gentle glow of a candle. But that is not to say this town had no beauty — oh, on the contrary!

This town was blessed, you see. At its heart lay a stream that flows iridescent and eternal — water so crisp and sweet and true that no tongue could exhaust its praise, nor heart drink to its end. It runs without beginning, without end, glistening beneath an ever stretched sky, kissing the earth with such tenderness that it seems less river than mercy breathed into the world. Its waters remain luminous, a blue beyond description, even the greatest of poets unable and unworthy. Not the blue of any sea, but of something crystalline, untainted. Its taste is the sweetness of truth itself, cool as mercy, rich as justice, desirable as love. It was here before there was earth to be kissed, and it is still here, amidst the ruins, amongst the ash. Earth herself finds solace in its glory, knowing it was here before the mountains stood, and shall remain when the mountains are dust.

The stream is not hidden. It does not wind through a maze nor vanish into a mirage. It flows openly, calmly, with a beauty so evident that the eye weeps simply to behold it. Its current is steady, unchanging, a constant in a town that knows only change. Listen closely and you’ll hear the song of the birds who praise its tranquil hue, who drink from it too. They do not doubt the stream, nor do they ask for signs of its reality. They dance above its surface, offering symphonies of praise, wings lit by heaven. Even the soil beside it bears a different hue, fertile with an emerald touch that refuses to fade. It is, in its purity, nothing less than the proof of God.

It is all so beautiful that in the blur of your vision, clouded by tears that recognize its sacred essence, you almost miss the others all around you. But their voices come too, then, and their incessant cries you cannot ignore.

The grounds surrounding the stream are crowded with multitudes — men and women with cracked lips and faces bent in anguish. Their voices rise in lamentation that pierces the heart:

"Where is the water?" they cry. "If only there were water!"

You look at them, perplexed. They too stand beside you, before the stream. Here it is! You say. See? Please don’t cry, you need not thirst, you console. But they keep on crying, and there are more of them than you. They weep and they weep, and you’re saddened at the sight, your heart splits at their sorrow — but you cannot understand what they mean.

You do not doubt the stream. It is before you, clear as the very sun. Its song fills your ears, its coolness runs through your veins. But each time you turn back to the masses, you find their grief louder than your voice. You shout until your throat is torn, point until your arms are heavy: The water is here! You stand within it!

Still, they beg for what is already flowing at their feet.

In the distance, the town remains ablaze, copper hues stripping people of sight and breath without mercy. The ground trembles beneath the weight of collapse, and all that was once firm seems on the verge of dust. There is no relief, it seems. Except that is, for the stream of mercy, where there is only coolness.

Every day, as the fire rises, so too does the volume of the cries. You remain bewildered, and it slowly begins to seem as if your sanity is slipping away. They are ankle-deep in the very holiness they mourn. Its waves lap against their skin, its spray kisses their faces, its blue light shimmers across their cheeks. It is the clearest thing in the world, no less present than ever before, and yet they weep as if abandoned in the desert. You speak gently at first, then louder, then with growing desperation, your voice hoarse but still audible, hands trembling but still pointing: "Here it is! Look — this stream!"

They raise their hands skyward, tears falling into the stream, yet still they wail of thirst. Your voice breaks against their deafness, your gestures fade into their blindness, they do not meet your eyes. How can they not see? The question tears at your soul until you feel yourself becoming transparent, a ghost by the water’s edge. Each loss rends you open, each act of violence threatening to turn you hollow.

A few — always a few — kneel with you beside the water. You wash the ash from your faces. Together you drink, pray, and say to the blind: See, here it is. But your voices are drops in an ocean of lamentation.

Eventually, you discover that despite feeling like a ghost, you are not one. Nor is the stream an illusion. The thirsty do, indeed, see. But there are groups amongst them. Some will offer you a glance, hearing you at last; they tell you they too love the stream, before turning away again, mourning the absence of what you just reminded them of. They sing the stream’s praises with their tongues, while their throats remain dry. They swear their recognition of it, while their hands do not reach to cup its water. They pray for its arrival, though it surrounds them.

You point, you plead, you cry until your voice frays like smoke. But they do not wish to listen to you any longer.

Some amongst them, the worst of them, add fuel to the fire while weeping with the others. They believe they are immune to the flames because they helped start them. They know they cannot empty the stream, so decide they must kill those who guard it. But even such heinousness fails to satisfy them — so they build an army amongst the thirsty, until the skies are filled with echoes of curses against the stream. "This is no relief," they say, even as its spray lingers before them, the promised answer to their every prayer.

And when some among your small number rise — buckets in hand, hearts ablaze with purpose, for the mercy of the stream gifted them such bravery — they venture into the smoke. Their courage is fierce, their love undeniable. You wait for their return, praying they will come back.

But they never do.

For some of them, it was the fire. And in a tragedy beyond comprehension, for some, it was the multitudes themselves: the very lips that prayed for water, the very hands that begged for relief, struck them down. They trampled the water-bearers, drowning in thirst while standing in abundance. Burned themselves, they still found the energy to ridicule and strike those brave enough to not merely complain of the fire, but fight against it. You watch in horror as those who carried the stream are beaten down by those who wept of thirst, seeing their water bags pierced first to ensure the flame lives, and then the collapse of the men holding them. Again and again you see it, until your mind feels as weak as the crumbling Earth beneath you.

The older ones among you, those who have known the stream longer, offer warning and warmth. "Do not weep," they whisper, their eyes fixed on the blue. "Focus on the stream, that is all you can do." They have spent years watching this same tragedy repeat. They tell you tales of those who dared to speak of the stream before, each one extinguished as if they were the enemy, not the fire they sought to end. In every generation, they tell you, the water-bearers always pay the price.

Still, you weep. Not for the sacrifice of the stream defenders, for that is a glory only its seers know the sweetness of. No, you weep for those who build monuments to emptiness while salvation laps at their ankles, for those who build cisterns of stone and call them fountains, for those who pray endlessly for what has already been poured before them. And you weep for the blue, not because it falters, but because so few will drink of it while they yet live.

The stream lives on, constant as truth itself, pure as the first light of creation. It flows eternal, untouched, self-sufficient, unchanged by human blindness. Its waters flow in perfect constancy, whether under skies colored grey, copper, or navy — always reflecting the Divine in its depths.

Now, you can no longer scream into the smoke; you have wept yourself into exhaustion, finally turning to the stream once and for all, hoping to relieve the fatigue of your fallibility. Now, you hear the hum of the birds again, who remind you to sip from the salvation before you, soothe your throat, and pray to the One who created nature itself. Now, you know what the elders know, what the stream too whispers in its eternal song; truth is abundant, blindness is chosen. A day soon shall come where the ghosts can rest at last, and those who refuse to will be forced to see.

Until then, the faithful, precious few who remain offer a reminder: Stay by the stream. Whatever happens, don’t become blind to beauty unflinching, truth undying. Let the world burn in its blindness, let the multitudes deprive themselves of what they refuse to see. The blue will never cease to breathe.

Share Filhaal

Pak-istan.

Pak — pure. Istan — land of.

Pakistan. Land of the pure.

There is a unique, almost inexplicable sorrow reserved for witnessing your home die a slow death. You feel as though a part of you is dying. When the executioner reaches for his entire arsenal, the pain cuts deeper still; you cannot possibly fathom how to save what you love most. Your helplessness becomes all consuming, a weight that feels insurmountable. You’re forced to watch the land you love eat itself into nonexistence; you stand by as it transitions from a green so glorious that even the angels sing its praise, to a grey so ghostly that its grave looms over every crevice and street corner. Now you watch and weep, hazy sky choking you, the only clean water the tears you shed. Along with your homeland, slipping away too is your hope.

In many ways, my life has been a pattern of mourning Pakistan's slow unraveling — politically, socially, economically, environmentally. When I was eleven, I ran a blog called Peace on Earth. It carried all the gravitas a fifth-grader who'd just discovered Blogspot could muster, but I took it seriously. I've forgotten most of what I wrote, but I do remember my very first post: an entry about the 2010 floods that had swept across Pakistan. Fifteen years later, I’ve started a new blog, and once again, I’m writing about floods that have swept across Pakistan. The water still rises. The deaths still mount. In this series of continuities, sadly, the questions too remain unchanged.

Another memory, more recent, also lingers, stubbornly refusing to fade. It was September 2022, and I was at St Pancras in London when I saw a large Islamic Relief ad urging donations for Pakistan’s flood victims. I thought of how privileged I was in that moment, how devastatingly so. Though I'd lived in London for years, regularly contemplating the fact, the gruesome truth of the colonial reality struck me with fresh grief. I existed simultaneously in two places: the warmth of the luxury around me, and the icy sorrow of knowing it existed only because of an unspeakable crime. A crime that had never ended, merely shape-shifted, its consequences raging and rippling endlessly — one of which was sketched before me on that station wall.

Not a day passes now, it seems, without laments about climate changes’ imposed burdens. This past winter, I lost count of how many times I heard complaints that Islamabad's seasons "just aren't the same anymore." In October, we wore lawn — that gossamer fabric meant for summer's heat. Shopkeepers and street beggars asked me to echo their prayers for rain, for God's mercy. In Lahore, smog painted an already grey city charcoal, strangling everyone within reach. And yet these are the privileged complaints of the urban and mostly untouched. While I lament these changes, my mind and spirit immediately fall into deeper sorrow for the millions upon millions with no roof to shield them, for whom life itself has become a weapon, unafraid to wield itself. Where do we go from here, then? When does blue surrender to grey — has it already?

Pakistan contributes merely 0.88% of global greenhouse gas emissions, yet ranks as the fifth most climate-vulnerable nation on Earth. More than just another footnote in the climate crisis, this is the merciless mathematics of a world where those who contributed least bear the heaviest burden.

This summer's floods tell the same devastating story. Over 800 people killed, thousands of homes destroyed, crops ruined, families displaced. Waters that should have brought life became instead the angel of death. Now, people already living in extreme poverty grapple with the harsh reality of displacement, a physical and mental anguish words fail to capture the magnitude of. Livelihoods erased in a moment, schools swept away, children left alone and afraid, deprived of clean drinking water, and handed in its place illness and apathy.

When floods (‘monsoon on steroids’) tore through Pakistan in 2022, 33 million people were displaced. The number itself is so vast that it’s easy to read it, maybe widen your eyes, and move on. But pause for a moment and try to genuinely absorb that: 33 million people.

Statistics have a way of almost minimizing the sanctity of each life the numbers mean to represent, making them seem like something abstract instead of the simple, sacred truth they are. Millions of human beings, dreams, families — stories still meant to unfold, futures waiting to happen. Entire villages vanished, drowning people and facades of permanence. It was a horrible reminder of climate change’s cruel injustice, its complete lack of sympathy for those already suffering — as a hotspot, people in the region are already ‘15x more likely to die from climate impacts.’ For those who survived, not only was it physically traumatizing, but the mental anguish was, and remains, impossible to quantify:

“Families lost their homes, land, livestock and everything they had worked for…in many valleys, people were cut off for weeks, like islands in a vast lake, with no food or medicine reaching them. That is collective psychological torture.”

Those who have not healed (or been given the resources to) from the gravity of three summers ago are now forced to reckon with the fresh tragedy of this summer’s, living too with the fear and knowledge that this crisis is far from over. From north to south, all have been forcefully confronted by the beast of climate change.

Home to the most glaciers in the world outside of the polar region, rapidly rising temperatures means the rapid melting of snow — in ‘the third pole’, this inevitably means catastrophic flooding. Over the past three months, torrential rains, cloudbursts and flash floods have wreaked havoc across the northern regions of Gilgit Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, now going into Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan, transforming beautiful landscapes into rivers of death. In the southern port city of Karachi, which serves as the country’s most populated urban center with a population of roughly 20 million, every monsoon season delivers the same script: waterlogged streets, power failures, sewage bubbling through broken drains. An urban drowning, performed annually without fail, returns like an unwelcome guest. This year has been no different.

But climate change doesn't merely bring water or heat to Pakistan, it acts as a magnifier, amplifying everything. It transforms corruption into catastrophe, poor planning into famine, negligence into mass graves. It presses against every fracture: poverty, population growth, water mismanagement, etc., until survival itself becomes provisional. When lack of preventive health measures, coupled with overcrowded and underfunded hospitals, are met with extreme heatwaves — people who could survive are given a death certificate before their time, and worse still, their deaths aren’t counted in the official records. With every drop of unwelcome rain or every added degree of heat comes a new kiss of death for an undeserving soul.

The Colonial Blueprint Beneath the Water

What’s crucial to acknowledge is that any discussion of Pakistan's "vulnerability" is incomplete without mentioning how much of this fragility was deliberately constructed before independence, through colonial infrastructure designed for extraction, not protection. Pakistan, like much of the Global South, suffers from climate colonialism — a calculated system that prioritized imperial wealth over indigenous welfare.

The footprints of British colonialism have left their streaks across every inch of the fabric forming Pakistan — and increasingly, it seems they are more bloody than they are muddy. The Indus River system — the country’s lifeline — was transformed by the British Raj not to nurture people but to enrich empire. Canals were cut to feed cotton, sugarcane, and wheat for British mills, not local mouths. Seasonal floodplains that communities had adapted to over centuries were recast into rigid, artificial agricultural zones. Pakistan inherited water systems designed by colonial standards and techniques, shaped more by British profit margins than Pakistani survival.

As Zarmina Khan explains:

“Pakistan's historical experience of colonialism has left the country with deeply entrenched patterns of resource extraction and environmental degradation. The British Empire’s focus on maximizing agricultural output in the Punjab region, for example, created a system of intensive irrigation that has contributed to long-term water shortages and increased flood risk. Today, these colonial-era infrastructure projects continue to exacerbate the effects of climate change, making Pakistan more vulnerable to extreme weather events.”

The colonial legacy extends beyond environmental mismanagement and stolen resources — though that theft was staggering. Think just of the fact that British colonization drained $45 trillion from the Indian subcontinent. Imagine an alternate reality where that wealth was never plundered…it is almost inconceivable. The subcontinent, now synonymous with poverty and inequality, can trace many of its wounds to this single, monstrous fact. Even the English word "loot" was taken from Sanskrit — the very language of extraction ‘borrowed’ from the colonized!

This legacy persists in systemic incompetence, perhaps best reflected in modern neocolonial "climate response" frameworks. Corruption, greed, and performative politics reduce climate preparedness to empty slogans. International aid and shiny packaged policies arrive, but not without the sidelining of local wisdom and community resilience. Those in power prefer thoughts, prayers, and tweets to their actual responsibility for the earth and people they claim to serve.

Institutions exist, of course, but on paper and in theatre. When storms come and bring everything down, the first to go is the facade of competence this house of cards puts on. Politicians with no qualification beyond inherited surnames conduct photo ops from boats in flooded streets, before distributing aid boxes stamped with their faces. Climate conferences unfold in luxury hotels, where the same people who would rejoice in the rain as a ‘gift’ make decisions for communities still underwater, still begging for air.

Climate disasters kill immediately, and thanks to the consequences of corruption, slowly too. Aside from the many unrecorded deaths from extreme heat, just when it comes to flooding, those not killed by drowning or crushed by collapsing homes die from water-borne illnesses, particularly children and the elderly. And it is not just humans and animals who are killed — climate change’s intensification of poverty and thus migration is leading to cultural erosion. Pakistan’s mountain languages, for instance, have been severely impacted by disaster-induced migration, as Fawad Ali explains:

“Over 30 ‘endangered’ languages are spoken in Pakistan’s mountainous northern regions. The terrain means that many of these languages are only spoken by very small populations, often in the low thousands. The terrain also makes these communities vulnerable to a number of climate-induced disasters.”

What a cruel irony. The climate disasters Pakistan is now regularly confronted with, shaped significantly by its colonial past, linger still with the odor of the empire’s endeavor. The British may have left, but the architecture of their exploitation remains. It is not them directly stripping people of their land, rights, and even language, but their lingering footprints remain embedded in Pakistan’s modern reality. The floods and droughts are not nature’s whims alone, but the echoes of an imperial design that outlived its designers.

Towards Renewal

Let us see beyond climate change as a headline and acknowledge it for what it really is: a hand that grips throats. It exerts its force through heatwaves that make cities unlivable, floods that sweep away homes, and droughts that strip fields bare. The question is no longer whether Pakistan can survive climate change. It is whether the world will allow it to survive. This framing must shift the burden from adaptation back to accountability — addressing root causes of vulnerability rather than expecting the victims to simply cope better. Climate justice requires recognizing that what Pakistan endures today is the compound interest on centuries of extraction, exploitation, and indifference. It would mean reparations, not ‘aid’. Technology transfer, not consultancy reports. Solidarity, not mere sympathy. A reckoning with the truth that the guilty must pay for their crimes, at last.

The floods that swallowed homes and washed away lives were not acts of God or nature gone rogue. They are the logical endpoint of a world that always placed profit over people, extraction over sustainability, and the comfort of the few over the survival of the many. Yet, they are not eternal. Hope persists and shall continue to do so; there are plenty of wonderful efforts being made across the country, truly dedicated to saving the land and the lives dependent on it. Activists like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Jr lead movements like Bulhan Bachao, devoted to climate justice. Indigenous-led initiatives across the country work tirelessly to protect and preserve the land — in the recent devastation of floods across KPK, it was shepherds who warned people of the waters to come, not the government installed infrastructure. It was, and always is, the people who do what needs to be done. Let us recognize them and lend them our support, for it is through their resilience that the possibility of renewal flows.

Beyond the statistics and frameworks lies a human truth too devastating to quantify. To see the catastrophic aftermath, to recognize the grim familiarity of these headlines — it is a grief that defies measurement. The land of the pure is being undone before our eyes, perforated so it loses oxygen slowly, but never subtly. Pakistan, where the brave-hearted pilgrimage to stand in the shadow of K2's snow-adorned crown, to find solace in the serene embrace of the Margalla Hills guarding an evergreen capital. People from the world over sing odes to Hunza Valley, a piece of heaven left for Earth to enjoy. Poets struggle to capture Karachi’s fiery sunsets as they kiss the Arabian Sea, or Balochistan’s endless, blue-hued stretch toward the edge of the world. All the lives dependent on these landscapes, all who have nurtured this earth and called it home, hang in the balance.

The land of the pure deserves a future built on justice, not extraction; compassion, not the cruel calculus of carbon colonialism. A future where children are spared the trauma of a cycle they did not create. So let us acknowledge that charity, as well-meaning and essential as it is, is not climate justice — it is a bandage on a hemorrhaging wound. But this is not a terminal diagnosis. To believe it is beyond repair, that the patient is not worth saving, is to commit a final, unforgivable injustice.

The real question now is whether Pakistan will be abandoned again, or whether justice will finally flow back to where it was stolen from. In the rising water, hazy skies, and prayers for mercy, the answer waits to be written.

If you are able and willing, consider making a donation to help victims of Pakistan’s recent floods here.

References & Further Reading/Viewing

• Blood and Water: The Indus River Basin in Modern History, David Gilmartin

• Global warming and climate change impacts on Pakistan

• Pakistan: Climate disasters increasing risks among children and older people

• Climate Change in Pakistan

• Climate change threatens India-Pakistan water pact

• Pakistan slams 'crisis of injustice' as deadly flooding hits

• Urban flooding in Pakistan

• Pakistan Floods and Mental Trauma

• Hidden Deaths in Pakistan’s Climate Disasters

• UN Press Release on 2022 Floods

• Pakistan’s Glaciers

• Pakistan’s Natural Wonders

• A great documentary highlighting the climate emergency and its victims ⬇️

You may enjoy:

Over the years, I’ve worked extensively with homeless communities, both in the US and abroad. As a result, I’ve come to have regular interactions with many individuals afflicted by the injustices imposed by such a reality. I am perpetually weepy when met with such situations, but my most recent conversation with John left me impacted more than usual — more angry than usual.

We stood outside a small marketplace in an affluent DC suburb, cerulean sky clearer than ever. But under the same summer sun so many of us rejoice in, John lamented its heat, sharing in detail his struggles. Despite his countless attempts, courts, community centers, and even churches turned him away when he sought aid, or even advice. Nobody offered him the time or consideration a truly compassionate society would establish as the standard — which is not surprising, given we do not live in a compassionate society — but it is intensely tragic nevertheless. What is even more tragic is that so many people fail to see this as a tragedy at all.

No matter how many people like John I meet, anywhere in the world, desensitization fails to get a hold of me. Perhaps this is because I am a person of faith; even if not, it is most certainly one of the reasons I refuse to turn a blind eye to such injustice. I will never, ever understand how we tolerate a world where such heartlessness is accepted as the norm, where compassion is just a nice word, not a practice — where people like John are treated as irrelevant or invisible.

The more he spoke, the more my heart broke under the weight of mountainous woe. We discussed a plan to get him the help he needs and deserves, but despite being a hopeful person, one who would have usually left that encounter feeling positive about the plan — I felt myself sinking deeper into a pond of sadness. It never should have taken so long, I thought. It shouldn’t be the case that so many people, like John, seek help, only to be met with closed doors and dismissive decrees.

But it wasn’t just John’s story that stayed with me; it was his words as I left. In spite of him conversing more actively that day than he ever had before, his tone was its usual self: steeped in nonchalance, words spoken so casually that they didn’t match the desperation I knew he felt and finally accepted. So as I set out to leave, already deeply disappointed at the state of affairs that made this experience a reality to begin with, his farewell struck me powerfully. The sobriety of his tone made it ring with an almost cinematic gravity; simple as the words were, they’ve transitioned into a sort of ghost, haunting me in the days since.

“See you later,” I said, waving.

“Jesus wept,” he replied.

He had said it a couple of times throughout the conversation, but I was so caught up in strategizing that I sort of brushed it off. To be fair and honest, I had never heard the phrase used like that before, and so as both a theology student and practicing Muslim, I was immediately taken aback. I’ve since discovered it’s occasionally used as a term to express frustration or shock, regardless — I find the phrase so heavily mournful; its weight has left an ache on my spirit. Spoken by a man so clearly neglected, standing in an area decorated with churches on every corner, where Sunday sermons preach about compassion and love…the tragic irony was all but poetic.

I know many people would read this and not hesitate to dismiss John and his use of the phrase as ‘crazy talk,’ insulting this man and his struggle. They will call me naive and an over-thinker, tell me not to bother. Though the truth is that John only spoke a monumental truth: Jesus did weep. And if he saw this country today, he would still be weeping and weeping and weeping, endless tears for endless sorrows. I suppose that is of no concern for those who don’t care for the saint, but that too is another sorrow in and of itself.

‘Jesus wept’, John 11:35, is the shortest verse in the Bible. A mere two words that should lodge themselves easily in any believer's heart. Yet somehow, the lovers of Christ in this nation remember everything but this. They remember how to choose empire over empathy, how to accumulate wealth while others starve, how to wage wars while preaching peace — they remember how to do everything but weep, everything but break their hearts open with compassion.

America is, after all, in its very marrow, a blasphemy against all that is sacred. The desecration of Christ's name and message forms the cornerstone of this nation's foundation. Just as it was used to justify the genocide and enslavement that built this modern monstrosity, so too has this country spent 250 years butchering his blessed name, betraying his ideals with increasing brutality, blood, and breathtaking audacity. Jesus would recoil from this cold, merciless corporation masquerading as a country. One glance at its televangelists lounging in their multi-million-dollar palaces is enough to drive any honest soul to madness with rage and bewilderment. Can any true Christian in this land honestly claim that were Jesus to return today, he would choose to sit with Joel Osteen in his $10 million mansion rather than among the vast homeless encampments in that same city, or with the refugees languishing miles away at our fortified southern border?

The travesty is that capitalism has cemented itself as America’s true deity, the only one allowed to be worshipped in this God forsaken land. The greed and cruelty it demands as offerings has left no corner of American culture untainted by its profane touch. From the halls of power to the sterile corridors of hospitals, from the glittering stages of entertainment to the pulpits of prosperity gospel, all bear witness and fall victim to the prostration it commands. Consider, for instance, the cultural monument that is Survivor, the 25-year-old "game" show now airing its 49th season, standing as both pillar of American entertainment and perfect microcosm of everything diseased in our society. People of every background sign contracts to willingly starve themselves, to humiliate themselves before millions, betraying their own ethics while enduring physical and psychological torture — all for a million dollars (before the tax cut). They cry to the cameras about their personal struggles and share how the money would help their ill loved ones, or pay for their mortgage, or allow them to retire. It is as devastating as it is disgusting, and yet millions tune in eagerly to watch. Not only does this speak to the sickness of capitalism’s tyrannical dominion, but to the moral rot it breeds. Has the collective soul of this country become so deformed that we treat suffering as sport, desperation as drama? Instead of crying at the utter absurdity and tragic display of how broken our system is, we sit back, popcorn in hand. How strange that a country priding itself on Christian values regularly cheers on starvation, whether voluntary or imposed. Except it is not strange at all.

This is unsurprising in a country where news channels share ‘heartwarming stories’ of children putting up lemonade stands to pay for their medical treatment, because the oppression mandated by insurance companies means people are forced to choose between death or a life of extreme debt. The media attempts to disguise the tragedy of these countless stories in saccharine language, but no amount of linguistic sugar can mask the sour truth we have all swallowed and somehow learned to stomach. When they’re not trying to hide the twisted reality of capitalism’s plague killing us all slowly, they’re hosting politicians who speak of the biblical mandate to conduct genocide and rain bombs on defenseless people. They forget that Jesus was never a man of empire, but its most steadfast enemy.

Every dawn brings with it a fresh sorrow to mourn, another horrible crime to add to the catalogue of horrors taking place, both within these borders and beyond. And yet, the incongruity persists, grotesque in its shamelessness (but what is America if not shameless?) Children are being chained and detained, even dying in ICE/CBP custody, and the churches of America, who worship a man synonymous with justice and compassion, are largely silent. Unhoused people hold signs saying ‘Hungry, God bless’, offering prayers to the undeserving, but the believers of that God are too busy waging war and starving others abroad to spare them a glance. The arrogant delusion of Manifest Destiny never died. It simply evolved to speak in softer tones while wielding sharper knives.

There is far too much to say about the hypocrisy, irony, and willful ignorance ruling this country and its masses, particularly its Christian communities. They pray to a refugee and lament ‘war’, but only the mythical, empty version of the word; when war is bombing Palestinian children to pieces and torturing Iraqis, it’s okay. They ‘choose life’, but only for themselves, only when convenient. This cognitive dissonance can perhaps best be described through another personal anecdote. Recently, I fell into conversation with a chatty stranger while out and about. Somehow she started telling me her life story, another very American peculiarity. Anyhow, in the same breath that she mentioned her family’s church provides food to struggling communities, she mentioned that she owns a manufacturing company that provides the military with parts for weaponry — specifically tanks. About a minute later she expressed sorrow and disbelief at the starvation and bombardment of people in Gaza, and believe it or not, a minute after that managed to mention her immediate family members who work for the CIA. This is not uncommon to hear in the DC suburbs, but usually, the people I am unfortunate enough to interact with who fall in the same category of work couldn’t care less about Gaza, or are irreligious. Her ability to voice these realities in consecutive sentences, utterly blind to their absurd contradiction, captured with strange perfection the essence of American delusion.

As I bring this reflection to a close, I’m reminded of a familiar scene that always strikes me, one whose image can summarize this misfortune better than my words can. Driving into DC, there inevitably comes a point in my journey where traffic promises to be standstill. When it does so, my eyes always find the same trinity of symbols in succession. I look out the window and am immediately met by the grand white dome of Capitol Hill. Shifting my eyes a little to the right, there sits a massive advertisement board, eternally hosting a display of the latest Apple product. A little to the left of the Capitol stands another towering sign: Museum of the Bible. This is America — power, profit, piety.

Jesus weeps at the scene.

This post does not in any way mean to diminish the work of the wonderful individuals, churches, and Christian-led NGOs that do speak truth to power and serve society. I have long respected and supported Global Refuge, a Lutheran non-profit serving immigrant and refugee communities. There’s also Christians for Social Action, who set a great example of what it means to follow and honor Jesus, peace be upon him.

Disclaimer: I am not a religious scholar or tafsir expert, and this is a basic reflection from a trying believer. The ideas I discuss here are purely born of my curiosity and are not intended to be presented or perceived as an authoritative interpretation. God forgive me if I displease Him in any way, and may He accept from us our sincere seeking.

The Holy Quran, our blessed gift, drips with majesty and evokes awe in every syllable. The undying beauty of it lies in the truth that it was sent as a mercy and a guide to humanity, as a comfort and a compass. We are called to read it not only to know our faith and Creator, but to discover ourselves and better understand both the visible and the veiled. We are invited, ever so gently, into the Light.

Every verse is a universe of its own and a testament to the glory and mercy of the Creator. Each, thus, is worthy of and has warranted devoted and individual scholarly exploration, as has been done so through tafsir for the last 14 centuries.

Awe envelops me anew whenever I turn to this sacred Book, but there are some verses I often find myself consistently amazed by. That is not to say the entire Word isn’t a perpetually unfolding miracle, but there are some statements I find so magnetic and charged, so inviting into their mystery, that I find myself devoured by my curiosity and longing to be close to the Divine. I recognize my limitations in appreciating the Quran fully as it deserves due to my lack of fluency in Arabic, but its glory is that even when translated from its original tongue (which is so crucial), it still touches the heart in a way that nothing else can.

When I come across certain verses, it is as if time has slowed to a gentle stop. Noise vanishes, my surroundings become irrelevant, my modern distraction ridden brain calms. I always, without fail, have to stop and give in to this change inviting me towards reflection, no matter how many times before I have encountered it or how well I think I understand it. Each time, such is the miraculous nature of the holy Book, my mind and spirit seem to be resurrected in complete and utter wonder. It’s as if I’m seeing those words for the first time, and am at once inundated with thoughts and queries of their magnanimous nature.

So, here are twelve of those verses and some reflections, starting with one that serves as a sort of preface to the rest:

“Say, O Prophet, ‘If the ocean were ink for ˹writing˺ the Words of my Lord, it would certainly run out before the Words of my Lord were finished, even if We refilled it with its equal.’” [18:109]

This verse only amplifies the already deeply powerful presence of every other throughout the Quran, for we know that had He wanted, Allah could have offered us a much lengthier Book. And yet, in His ultimate wisdom, He gave us this one, with 6,348 verses. That makes the intentionality of each word even more meaningful and worthy of awe and gratitude. Think of the ocean blanketing this planet…in its vastness and depths we have yet to even fully discover and comprehend. Even just what one can see sitting on a beach — all of that as ink! The wisdom of Allah is truly infinite. He is infinite and eternal, something we must consistently remind ourselves of to praise Him as is deserved, and to remember that He who provides for us is beyond complexity or limitations. We look at the sea and see it as limitless, but it is only He and His glory that may take the claim.

“O believers! Respond to Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life. And know that Allah intervenes between a man and his heart, and that to Him you will all be gathered.” [8:24]

All I can think when I read this is to pray, now and forever, that Allah intervenes between me and my heart so that I always please Him. Allow me to be amongst Your blessed servants, who seek only Your pleasure, and live to see Your Promise. Let us not be amongst those whose hearts are corrupted and serve other than You; let them now and forevermore be purified vessels for endless good.

“And we are closer to them than their jugular vein.” [50:16]

What can one even say about this…I put my hand on my neck and close my eyes. How could I ever complain or claim to be distant…how could I despair or dare to forget the truth of Your closeness…!? The jugular veins are located in your neck, tasked with bringing blood from your head back to your heart. SubhanAllah! What does the Divine’s mercy do if not unite us so, reorient us, revitalize us? And it is our neck that holds us together, after all…in that way it is dear to us in the way one is close to something, as in a beloved manner. Allah surely is not only proximally never far, He is dearer to us, our truest purest self, than our essential life supply. He is our life supply then.

I am comforted in this knowledge when I fear that I have strayed and lost His favor; I’m reminded that He is so close to me that His knowledge encompasses the truth of what I feel in my mind, heart, and spirit, and that nothing can escape Him. That truth is a loving embrace and a liberating force.

“And who could be worse than one who attributes a lie to Allah?” [18:15]

While this verse is referring to polytheists and those who worship false Gods, I am awakened by this verse upon every encounter by just how clearly it captures the severity of such a common sin. Again, we have to remember the intentionality of Allah’s choice of words here. How many attribute lies to Allah — not only angry atheists and believers from other traditions who fail to recognize we worship the same One, but even, sadly, Muslims.

My heart aches when I read this and think of all who abuse in the name of Allah and claim their cruelty as His command…who justify their hatred and impurity by saying His blessed Word prescribed it. Those who neglect the beautiful essence and clarity of His 99 names to appoint their own, all so they can go on hurting the vulnerable and claiming it as their virtue. This verse also reminds me of a line from The Kite Runner, where a character says the only sin is theft, and every other is a variation of it. Lying, he explains, is stealing someone’s right to the truth. What a monumental sin to deprive people of the truth of The Only Truth! And to steal Allah’s right to be known as He is, how unkind, how unfair! The consequences of this travesty we have seen more than enough of in this age. With the line ‘who could be worse,’ we are explicitly informed of the weight of this deception. Let us pray we are never amongst such people; may we always know and honor the truth.

“Peace be upon you for what you patiently endured, and excellent is the final home.” [13:24]

This I find to be the gentlest ayah, if I may say so. It lingers long after you’ve read it, like a sweet summer breeze. It soaks you in comfort, lightens the weight pushing your spirit down, embraces you with a delicate touch.

This is what the angels will say to those granted Heaven when the gates are opened after Judgement Day. I adore and am in awe of the kindness laced in this statement…it is so moving in its mercy. Even the fact that it is the angels saying it reminds me of the angels sitting on our shoulders, our companions writing our blessings (for a good deed is a blessing) and our sins. Of course, the angels saying these exact words will be those tasked with opening the gates of Heaven, but this reorients me in a way where I’m at once reminded of the little friends we’re all occasionally guilty of forgetting. They see us day and night from birth to death. They too are witness to what we endure patiently and what we cannot. They will see us through to our final home, be it above or below.

I’m also captivated by the way Allah has framed this concept of being rewarded…it’s not merely saying ‘welcome to heaven, come in, you earned it’ — Allah reminds us that those granted entry are those who suffered, and who still rose with sabr. He reminds us that this life is not the one that matters, for the only eternity is in the hereafter, where your sorrows have gone to rest, and have blossomed into a beautiful passageway to endless ease. Here, the tears you shed — and held back — are reimbursed with the dewdrops of Jannahs’ gardens. Home, Allah reminds us, that which all of us seek, is not to be found in this temporary landscape. It is yet to come, and shall be, if we are granted so, nothing less than the perfection we have always sought. A mercy from the Most Merciful.

“And We did not create the heavens and the Earth and what is between them in play.” [21:16]

This verse has always struck me. It reminds me of the saying “Your incomprehension of God is your comprehension of God,” because it explicitly conveys how we simply do not and cannot understand the entire truth of God’s wisdom. How often do people ask why this world exists…perhaps it’s the oldest question there is! Like toddlers who always ask ‘why?’ — it is the perpetual query on our tongues and spirits, and has been since the dawn of time. How many philosophies have been defined by this wonder? Existentialism, for one. How many grieving tears have been shed to the knowledge that we don’t know! There is a time and a part of us that can not separate our understanding of ourselves and this world and our place in it from the curiosity as to why the world is so. But Allah tells us clearly here: none of it is in jest. This applies to all else too; not only does He mention ‘the heavens and the earth’ — He says ‘and what is between them.’ A reminder that nothing is without purpose, including me, including you, including green, including blue. Alhumdulillah.

“She cried, “Alas! I wish I had died before this, and was a thing long forgotten!’” [19:23]

In Surah Maryam, it’s narrated that this is what Maryam (as) remarked when suffering from labor pains as she was about to give birth to Nabi Isa (as). I have always been deeply attached to Surah Maryam and the blessed lady it’s named after in particular, and this verse especially so.

Aside from the immediate understanding that she was suffering from the extreme pains of childbirth, that too as such a young girl herself, I find something inexplicably beautiful in God’s choice to include these words in scripture. Every word is so intentional, we must remember. For Allah to specifically and deliberately choose to mention that her pain was so extreme — not only physically, but mentally — that she, His most beloved woman, expressed a desire to die and be forgotten…is so monumental. In this time especially, 2000+ years later, I’m sure you, reader, understand what I’m getting at. In some ways I’m at a loss for words because the Quran is felt in the very depths of us. Its unmatched sacred nature speaks to our truest inner self and essentially transports us to another realm. So I will not say much else other than Allah is the Greatest.

The inclusion of this verse is nothing short of sublime. It is ever so kind in how direct it is. Maryam’s humanity — and dare I say, with recognition that her blessed soul is beyond comparison, her relatability — shown here, invokes a sigh of relief. Allah heard her say those words and chose to let humanity know and memorize them, so we may remember that such pain does exist, and so do such thoughts and feelings. And yet Allah does not reprimand us for our humanity. He reminds us that even the greatest of us feel so, and most gently, He goes on to remind us that His mercy is always near. The next verse consoles: “Grieve not, verily your Lord has made a stream to flow beneath you.”

None of us will ever know the weight of Maryam’s struggle or the severity of her pain. Still, we suffer, weep, and wish as she did. We will not be blessed with the miracles she was uniquely bestowed with, but that is not to say Allah’s mercy will ever abandon us. It shall never neglect or forsake us, just as it never did her. She was told not to grieve, and in this story, Allah is telling us too, not to grieve, but to see the stream of mercy he has ready for us, if only we pause and look for it.

“Verily, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.” [13:11]

What is so moving about the Quran from an objective standpoint is that Allah speaks to the psychological condition of man across time and place. In His Word, He reminds us that none knows us, our minds, our hearts, and our souls, better than He, and none can provide us a better remedy for our woes. None can guide us to a straighter path, and none can take claim for our creation other than He.

I always come back to this verse as a reminder and a solace for myself. When I was young and naive, I had occasionally fallen victim to fatalism's tempting deception that rejects the truth of man’s free will. This promise, for that is what it is, informs us of the necessity of our reflection and our actions. We are told so clearly that to pray for change without making concrete movement towards it is meaningless, for Allah will only usher in a new dawn once we bid farewell to the dusk we have made our home. You can not insult Allah’s majestic creation of your mind and conscience by not using it — and then despair over the fact! As with everything, this verse too is intrinsically laced with His unending rahma. He is asking us to have mercy on ourselves, to love and care for ourselves enough to use our blessed faculties as they are intended to be used, for not doing so not only prevents the change we seek but — as psychological research confirms — harms us! Stagnancy is not only sorrowful; it is, in defying God’s command, sinful.

“So I do swear by the position of the stars, and that is indeed a great oath, if only you knew.” [56:75-76]

Allah makes multiple oaths throughout the holy Book that convey the magnanimous nature of His words. In Surah Waqiah, this verse always stands out to me because of 1) the mentioning of the stars, timeless, exquisite, and universal as they are, and 2) the line “if only you knew.”

I do not, as per Islamic guidance, believe in or endorse the concept of astrology. However, this verse makes me think about the concept on the basis of Allah swearing by the position of the stars. What could this mean? What makes it so powerful and mighty that it warrants inclusion and specifically the mention of us not knowing how grand it is? These beautiful lighted ornaments decorating the night sky, light years away, hold something holy within them.

Because this is such a unique and sensitive topic, and I do not wish to transgress any boundaries, I leave this reflection with these questions, marveling at His resplendent creation. Praise be to Him who created all the glories we know and do not know. If only we knew! If only, if only.

“And how can you be patient with what you do not know?” [18:68]

When I read Surah Kahf every Friday, there’s always a new angle I look at a verse with. This week, despite having read this so many times, something about these 12 words struck me in a different way, one I am so grateful for.

This question is what Hazrat Khidr (as) asks Nabi Musa (as) before embarking on their fateful journey. The entire narrative is one filled with endless wisdom, but this line in particular strikes me because of 1) the nature of the question and 2) the person asking it. This is again a verse where I recognize how different my thoughts could be if I knew Arabic fluently, because I’d be able to better understand the tone being used by Hazrat Khidr. Regardless, the idea that touched my heart was one I believe to be aligned with the glory and grace of Allah’s mercy, and so, despite linguistic logistics, I still believe in the power of intentionality here.

There is something I find so deeply sweet in the way this is asked and included in the story. There is a warmth inherent to it…almost like a recognition that you’re only human, so it’s natural for you not to be patient when you don’t know something, because how could you be? It’s not simply saying ‘you must be patient, you don’t know enough’; even though Khidr almost seems hesitant to take Moses with him, I imagine him not speaking in a berating tone — but in a merciful, loving, wise one, saying, you have to trust. It’s such a gentle preface into the larger story, telling Moses and us that it’s okay, we’re flawed and impatient human beings, it makes sense that we would ask the questions we inevitably do.

As Khidr is a special servant of God — blessed with His mercy in a way unlike others, living between realms and having access to divine wisdom in a way we are not granted — the fact that it’s him saying this makes it even softer. His presence and mystery is the defining essence of the story, a stunning note on the esoteric. How glorious of Allah to create such a saint and let us know of him too, another marker of His unending mercy. As their journey and story concludes, we’re reminded that instead of dwelling in our limited knowledge and insight as a tragedy, we can and ought to be liberated in it. Allah is the All Knowing, not us, and in that is endless solace, not sorrow.

“Where then are you going?” [81:26]

Of the questions Allah poses to humanity throughout the Quran, this one is my favorite. I find myself repeating it aloud to myself multiple times whenever I encounter it because it demands to be vocalized and brought into the physical space around me. Where am I going? Where are we going? Such questions I also adore because while the whole text is a direct address to us, the questions remind me of that more so; they pull me into orbit and make me sit up straight.

Have you ever seen those videos that zoom up and out of a random little place until you see the building from above, followed by the street, town, wider region, the whole map, eventually into the solar system and Milky Way and finally into the infinite and ever expanding universe? You’re reminded of not only your smallness but of the vast majesty of the Creator. People often share the video with captions like “Remember how small you are,” but I feel the opposite watching it; I am reminded of just how Great and Grand Allah is, and then when I remember His Message and direct address, I am reminded of how significant each of us and each of our decisions are. I ask myself in this endless cascade of action, where am I going? What am I doing with my time and energy and knowledge?

Life is a journey. Do I know the destination I seek to make my end? Am I actively moving towards it or have I found myself sat on a dirt road, unmoving and unconscious? Or worse, on the wrong path altogether!?

Thank you Lord, I say, for asking me to remember. How Exalted and Merciful are You!

“Everything will perish except the face of God.” [28:88]

There are so many verses throughout the Quran devoted to offering comfort. They are so sweetly simple, such gentle and warm words that tell our frail hearts all shall be well, we need not cry so, we are not alone. Glorious is each and every one: 3:139, 94:5, 13:28, etc. Yet none gives me solace like this one. I carry it with me as my eternal refuge, the cool water that extinguishes my hot emotions, the glue that pieces back together my broken and bruised spirit. Often, I linger, to my detriment, in laments. I am not, if my confessions thus far have not been clear enough, a lover of this life or world. It denies me easy breathing many a time. So then, the sheer oxygen this verse fills my lungs with, so fresh and relieving and needed, can not sufficiently be described. Everything will perish! Except the only worthy of remaining! Things shall be as they are meant to be, Allah consoles us. Everything will perish…all the dark and doomed and disingenuous…but the Lighted Truth shall live and live and live. The One and Only, the Ultimate and Eternal. A mercy, a mercy, a mercy.

The Quran is a spring whose waters never fail, quenching the trying thirst of our tired souls. How blessed are we to have been amongst those given this sanctimonious gift of all gifts. May we act on its instructions and revere it as it deserves, turning only to its pages when we seek comfort. May we use it to refine and enlighten our spirits, and that of the world.

Share Filhaal

“At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this?
And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?”

―Ilya Kaminsky, Deaf Republic

Every prophet was a revolutionary. Every sage, every mystic, every knower of truth, stood in defiance of the empires, economies, and norms that thrived on injustice. That is what made them who they were.

Our modern world is, in large part, one run by those who claim to be followers of these prophets. A quarter of the world's population is Muslim alone; add Christians into the mix, and you have 4 billion people – half of the people on Earth!

Despite differences in creed, across Abrahamic traditions, believers unite in worship of a greater power, testifying to the truths espoused by Moses, Jesus, and Prophet Muhammad ﷺ (peace be upon them all). So why is it that more than fifty percent of the world is made up of those who supposedly revere these great figures, and yet those acting on their instruction seem to be so few? The tragedy is that for far too many, testimony ends at the tongue. It is our crime and consequence that it is rarely lived. Were people of faith to truly adhere to the legacies left by these great sages and embody the purpose, message, and morality they advocated, our world would look radically different from how it does today. Because faith is revolutionary. Are we?

If we are, pray tell, why then do we venerate the heroes we do? We anoint with awe moral actors like whistleblowers and revolutionaries precisely because they’re the few among us willing to stand up against what we all rebuke but continue to tolerate. The social function of hero-worship is essentially thus a displacement of action, the selfishness we embody excused by the solace we derive from praising those who are brave enough to do what we cannot fail to. If we emulated our role models as they have managed to, our world would be filled with justice and peace, not silence in the face of unending sorrow.

Of course, no faith or tradition has a monopoly on justice. It is incumbent on every human being to do their part and fight for what's right, so we may live in a just and kind world; we see beautiful souls of all beliefs and none making their efforts. But if you happen to be a person belonging to one of these traditions, you must know there is an obligation upon you to be an active participant in creating such a world; know that true faith is never personal, never selfish, never a mere path to paradise. It is public, relational, and demanding — or it is nothing at all. If you think the path to salvation is via the lifting of your hands for prayer but not for anything else, instead of defending your doctrine, you defy it.

The inaction responsible for our current ongoing tragedies is a sin held by many because its advocate has spared none. Its advocate, of course, is the corpse of urgency. The necessary prerequisite for action has been killed, buried alive, grave desecrated before our eyes. So let us examine its autopsy, identify the conditions that have led to our apathy in this moment. Immediately, we can recognize moral fatigue as a consequence of living in an age of so many crises (for those who pay attention to them in the first place), the anesthetizing effect of social media’s overexposure, and perhaps most potently, the dreadful rise of individualism over collective responsibility.

Contemporary morality often recognizes the beauty of empathy but stops at feeling. Our faiths, however, teach us that empathy is meaningless without moving towards moral action. Even secular moral philosophies offer helpful avenues of understanding here. Utilitarianism, for instance, demands that we serve the greatest good. Rawls’ ‘veil of ignorance’ in particular is a concept I often refer to. The compassionate blindness to difference it inherently promotes is no different than the mercy espoused by our traditions. Yet we fail to apply that mercy to our mentality and movement.

Are the believers of the world then just operating as the silent majority, making us the greatest obstacle to justice? We acknowledge the ethical weight of inaction, yet carry on as we are. Where’s the creativity that should have been born from our mourning? We know quietism is most certainly not the position of those on the side of the oppressed, yet our mouths seem to have been mysteriously taped shut. This complicity, we have to know, leaves one spiritually defunct, no matter how much one prays and thinks themselves virtuous. Justice is a human imperative, not a religious one, but I only speak of faith so extensively because it astounds me how contradictory the believers of the world are behaving. As a Muslim, I have grown weary of participating in conversations I find to be necessary only to be met with a nod, a sigh, a quick prayer, and a change of subject. I can not reconcile the hypocrisy, can not understand how we have diluted and dishonored the beauty of our greatest gift so.

I shouldn’t be surprised, I suppose. The stories of the prophets emphasize how ostracized and isolated they were, and even when they amassed followers, those very believers many a time betrayed the ideals they once claimed they would die for. I suppose the naïveté with which I was operating was based on the hope that with technology allowing us to be witness to so many scenes we otherwise wouldn’t be exposed to, we would naturally feel compelled to resolve those tragedies, however we must…because why wouldn’t we? Unlike previous times, now we had to do something because there’s evidence before us, there’s undeniable witnessing taking place. I have come to know now, however, that it is considered absurd to many to think this way. I weep and ask why that’s so, pleading for an answer as to why and how action has come to be considered radical. Action — the foundation of humanity! The norm, it seems now, is to bear witness and leave it at that. Weep, this time tells us, but then wipe your tears, you’ve done your part.

I, too, am guilty of this. What is this piece if not an example of my very critique? I am not ignorant of the potential perception of my tone as pretentious, self-righteous, or simply absurd. God forgive me if I seem so, I mean not to condemn others and paint myself as saintly, God forbid. I write this with the frustrated recognition and shame that I, too, am a part of the system I lament and condemn, knowing that this is a hollow complaint. This is perhaps my attempt to come out of my own limitations by publicly sharing this. If not that, at least a weak repentance for my contribution to this collective sin.

Maybe the truth is that we’ve never had moral urgency, not as a collective anyway. If we did the 2 years of genocide we have all been witness to, live-streamed before us, it would not be taking place. We would not have seen one million Iraqis killed in an illegal invasion started over a lie. We wouldn’t have left refugees to die in the ocean, falling off of tiny dinghies, and worse, coldly refer to it as a mere ‘migrant crisis’. We would live in a perfect world.

However, this affliction isn’t limited to examples as visible as war; injustice has seeped into every aspect of our lives, wherever we find ourselves on this tiny planet. Politically, economically, socially, and culturally, evil has taken its course. There is something sinister about the sneakier ways it presents itself, the ways people still manage to justify and brush under the rug more easily, because its consequences are just as severe.

Sadly, we live in a time where loud voices declare that overlooking such travesties and giving into selfishness is a completely acceptable choice. They find every excuse they can to defend their overconsumption, their environmental crimes, their silent compliance, and then use the latest lexicon to shame you for condemning them. Harm thus becomes irrelevant to such people so long as they get to indulge their base desires. This is a poisonous ideology that has come to define much of modernity’s current crisis; it is why we don't have nearly enough moral outrage for the morally outrageous, but more than enough for the meaningless and minuscule. If there are to be any voices of reason amidst their redundancy, you would think it would be people of faith, but our silence has sealed itself as our stance.

Faith as Revolution

"Whoever among you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand; and if he is not able to do so, then [let him change it] with his tongue; and if he is not able to do so, then with his heart — and that is the weakest of faith." — Prophet Muhammad ﷺ

One need not have a seminary education to grasp the basic fact that our great saints were, more than anything else, advocates for justice — who knew the work it required was inseparable from the belief that called for it. They devoted their lives to the effort of this virtue prevailing. For believers, this truth should be obvious, and beyond that, acted upon.

For the Love of Moses

It is a tragedy beyond explanation that the obliteration of the Palestinian people is occurring before our eyes, as it has been for the last 75 years. It is a deep shame, a heartbreaking one, that it is conducted in the name of Judaism, claiming the same God who sent the Ten Commandments is the one ordering such cruelty. But when Jewish students sat in the encampments of university yards wearing their yarmulkes and hosting their Sabbath, adorning keffiyehs and calling for divestment from Israeli apartheid, they honored the revolutionary spirit of Moses in their choice.

For the Love of Jesus

It is another woe that the world’s largest religion (officially) is one that reveres a poor outcast refugee — who stood against an empire to proclaim the necessity of justice and equity — yet now fails to institutionally apply his principles. From every angle one could view him, be it agnostic, Catholic, or Muslim, nobody can deny the revolutionary essence of Jesus’ very being. Pope Francis was a good example of what it means to honor and live that memory.

A verse I love from the Old Testament perfectly captures what I mean to convey;

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after: to break the chains of injustice, get rid of exploitation in the workplace, free the oppressed, cancel debts. What I’m interested in seeing you do is: sharing your food with the hungry, inviting the homeless poor into your homes, putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad, being available to your own families. Do this and the lights will turn on, and your lives will turn around at once. Your righteousness will pave your way. The God of glory will secure your passage. Then when you pray, God will answer. You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’ If you get rid of unfair practices, quit blaming victims, quit gossiping about other people’s sins, If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight. I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places— firm muscles, strong bones. You will be like a well-watered garden, a spring whose waters never fail. You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.” [Isaiah, 58:6-12]

For the Love of Muhammad ﷺ

The sadness that compelled me to write this can perhaps never be sufficiently expressed, because it’s rooted in my ultimate melancholy: the state of the Muslim world. I will afford us compassion and grace for bearing the brunt of imperialist aggression designed to divide and destroy, but when you see those who still rise above this, the others lose their excuses. In this treachery, tyranny, and tragedy, we have abandoned any trace of taqwa we could claim to have.

When you testify your submission to one God, you are declaring you shall worship no other. To worship another doesn’t mean you get on your knees and fold your hands or prostrate. It means you obey them, you fear them, and you tolerate them, even when you know of their evil. Recognize the silent, subtle altars you’ve built for modern idols. When you fail to condemn the darkness of something, despite knowing it, how loyal are you to the light? That silence becomes your shirk [idol worship]. When you say you love Moses but don’t stand up to today’s Pharaoh, be it a man or a system or an ideology, ask yourself if you really love him. Would you follow him to the shore today? The same goes for Jesus and the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

This reminds me of two hadiths:

“There will come a time when holding on to your faith will be like holding a hot coal.”

That time is now. Not only because the secular modern age rewards hedonism and ridicules righteousness, but also because if it were easy, we would be practicing what we preach. But the reason we do not do what we could be is that it requires a terrifying amount of courage, a selflessness, a genuine belief in something greater, something worthy of our sacrifice. It’s holding hot coal.

“Islam began as something strange and will return to being strange, so glad tidings to the strangers.”

This, I believe, can be applied to all three major Abrahamic traditions in their truest form. It genuinely is strange now to act fully on their principles. Surely, thus, if Jesus were to return today and demand we afford the displaced, hungry, and oppressed the refuge they need and deserve, he would be labeled a terrorist and condemned by the very people and systems who dare act in his name. Without a doubt, if the blessed Prophet Muhammad ﷺ were to see the ‘leaders’ ruling much of the Muslim world today, he would weep at their cruelty. How many take the name of religion as a cloak to wear, but afford faith no seat in their hearts.

Faith always has been and always will be an emancipatory force, because God is liberation and liberator, and so His servants should strive to be. To know and love Him is to follow His command, which is so simple, despite those who attempt to turn it into something complex and complicated. Stand for what is just and kind, He says. Be merciful and modest. Let not oppression prevail. Stray not from the sacred.

There are many intricacies of course in our modern world; I am not negating the validity of or need for a refined legal system — there is a reason jurisprudence is such a core element of how we practice and fulfill our obligations, and why scholars and jurists have so extensively studied and written on how to live ethically and effectively. But some things really are simple: children working in a sweatshop for $1 a day so thousands of ugly crop tops can be dumped on a beach somewhere? Wrong, a trillion times over. Yet this is a core aspect of our modern capitalist reality, one we are all well aware of, one that desecrates not just the rights of humans but the Earth. So, where are the people of faith fighting against this on the scale that is required? Let us not pretend that there is an absence of movements actively working to fight these evils, those that adhere more closely to the values our faiths teach us, yet we fail to support. Our sermons rarely, if ever, mention them — sometimes, they admonish them instead; a pity of great proportions.

For all who claim the love of these prophets and principles: here is your pharaoh, here is your Roman empire, here is your idol-surrounded Kaaba. Strike then, why won’t you!

The Few Who Remember

It’s easier to envision how we can be such believers by looking at some great examples before us. One of the most iconic representations of such a faithful individual is Malcolm X, a believer who never shied away from confronting the empire with boundless courage and faith. He called out injustice when and where he saw it, not just because he was a black man in segregated America, but because he was a Muslim who knew that the faith he followed required him to. His prophet(s) set that example.

More recently, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah was just released from a French prison after 40 years. When he returned to Lebanon, he made a stunning remark on the state of our global apathy and inaction in the face of genocide. While we all understandably condemn world leaders, Georges, a Maronite Christian, rightfully hit back:

“Palestinian children are dying of hunger just meters away from 80 million Muslims in Egypt. This is a historical disgrace to the Arab masses, more than to the regimes."

He reminds us that the leaders deserve shame, yes, but there comes a time when your insults hurled at them become embarrassing. We, too, are sinners for committing the very crime we critique them for, keeping our condemnation limited to our tongues, sitting in our shallow puddles of tears, and thinking that shall suffice.

This inaction extends to all forms of injustice, the many isms we all frown over today. The environmental crisis, wealth disparity, femicide, etc, are all blatantly present for all to see. Yet it occurs to only a minority of people that to truly obey a Merciful and Just God is to be merciful and just yourself. They take this as offering their charity and leave it at that; they do not acknowledge their faith’s call to prioritize compassion and abolish the systems that allow such injustice to exist in the first place. Of course, such extreme change will not happen overnight or with ease, indisputably. But the hypocrisy, irony, and ignorance are what I refer to. If it’s not even acknowledged, how can it be challenged?

I am reminded of the words of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who, notably, was also a reverend:

“True compassion is more than throwing a coin to a beggar. It demands of our humanity that if we live in a society that produces beggars, we are morally commanded to restructure that society.”

This reference to ‘a moral commandment to restructure society’ brings to mind a beautiful example of people who exemplified what it means to honor the Prophet ﷺ and his principles in action. When the brave people of Algeria stamped out French colonizers and liberated themselves from over a century of oppression, they took to the streets to celebrate their victory. When they did, crowds joyfully proclaimed, ‘Oh Prophet Muhammad, congratulations, Algeria has been returned to you.’

They recognized not just their liberation but the truth that the Prophet ﷺ was a steadfast symbol of justice, synonymous with it. In congratulating him, they acknowledged that his stand for equity and goodness had prevailed and would continue to do so. Islam, after all, came as a movement prescribing us a way to live, not just personally as individuals, but socially as a collective. It reminds us that in God’s infinite wisdom, everything is interconnected; this world a cosmic web we are all a part of and shall always remain. We must then ask ourselves as believers if we are claiming selfless revolutionaries as our own while actively choosing lives of selfishness. Have we turned our faith into mere garments of pride and prejudice? So it keeps us divided into groups, betraying the very ideal all our faiths rest upon, that humanity is one, and compassion must extend to all? We look at each other as different and thus unworthy; it is the only explanation for our cowardice.

In Surah 5, verse 8 of the Quran, God instructs humanity:

“Do not let your hatred of a people lead you to injustice.”

Not ‘your difference from people’ — your hatred! This implies that there will indeed be people you hate, a distinction from merely being different from them. Still, even in such circumstances, God commands that you must never betray justice!

The great saint Imam Ali ع, an exemplar of Quranic embodiment, revered for his sense of justice and equity, remarked on his deathbed:

“Fear God as regards the rights of the minorities. Fear God as regards the poor and destitute amongst you.”

Tragically, the modern idol worship of capitalism, secularism, imperialism, and individualism means we have abandoned the poor, the destitute, the different. In the beginning, as the sole defiant of God’s command, Iblis established himself as the black sheep. What a shame that we have allowed the roles to reverse, letting such a sin fester and thereby creating a world where Iblis is preferred over Adam, where being morally upright and acting on it makes one the black sheep.

Perhaps this sounds overly and unfairly dramatic. However, a quick glimpse at the news makes it apparent that the majority today are those who prefer silence over salvation. In a world where children beg before our eyes, this silence is an unacceptable sin. Come the Hour, an unforgivable one.

Many will call me an idealist for espousing the things I have here. That is precisely the source of my grief. Perhaps we do not believe in the same thing, and that is okay. Let us not pretend, though, that God’s command is confined to our feelings, accepting the stagnancy of our feet. Realistically, we will never collectively magically transform into the adherents we should ideally be. That doesn’t mean we don’t talk about how we could at least try. There are plenty of beautiful examples of faithful revolutionaries today, those we can and ought to look to for inspiration. People who are uncompromising and unafraid, who know the truth is never easy to adhere to, but what’s easy is not what’s worthwhile. There are countless more I need not name; they shine their unique light. May we recognize them and follow their example. May we reflect and rise to honor the revolutionaries we revere, never daring to dim their lighted legacies by claiming their love but ignoring their law.

So join a union, go to a protest, ask yourself if and why you fear creation more than the Creator. Educate yourself, engage with people beyond caste and creed, confront your inner pharaoh that prevents you from calling out the external ones. Remember that sins sown through silence will carry a mighty weight on the scale, one that very well may prohibit your salvation.

Supplementary Posts:

“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home.”

— Edward Said

Fiction casts a gentle mirror on our world, reflecting truths that reality alone can’t always bear to say. It’s why literature lives on as an eternal gift to humanity, and why some stories linger even decades and centuries after they were written. More than 80 years later, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series lives in the hearts of millions as a beloved tale revered not only for its unforgettable characters but for its moral vision: that courage, humility, and hope can triumph even in the shadow of overwhelming darkness. But if we look closer at the heart of its prequel, The Hobbit, we see that beyond a fantasy tale of mythical creatures, there lies a story of exile — one that refuses to fade into myth, because it is still being written in blood and fire today.

The story follows the voyage of thirteen dwarves, dispossessed of their homeland by the fire-breathing dragon Smaug, as they set out on a long and perilous journey to reclaim what was stolen from them. They are not noble kings or powerful armies, just scattered survivors, holding onto memory, song, and the keys to doors that no longer exist. What begins as a fantasy becomes, upon closer reading, a parable of displacement and resistance. And today, as the skies over Gaza blaze red and the world looks away, this tale of longing and return finds uncanny resonance with another real, brutal, and unfinished story: the Palestinian liberation struggle.

As the dwarves sing songs of a homeland lost to fire and greed, their voices carry across decades of exile, each note a thread binding them to stone halls they may never see again. In that melody lives the heartbreak of every people torn from their ancestral soil, a heartbreak Palestinians have harmonized with for 76 years, singing their own songs of return across refugee camps and scattered diaspora.

Tolkien's dwarves were not mere fantasy archetypes but echoes of a universal human experience: the agony of displacement, the dream of return, and the terrible dynamics of power that determine who gets to call a place home. Today, as Gaza burns under the weight of modern siege engines and colonial cruelty, as Palestinian children learn the geography of their grandparents' villages through stories rather than soil, the tale of Thorin Oakenshield's company resonates with devastating clarity.

Architects of Oppression: Dragons and Occupying Powers

At its deepest level, The Hobbit reveals itself as a meditation on the structures of oppression that displace entire peoples. Of course, no fantasy tale can convey the full horror or complexity of modern colonial violence, but the archetypes still resonate. Tolkien’s dragon, like all mythic beasts, transcends a single historical parallel. Yet, Smaug’s hoarding of wealth and deliberate desolation of the land mirrors not just classic colonial extraction, but the specific logic of settler-colonialism: a system that requires the replacement of indigenous life with a new societal order. In Erebor as in Palestine, the dragon’s fire is both literal and ideological, burning away the past to justify its own dominion. Smaug’s occupation mirrors the colonial seizure of Palestine as a violent appropriation that transforms thriving communities into wastelands. The dragon’s presence creates what we might recognize as a colonial economy: wealth extracted and hoarded while surrounding populations like Lake-town’s inhabitants struggle in manufactured poverty, their prosperity chained to the whims of the occupying power.

Just as Smaug’s fire turned the prosperous kingdom under the mountain into desolation, the ongoing siege of Gaza by the Zionist entity has transformed what was once fertile land into a ground desecrated by what Israeli officials themselves have called ‘mowing the grass’: a calculated policy of periodic destruction to prevent any real development, prosperity, or hope. The people of Lake-town, limited by Smaug’s whims, echo the position of Palestinians whose every movement, calorie, and breath is rationed by military decree.

This is not mere fantasy but the documented reality of colonial occupation: the systematic impoverishment of indigenous populations to ensure dependence and prevent resistance. When Tolkien writes of the desolation of Smaug, he names the essence of imperial violence: not just fire and blood, but the slow suffocation of a people’s future.

To Remember is to Resist

In the laments of Thorin’s company lives the DNA of displacement. The dwarves carry their mountain in their hearts because they can no longer carry it in their hands, just as Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, and as far as Ecuador carry house keys that unlock doors now occupied by strange settlers.

Today, beneath the rubble of shattered homes and bombed hospitals in Gaza, this revolution presses on not through tanks or guns, but through memory itself. It lives in the clinging to keys and maps, the sharing of stories in tented classrooms, and the handing down of histories in flickering shelters. Memory transcends preservation to become resistance made manifest. The dwarves’ laments, sung in exile, reverberate across generations of Palestinians who clutch keys to homes inhabited by others and remember cities they have never seen except through the voices of their elders. What Tolkien imagined as myth is, in Palestine, a relentless present. Every day they endure bombardment, deprivation, and dispossession, and yet each breath and each heartbeat is an act of defiant hope and refusal to be erased.

This parallel runs deeper than nostalgia. Tolkien’s tales reveal how displaced people resurrect what was lost into liturgy, how remembering becomes an act of preservation and resistance intertwined. Every Palestinian grandmother describing Jaffa’s oranges and every child sketching erased villages participates in the same sacred defiance. Even the spiders of Mirkwood echo the occupation’s bureaucracy of control: the web of checkpoints, permits, and legal traps designed to entangle Palestinians in a slow suffocation. Where Tolkien imagined monsters, the occupation manufactures them in courtrooms and concrete. Thus, in resisting both literal and metaphorical erasure, Palestinians maintain identity out of memory and longing. The fight continues not only through might, but through the quiet power of remembrance and the stubborn refusal to surrender dreams of justice. Across Palestine, suffering persists, yet so too does the will to endure — to remember, to resist, to return.

The Logic of Resistance

Let us examine, as the dwarves had to, the mathematics of liberation that every oppressed people must calculate: How do you measure hope against hopelessness? How do you weigh the impossible against the unbearable?

Bilbo Baggins, the smallest of the small, questions his place in a company of warriors marching toward a dragon. Yet he is also a hobbit of the Shire, a land untouched by dragons or war, where breakfast is a right and safety a given. With its pantries and peace, it exists in stark contrast to the dwarves’ exile, a reminder that solidarity often begins with recognizing that danger is more than a tale told over tea. Thus, his doubt is not just that of an underdog, but of an outsider waking to the privilege of unearned safety. This mirrors the dual crisis haunting all liberation movements: what can we — the small, the dispossessed, the forgotten, possibly do against such overwhelming force? And what will those who live in Shires do once they see the dragon’s shadow fall on others? Sadly, we have seen the answer to that. Not enough.

Yet Bilbo’s journey reveals something profound about resistance: it takes many forms, and even the smallest acts, too, can have great consequences. His experiences on his adventure are not epic battles in and of themselves, but acts of individual resistance that collectively enable the larger liberation struggle. This mirrors the Palestinian experience, where resistance operates on multiple levels simultaneously. The obvious we recognize, but equally important are the daily acts of steadfastness by ordinary Palestinians who simply refuse to disappear. Gaza’s poets and paramedics endure the most horrific of circumstances beneath daily bombardment and still offer courage, wisdom, and light. Truthfully, for the past 75 years, each and every Palestinian has given a new meaning to the word hero. Take, for example, the grandmother who made headlines for turning tear gas canisters into plant pots, the farmers who tend olive groves despite settler violence, or the artists who paint murals on the apartheid wall. These are all acts of resistance against forces designed to erase Palestinian existence.

The Israeli military machine, like Smaug in his desolation, seems to possess every advantage: firepower, international backing, the luxury of continuous funding and undeserved empathy. Yet the dwarves march and the Palestinians resist, not from folly but out of necessity. The siege of Gaza reveals this arithmetic in its starkest form. Against one of the world’s most advanced militaries, against the complete blockade of land, sea, and air, against the complicity of regional powers and the calculated blindness of international institutions, the Palestinians of Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, etc., continue to exist. Their very survival is a form of resistance, their persistence a rejection of the logic that says might makes right. Gandalf’s words to Bilbo: ‘There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West’ hint at the fragile hope that sustains resistance: the belief that those insulated from fire might still choose to fight it. Perhaps this is what sustains all liberation movements: the stubborn insistence that there is more in humanity than the powerful believe, more capacity for justice than the comfortable assume, more possibility for change than the cynical can imagine. And perhaps that’s the question for those of us reading from the ‘kindly West’ — what will we choose to do with the good in us? Will we let it matter?

The Burden of Betrayal

But no story of liberation is complete without reckoning with the ache of abandonment, the bitter silence of those who should have stood beside you. Here, then, the parallel grows more heartwrenching. While the dwarves journey in isolation, abandoned by those that should have stood with them, the Palestinians have watched their own ‘brothers’ (the Arab states that once proclaimed solidarity) choose comfort over conscience and stability over justice, alongside the rest of the world. They have brought new meaning to the word betrayal; rather, they have created the need for a new word altogether, such is the nature of their crime. Despite suffering from the dragon’s fire themselves, they have chosen to be its keepers, leaving Gaza to face the dragon alone.

The quiet normalization deals, the closed borders, and diplomatic silence speak for themselves. The UAE’s gleaming towers rise higher while Gaza’s buildings fall onto starving children; Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 soars while the Palestinian vision is crushed beneath the weight of siege and occupation. The gates of Rafah are rusted shut by Sisi’s complicit, blood-stained hands. The amputee children of Gaza are deported from Jordan’s hospitals back to the concentration camp waiting to kill them. All this is occurring because this dragonfire is not a solitary terror; it is a system. The dragon’s wings are upheld by American steel and European silence, his gold counted in billions sent yearly to bankroll the desolation. The governments funding the war machine, those who trade with the occupiers, and the media that calls genocidal apartheid ‘complex’, are all the dragon’s bodyguards.

The Songs We Sing While the World Burns

As I write these words, Gaza burns, starves, and weeps loud enough for us all to hear. As you read them, the siege continues. The dragon’s fire falls on hospitals and schools, on children who have never known a world without walls, and beg us now for crumbs we somehow still can not provide. The international community offers thoughts and prayers and goes into a frenzy over hurt feelings while people starve. Politicians seemingly can not express sympathy without a ‘but’ at the end, somehow always needing to mention “proportionality” — as if there could be proportionality between the occupied and the occupier, the starved and the fattened, the children digging graves and the leaders posing for pictures at Bezos’ wedding.

But the dwarves teach us something about the long arc of justice: that the impossible becomes possible not necessarily through the intervention of the powerful, but through the persistence of the powerless. The Palestinians, like Thorin’s company, know the mountain can be reclaimed. It is not for those who look away to declare what is possible. If they can not see in this moment, they most certainly can not see ahead.

The story suggests that liberation will require both armed struggle and moral awakening, both individual courage and collective action. It will demand that those of us in the “kindly West” recognize that our own liberation is bound up with that of the oppressed, that we cannot remain hobbits in our comfortable holes while dragons lay waste to other people’s mountains.

What Will You Do While the Fire Falls?

In the end, the journey was not from the Shire to the Mountain, but from despair to action, from exile to home, from the world as it is to the world as it should be. Palestinians continue to walk that road now, step by impossible step, even as the dragon’s fire falls around them, even as the world looks away. Their song continues, even if we close our ears to it. When the dust settles and the dragon falls, history will ask: did you sing, or did you sell your voice for comfort?

Ultimately, liberation doesn’t come from fantasy; it comes from fists raised, funds sent, borders stormed, lies torn like spider-silk. So let us be the ones who refused to let the song die, who demand an end to the siege, the complicity, and the silence, refusing to treat this genocide as background noise. Let us mourn, but let us also move toward a just world, one where no child learns their homeland only through ruins and lullabies.

Our failure to act has already cost too many their dream of return. Let us not fail those who remain. Our task now is to listen, to remember, and to ensure that when the dragon finally falls, we are not counted among those who chose silence over the song of liberation that echoes from every mountain, every camp, and every heart that refuses to surrender the dream of home.

Cover photo depicts a family near Ramallah, Palestine, in 1992 — credit: Esaias Baitel.

Further Reading:

The Hundred Years War on Palestine, Rashid Khalidi

Perfect Victims, Muhammad El Kurd

If you are able, consider donating to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund here.

What does it mean to march through the streets and chant the name of a man known as 'mercy to all mankind’ — only to then betray everything he stood for with bloodied hands?

For what sin was she killed? The question once buried with infant girls now echoes across the land, where the Indus runs not with life, but with the crimson flow of truth’s lost lungs. It has resurrected itself as the ugly ghost of jahalat, haunting women and girls alike, whose only crime is living, speaking, refusing, dreaming.

The recent tragic discovery of actress Humaira Asghar’s body in her apartment in Karachi has shed light, once more, on the horrific nature of women’s existence in modern Pakistan. Forensic examinations revealed the true tragedy: she had been deceased for at least 8 months before being discovered. Why? Because she committed the crime of being a woman with agency, which, for many in Pakistan, is unforgivable. In following her dreams, she was abandoned, erased, and left to die, invisible and alone.

Last month, 28-year-old Sania Bibi was doused with petrol and set on fire by her husband and father-in-law. Tragically, she succumbed to her wounds a few days ago, after having bravely come forward to share her story and file a report against them. Also in June, seventeen-year-old Sana Yousaf was shot dead in her home in Islamabad after her 22-year-old stalker, Umar Hayat, was enraged when she rejected his marriage proposal. In April, also in Islamabad, university student Eman Afroze was murdered in her hostel, with her killer still roaming free, despite available CCTV footage. While more details about Eman’s case are unknown, each of these tragedies nevertheless reveals a tired truth: far too many men in this country, when met with a woman’s will, turn to the cruel unleashing of violence, whether via the cold mouth of a gun or the heat of fire. Without fear, without hesitation. In these moments of asserting their basic right to breathe, women’s mere existence became their death sentence.

All of these beautiful women’s deaths are a tragedy. What makes them ache more deeply is the all-too-familiar devastation resurrected in each case: witnessing the resurfaced rituals of conversations that fall into the same tired echoes of misogyny we have adopted as the norm. Soon after news of Sana’s murder hit the screens, so too did a barrage of victim-blaming comments desecrating her memory. In a country operating on opposites, where there was only light to be seen, far too many instead saw something to be extinguished.

Pakistan’s familiarity with gender-based violence, and in particular its masking in the disguise of religion, is nothing new. Time and time again, we bear witness to the most horrific acts of violence being perpetrated against women and girls, only one percent of which make it to the news cycle. When they do, like clockwork, the language of victim-blaming and shaming arises, perpetuating an age-old narrative that somehow, women are always to blame for the brutality they face. Even when subtly done through remarks feigned with concern about women living alone or daring to work, as was the case with Humaira, the ignorance is no different, and justifies the same terror. For domestic violence victims like Sania, this is an epidemic harder to come up with excuses for — but it is so common that the silence we continue to allow is its very perpetuation.

Social media is a particularly abhorrent place, revealing the ugly face of extremism that exists amongst too many. Following the news of Humaira’s death, some expressed not despair over her circumstances, but anger at her for having chosen to live alone. In Sana’s case, instead of mourning the loss of a child as any sensible human would, men on social media celebrated the murder of a young girl they knew nothing about — all because she dared to have the same thing they do: a social media presence. In a morally bankrupt society and system, the innocent, playful TikTok videos this child made came to define her not as the innocent soul she was, but as an unacceptable reality worthy of such injustice. Humaira’s status as an actress is what warranted her family’s ‘disowning’ of her, and even more sickeningly, their refusal to accept her body. The reactions are reminiscent of Qandeel Baloch’s case, another young woman vilified for asserting agency online — and murdered for it, too. Whether claiming a woman has dishonored her family or dishonored a man’s supposed right to her, their murders are justified. This is unsurprising in a country that finally saw Zahir Jaffer face the consequences of his actions four years later, and still only to have a judge sitting on the bench of the highest court of the land continue to slander and blame his victim, Noor Mukaddam, for her rape and murder. It seems that existing in this society as a woman is an unforgivable sin. No matter your age or class, you will remain an eternal suspect; even in your complete innocence, you are guilty of the crime of owning the body you do. When women and girls are deemed mere property, rejecting a marriage proposal or an unwanted advance can be, and in too many cases is, a death sentence. Her ‘honor’ is questioned and abused not by the actions of her hands but the movement of her lips, uttering the forbidden No.

Victim blaming, unfortunately, doesn’t live in the gutters of social media alone. It is born from its very comfortable thriving in parliament, in the courts, and in our pulpits. This same ignorance plagues the highest and most revered men of this country, and thus it becomes institutionalized — it becomes law, policy, and, consequently, the system we bear the brunt of. Before we know it, it’s radical for a man in power to defend a woman objectively wronged. When the Islamabad Inspector General remarked after Sana’s death that we should encourage young women to do what makes them happy, it came as a welcome shock to many. It is so rare to hear men in such positions speak in a tone not accusatory that even the most basic statements are considered revolutionary. Needless to say, this is a welcome change, because each voice that dares challenge the dominant narrative is a necessary one, one that makes it easier for women and girls tomorrow.

The greatest travesty of this all will forever be the paradox this country lives on. In a country obsessed with women's ‘honor,’ let us ask — where is the honor in this system? Men take to the streets to declare their love for the Prophet ﷺ, who was so steadfast in his compassion towards women that on his deathbed, he still took time to remind men: ‘take care of women’. Where is the honor in their defiance of this instruction — in their ignorance, in their stripping women of life and light?

The religious illiteracy that plagues every rung of society, from bottom to top, is unmistakable, warranting a longer conversation on its impact. It bears the blood of victims far and wide: religious minorities, laborers, women, and girls alike. It reduces Islam, a religion of divine mercy and human dignity, to the personal insecurities of insecure men. The most basic study of Islam will lay out clearly how honor-based violence has no textual or Prophetic justification; it is nothing more than a jahiliyyah practice cloaked in divine rhetoric. Sadly, the gap between prophetic ethics and modern practice is so wide, expanding by the minute, that it threatens to swallow the very spirit of faith this country was born for. In the case of honor killings and continued justifications of violence against women, women are uniquely robbed of the mercy and fairness that a just system owes them — and that Islam (and by extension, a genuinely Islamic republic) promises them. Even in their death, they are reminded that they are not guaranteed anything in such a country. Their mistake, they are told, is everything they ever did and said before the gun touched their temple, as if life itself was a provocation.

Dare I say: acting in such extreme opposition to the truth of the beloved Prophet’s ﷺ manner and instruction is not only ignorant and unfair, it is far more aligned with what it means to be blasphemous than what so many innocent people are accused of and then killed for. These same men will kill on unproven whispers of blasphemy, yet insult the Prophet's ﷺ legacy themselves, publicly and proudly, with blood-soaked hands, without consequence. So blinded are they by ignorance and misogyny that their violent opposition to the truth of the Prophet’s ﷺ character — cloaked in distorted interpretation and corresponding behavior — is seen not as hypocrisy, but as righteousness. To be clear, nobody should ever be killed over barbaric blasphemy allegations; this is another travesty staining the soul of the country. My point here is to reflect how ironically and ignorantly the tyrants of this nation have distorted what it means to know, love, and protect the truth of the Prophet ﷺ. But that’s the issue: whether through their violence against women and girls or religious minorities, it is clear — they don’t love the Prophet ﷺ. They love themselves and the power their distortions give them.

This is not careless violence. These men do care: about their selfish fantasies masquerading as morality, about their ‘rights’, of which women have no equivalent in their eyes. This is calculated, emboldened by the silence and complicity of too many. That is the core of this crisis. We have among us a population of enablers, operators, and endorsers of this rhetoric. They are self-declared morality police, with eyes trained only to see the ‘crimes’ of women existing, blind to the horrors committed by hands that look like their own. In their so-called defense of Islam, they defile it instead. When they bury girls before their time, so too do they bury their loyalty to the Prophet, and any claim they dare make of honor. The undying tragedy of this country is that the very premise on which it rose from the ashes has been desecrated. What others accuse us of and we fiercely rebut only grows in its prevalence when we afford misogyny more oxygen than we do our girls. For those who stand in a pool of crimson, the shadows of women are more shameful than the spilling of blood, or their betrayal of the man they claim to love.

In the unseen world, though, these women are avenged. They are free to bask in the beautiful blue of God’s flowing rivers of mercy and justice, safe from the tyranny that we are left with. Let it not be the case that we keep sending more women there before their time, through our silence and feigned sorrow. We can not bring back to life Humaira, Sania, Sana, Eman, Noor, Qandeel, and the countless women and girls this cruelty has killed. We can, though, cultivate a culture that rejects such hatred and violence. We can remember that the entitlement, ego, and ignorance that fuel such terror are not eternal, no matter how much they may seem so.

Let us work towards a new day where women in this country [and this world] are afforded the same right to live as men are. How and when that will happen is more a plea to the divine than a question. One rightfully wonders how such a country can get to that point, yet I am no pessimist; I believe realism must always walk hand in hand with prayer, perhaps verging on naivety, but more kindly put, lingering in hope. Hope alone will not suffice, of course. It must be followed by passionate pressure, protest, and policy. Humaira and the countless others like her, those whose names we will never know, deserve more than grief and the occasional article — they deserve justice. Every girl and woman in Pakistan does.

The question is: how much deeper must this river of crimson flow before this country gives women what they have long been owed?

If you are able, consider donating to Legal Aid Society, an organization offering free legal aid to those most in need.

References:

National Human Rights Commission Report on Domestic Violence

BBC article on Sana’s death

Dawn article on Humaira’s death

Noor Mukkadam’s Case

Eman Afroz Murder

Sania Bibi Case

Perpetually hovering over the sacred clock of my childhood was a quiet but ever-lurking ghost: the desire to grow up.

I couldn’t wait to be an adult. What a shame.

Like many children, I dreamt of the day I would finally reach adulthood. I longed for liberation from the constraints that came with a tiny body and naivety, yearning to at last be given the independence and authority I felt so deprived of.

I had, though, a deeply joyful childhood. Even for a Muslim immigrant growing up in post 9/11 America, the 2000s were kind to me. My memories are all stamped with scenes of sunlit playdates and smiley friends, the bright green grass and blue blanket sky above us as we played in our lawns, laughing loudly and endlessly, blissfully unaware of time. Going on sneaky adventures around the neighborhood with my sisters and neighbors, smiling at each other sheepishly as our mothers yelled at us to never do that again. Dancing to early 2000’s pop and playing Wii sports in my friend’s basement (ah, the sacred American basement, the cornerstone of all sweet memories). Our screen time was limited to a few episodes of Hannah Montana or some Disney Channel original movie played on a big TV and watched from beanbags. In a generation now growing up on the lingo of binge-watching and brainrot, the habits of yesteryear seem as ancient as the Iliad.

When I reflect now on what I so deeply yearned for, there’s the basic truth that as a child with limited understanding of the world, I assumed that if life was already so wonder-streaked, it would be even more so when I could embark on such adventures without having to be told to be careful or come back before sunset.

What I realize now, though, is that I wanted to be an adult in the world as it was then. I, like many of us, never would have expected the world to change so drastically as it has. I thus dreamt of my adulthood in a world where the internet was still a fun escape, not your unavoidable abode, where the idea of machines taking over was still more joke than truth. I wanted it with all the good of then, and all the imagined goodness we assumed the future would inevitably bring. That, of course, was sweet childhood naïveté. Now, I look back with gratitude at the little glories that we took for granted. When I witness Gen Alpha in action, I consider myself lucky that I grew up with the exposure I did. I mourn the changing of a world lost, a world they never knew. To have lost it and miss it is not as sad, though, I think, as never having had it at all.

From Sunlight to Blue Light

I don’t often find myself around children; when I do, through community spaces like the mosque, I’m always a little taken aback by how different their reality is from what I grew up with. We adored and lovingly brought with us everywhere Silly Bandz and Junie B Jones books, holding them with such reverence. Now I see girls the same age I once was, innocent and doe-eyed, snapping selfies and recording TikToks, mirroring the same poses once revolutionized by those twice their age. Meanwhile, in a separate corner, the middle schoolers talk about which sunscreen at Sephora is better for their skincare routine.

When I was their age, the phones considered revolutionary and ultra cool were the ones that had sliding keyboards. When we all transitioned into iPhones, slowly slipping into a new life dictated by them, I couldn’t have imagined that in a decade, that very device would become the subject of so many mournful thought pieces lamenting their tyranny. I often think about something one of my teachers said in my senior year: “By the time you all have kids this age, phones will have already been stitched into your skin.” We laughed, but he wasn’t that far off; they’re so intrinsic to our being now that they may as well be —I can’t imagine what twenty years from now will look like. My own disdain for my phone has reached the point where I sometimes consider joining the band of people switching to tiny flip phones that can only make and receive calls. This is only amplified when I sit with a family friend’s kindergarten-going daughter, who knows her way around a phone so well that I find myself fretting at the mere thought of how much more the world will change in the next few years, and more so at the idea of raising kids in that world.

A daunting study reveals that:

“Just over half (51%) of kids ages 0–8 have their own tablet or cell phone, and about one in five of these young Alphas use their mobile devices for falling asleep, meal­times or emo­tion­al regulation.”

To make it worse:

“80% of parents of Gen Alpha children say their kids spend 7-8 hours a day on their phones.”

How could this not kill the very idea of childhood as we know it? Such digital dependency also inevitably leads to an array of health issues. Amongst them are:

• myopia

• insomnia

• delayed social development

• anxiety and depression

• weakened physique

• behavioral problems

• cognitive decline

We have a generation living on screens, apathy, and scrolling. Amazon, Sephora (!), AirPods. They drown out the noise of real life: the conversations in front of them, the song of the spirit intrinsic to them. They consume, consume, and then consume again. They fill their carts and in doing so, empty something within. That blank space is the childhood time has so cruelly exiled them from. In place of the once-ever-sweet now sits something deeply sour; it has become the only stage of life stripped of what defines it. It is now just the unkind passing of time.

This brings me to the thought of how slow time seemed to move as a kid. I don’t know if it was just the Massachusetts curriculum I grew up with, but my elementary school memories are riddled with images of the extremely creative projects we always had as assignments, ones that took an achingly long time (shoutout to my mom for her unpaid labor with those). They were, in hindsight, a little ridiculous, but cherished all the same because that’s what childhood should be: constant opportunity for and exploration of creativity, a push to build a good work ethic that cultivates mind and soul. When I remember that, I wonder if the kids of 2025 still have assignments as creatively curated as the ones I spent hours on. I question if they still spend hours outside playing make-believe, creating worlds just for the fun of it. I’m sure many do. But far too many, it seems, have not been spared from the abyss of the virtual worlds we have all fallen into, and now find to be inescapable.

When it comes to school assignments, to be fair, I have to acknowledge the crisis of living teachers across the country are experiencing. Aside from having to deal with the consequences of something they didn’t create, they’re extremely underpaid and undervalued. More times than I can count, I’ve come across TikTok videos of teachers, usually young women my age, discussing the complete decline in Gen Alpha’s attention span and corresponding behavioral issues. Their capacity to learn and absorb knowledge has been corrupted entirely by the screen enslavement they’ve fallen victim to. The idea that today’s children could handle projects like that (or that their parents will tolerate them) is a thing of the past, they complain. This isn’t surprising, of course. The phenomenon of diminished cognitive ability due to excessive scrolling (and the increase in outsourcing of thought to AI) is, first and foremost, one that adults are guilty of. Children, in all their purity, learn from what they see, what they know. Can we blame them then?

Aside from having killed their brain function, in the grave next to it lies the potential of their ambition, the breadth of the dreams that could have been. Amid the heaviness of adult life, there’s still nothing quite as sweet as a child’s soft answer to the question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Seeing their eyes light up and getting a glimpse into how these small but mighty minds think has been a generous and sanctified gift to the soul. So the twinge in my heart when I hear some of the things I do now lingers. Where we dreamt of being astronauts, surgeons, and the next great novelist, they say names I don’t recognize, idealize ‘influencers’, and don’t (can’t?) read books. Where we idolized Mae Jemison and Maya Angelou, they do Mr. Beast. We grew up chasing butterflies and bravery; they chase dopamine and distraction.

Children today are also “significantly less healthy” than they were nearly two decades ago in 2007, a new study reveals. This is not that unexpected, but sad nevertheless. The study goes on to mention another disturbing find:

“‘What we found is that from 2010 to 2023, kids in the United States were 80% more likely to die’ than their peers in European nations.”

This fact is attributed, unsurprisingly, to a tragic truth we have become too familiar with. There is a shadow over every child in America, growing unforgivably bigger every day — that of a gun.

Smells Like Teen Spirit? Not Anymore

The crisis experienced by teenagers is an entirely other arena with far too much to be said about it, but the misfortune of it all can still be succinctly understood through the same examples. Teenagers, no matter how much they reject this truth, are still children. The American childhood experience is, in some ways, more than anything, that of your teen years, as a country and culture obsessed with coming-of-age narratives. So what does that mean for them in an era sunken in bedrotting and broken empathy?

When I look back on my teenagehood, despite lamenting then that it was far too boring and would never amount to the thrills of a CW show (in hindsight, thankfully), I see it now in a new light. I’d like to think we had a decent enough balance of being on and offline. All of my memories with my friends are still largely defined by our in-person activities; of course, our phones and social media notifications accompanied us, but we didn’t have TikTok or reels, which have truly changed the way people engage with scrolling and each other now.

So, then, the American coming of age, once soaked in and defined by days spent under the sun, now finds itself in a casket beneath the shadow of phones desperate to click a pic — and post it to their story.

The Pandemic, Pinkies, and Politics

To capture the might of the guilty, it would be inaccurate and unfair to ignore the elephant in the room. If tech stole kids’ time, politics stole their world. If anyone other than Big Tech can take the blame for the bullet, it’s Big Brother.

There was still somewhat of a sense of political ‘normalcy’ in the last days of my childhood, though anybody who knew me in high school and reads this will likely laugh, remembering how adamant I was in preaching the opposite. That being said, if we’re using the lens of pre- and post-MAGA, I graduated from high school the year Trump became president in 2017, moving overseas for university a few months later. What began as a joke ended up becoming the nail in the coffin of many realities, most of which people are only just now waking up to. If we are to pretend the country’s descent into inevitable fascism over the past 8 years and its status as a genocidaire the past 2 haven’t left a striking scar on the collective psyche of a generation, big tech truly has won in their quest to dumb us down.

Just referring to the political landscape, the idea that things could’ve gone back to ‘normal’ during Biden (or hypothetically, in a Kamala presidency) isn’t even worth considering. Not only because of the nature of his administration and the complete social overhaul America experienced with the introduction of MAGA, but also because of the transformative impact of the pandemic. Quarantine isolation and the social media zeal it birthed meant children missed formative years of socializing and development, and with it came even worse screen addictions and dented pinkies. I need not go into detail about the consequences of the growing exposure they now have to toxic ‘chronically online’ culture. Or, all the things that come with it, for instance: the increasingly ever-present reality of adult content making its way into the mainstream. Our society drifts deeper into a highly sexualized abyss every day. Our culture has somehow convinced us that that’s not something of concern; the intensity of this crisis speaks for itself.

The world has changed in many ways, far more than what I’ve briefly touched upon here, and not all of those ways are unkind, to be fair. Every generation and every time has its unique pros and cons, and though what I speak of here is scary, it is not unbelievable in its magnitude. For those who pay attention, it is just one aspect of a larger reality — that of our general decline in humanity. What more can one say about a world that has enabled and witnessed a genocide as we have the past 21 months? If it weren’t so evil, it would’ve been nice to have something we could confidently say will never go away, but one of the only continuities in the American childhood, it seems, is the quiet observation of children a world away bearing the brunt of US-made bombs. The only difference is that in 2005, it was watching the invasion of Iraq on a boxy TV, and twenty years later, it’s witnessing Palestinian children plead for mercy via TikTok.

The Sun Still Shines

Despite my tone throughout this essay, I mean not to fearmonger or paint this generational difference as ‘black and white’ as it may have come off. I lament only that so many kids today are growing up without the silence, the slowness, and the sacred boredom that made us whole. I am saddened that the ugly imprints of the big and the bad do not leave them be; I wish it weren’t so. I mourn a world that’s slipping away, but the truth is — children are still as sacred, sweet, and simple as they always have been, and always will be. Nobody can or will take that away from them, or be able to extinguish the light they bring to our world. It’s been dimmed in some ways, sure, stolen to brighten instead the blue-toned screens in front of them, but it’s not gone (check out Recess Therapy).

Perhaps this is the undying optimism my own childhood left me with, but in spite of all this sour, the promise of a different tomorrow lives, even if its call is a whisper amongst louder echoes. We may not be able to give today’s children our childhood, and we most certainly can’t give them a perfect world, but we can still give them our attention, our patience, and try to recreate the slowness we once knew — starting with the reintroduction of it in our own lives. We can also actively work to cultivate a kinder, fairer society in this time of horrific injustice. Perhaps then the adulthood they inherit, even if not freed from tech’s tyrannical touch, is at least one that still honors what it means to preserve truth and goodness.

If you are able, consider donating to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund here.

References:

A Systematic Literature Review of Education for Generation Alpha

The Impact of Screen Time on Vision

The Impact of Social Media and Tech on Gen Alpha

Gen Alpha is snubbing the careers that boomers dreamed of

For Gen Alpha, Learning to Read is Becoming a Privilege

A New Study: The Health of U.S. Kids Has Declined Significantly Since 2007

The Intrusion of Media Sexualization in Childhood

Recess Therapy

Further Reading:

The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr

Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction is Hijacking Our Kids, Dr. Nicholas Kardaras

In the split shadow of Karbala, two figures walk divergent paths: one wrapped in silence, the other marching toward sovereignty. Between them lies the blood of martyrs and the dust of centuries. Somewhere in that dust, Ali Shariati is still whispering.

A revolutionary in the truest sense, Shariati believed that religion was not simply a personal refuge but a force meant to awaken the soul of the ummah, a weapon against injustice, and an instrument of awakening spiritually and socially. In his seminal essay Red Shi'ism and Black Shi'ism, the Iranian scholar laid out a framework that continues to haunt and guide us today: Black Shi'ism — the ritualistic, power-serving distortion of the faith — and Red Shi'ism — the living embodiment of justice, uprising, and moral resistance exemplified by Imam Hussein ع. As he ends the essay, he offers a simple clarifying description: Red Shi'ism as the religion of martyrdom, vs Black Shi'ism as the religion of mourning. Where Black Shi'ism merely mourns, Red Shi'ism moves. Where Black Shi'ism preserves hierarchy, Red Shi'ism dismantles it.

As a student of Shariati and a witness to the unique time we find ourselves in, I write this reflection after years of faithful practice that has consistently been accompanied by what I believe is an echo and continuation of his questions. Now more than ever, I find they haunt us — and demand answers.

Which Shi'ism do we live? Which are we serving?

The Enduring Framework

Though Shariati wrote in a specific moment, the power of his dichotomy endures. Red and Black are not simply institutions or ideologies; they are tendencies, mentalities, directions of the soul and sweat. While the binary risks flattening the full complexity of Shi‘i history and theology, it remains an essential framework for distinguishing between faith that resists and faith that resigns. His binary is a moral compass, not a perfect map. It draws clear lines between complicity and courage, between mourning and movement.

Shariati tells us that Red Shi'ism began with action, with a definitive 'No' — writing in the introduction of his essay:

"Shi'ism is the Islam which differentiates itself and selects its direction in the history of Islam with the 'No' of the great Ali, the heir of Mohammad and the manifestation of the Islam of Justice and Truth."

“Shi'ism, which begins with a 'no,' a 'no' which opposes the path chosen by history, rebels against history.”

This No in action, not just in speech, reverberated through history, making Shi’ism “a deep-rooted and revolutionary, socio-political movement of the masses,” leading “the deprived and oppressed masses in their movements for freedom and for the seeking of justice."

He goes on to explain further:

“It [Shi’ism] is considered to be the rallying point for the demands, pains and rebellions of the intellectuals seeking to gain their rights and the masses in search of justice.”

He narrates a story relaying the history of this in practice. In 13th-century Iran, when the Mongol boot crushed Muslim necks and pseudo-clergy blessed the oppression, a simple preacher named Sheikh Khalifah chose the path of Ali.

Shariati recounts how "a religious preacher sets out in search of the truth" after witnessing the collaboration between corrupt religious authorities and Mongol oppressors. When said preacher found that piety had become "a means of escape from reality and responsibilities, turning away from the fate of the masses, and ignoring cruelty and tyranny," he made a different choice. "Disgusted with all these robes of piety, and satisfied that these religious teachings are all the weavers of the clothes of piety to be worn on a body of oppression," Sheikh Khalifah "chose the Islam of Ali, the school of protest and martyrdom."

This was Red Shi'ism in action: faith that could not remain silent.

Red Shi'ism Today

Red Shi'ism is not an ideal on the horizon, but a present reality the world has continuously borne witness to (whether it acknowledges it or not). Against an apathetic, motionless world, Red Shi'ism remains aligned with the prophetic mission in a way few others could dare say they do: to stand with the oppressed, to enjoin good and forbid evil.

Sit in a Muharram majlis or walk the courtyards of a shrine during ziyara, and you’ll see it — a keffiyeh draped over a pilgrim, a cleric’s shoulders, the name of Hussein carried not only in laments, but in lived solidarity. These signs, quietly powerful, speak to a recognition that the struggle for Gaza is bound to the legacy of Karbala. The faithful who wear them have grasped what Shariati knew: Hussein's sacrifice was not just about the 7th century, but about every century, every occupation, every moment when the oppressed must choose between silence and resistance.

It lives in the hands of ordinary people: in organizers who invoke Karbala as they march against occupation, in the work of groups like Who is Hussain, feeding tens of thousands a year, organizing blood drives, and saving lives. Their work doesn't just commemorate Ashura; it embodies compassion, turning grief into giving. It honors the idea that Hussein is not just a martyr, but a method.

Consider the Zaydi Shia of Yemen, who have stood against a global aggression campaign backed by superpowers, enduring famine and bombardment while flying Palestinian flags alongside their own. When their hungry, neglected voices still find the strength to defend Palestine from Sana'a, they embody Shariati's vision: Karbala as method, not memory.

Iranian Shi'ism embodies this revolutionary impulse. It treats Karbala not as commemoration, but as constitution. This is Red Shi'ism politically, and more than that, existentially.

In an age rife with injustice, we are continuously presented with the chance to uphold the legacy of Imam Hussein’s ع sacrifice, Imam Ali’s ع unwavering justice, and, above all, the mercy and truth of RasulAllah ﷺ. In a compilation of his lectures, titled ‘Martyrdom: Arise and Bear Witness’, Shariati eloquently conveys the integral aspect of these elements as a part of faith:

“If you do not bear witness to the battle between truth and falsity during your age, it makes no difference what you are doing. Whether you are at prayer or you are drinking, it is the same thing.”

To fully embody Red Shi'ism is to follow the call of Hussein wherever it leads. That call can and must animate the small and the grand: from grassroots activism to media, from mosque committees to political alliances. It must reawaken within our youth. It must echo in the tongues of men and women alike, who have always been bearers of resistance, from Fatima Zahra (SA) at Fadak to Sayyeda Zaynab (SA) in Sham, who in Karbala “left behind a red garden of martyrdom, and (from whom) the perfume of red flowers spreads.”

They exemplified what it means to be the best of believers; reminding us that we must, as our principles instruct us, honor this hadith from the blessed Prophet ﷺ:

We can do so by following through on Shariati’s words: “Seek the leadership of Ali and flee from the leadership of cruelty…choose justice, and overthrow the system of paradox and discrimination in ownership."

The Contemporary Challenge of Black Shi'ism

Black Shi'ism breathes in our communities, in our cultural practices, in the quiet compromises we make when we fear controversy more than complicity. It is a cultural force, a mindset that shows up in ritualistic practice divorced from meaning, sermons that mourn without mobilizing, in a passive grief that forgets Zaynab's defiance in Yazid's court. Shariati echoes the woe of this sentiment when he writes, “Instead, we announce to the people that Husayn needs tears and weeping and has no other message. He has died and requires only lamentation and is not a martyr who bore witness.”

When we avoid politics in the name of respectability, weeping for Karbala and repeating Labayk Ya Hussein, and then we weep for Gaza but don’t march, boycott, or abandon the bloody footprints of the tyrants, which faith are we following?

Walk into any majlis during Muharram and you’ll witness the beauty of a faith in full expression; poetry echoing through halls, love for the Ahlul Bayt worn openly, generously. But step outside those sacred walls, and the contrast can be jarring: the warmth and generosity shared inside can be so far from what sits just beyond: the hungry and unhoused, those who (depending on where you are) might, and ought to, look to us for sanctity. But do we even realize that we’re meant to offer it?

We build beautiful mosques, but neglect the struggle to build food banks. We fly scholars across oceans to speak on Husseini values, but remain silent in the face of capitalism’s cruelty, racial injustice, and gendered oppression. Are those not tyrannies worth dismantling too?

This is not to ignore, discredit, or diminish the extraordinary work already being done by countless individuals and institutions, work that is both beautiful and essential. But we must expand on their example and do far more, on a far greater scale, until we are known for nothing else. The unfortunate truth is that often, the same voices that eulogize the justice of the Ahlul Bayt fall silent when contemporary injustice calls.

We could, and we must, be at the forefront of every justice movement, not just those that advocate for us. That is what it means to stand against Yazid, to honor the legacies of the Ahlul Bayt, and to embody the Quranic message of 4:135:

This selective spirituality — engaging with the metaphysics of oppression while avoiding its material reality — is precisely what Shariati identified as Black Shi'ism. It mourns historical injustice while accommodating contemporary tyranny. It speaks of awaiting Imam Mahdi (atfs) while refusing to do the work that would prepare his path.

Our tradition is clear: knowledge must lead to action. Certainly in this time, nobody can say they are unaware of the tragedies occurring across the world. Shariati eloquently captures the tragedy of knowing and not acting:

“What heartlessness and selfishness that a man should be surrounded by the screams of prisoners, the shouts of executioners, the poverty of the hungry, the whips of the cruel over the bodies of the helpless, and, instead of volunteering to defend them, should simply seek his own redemption and try to gain paradise for himself!”

When we center ritual but silence revolution, this is the institutionalization of Black Shi'ism: structures that serve ‘stability’ rather than justice, betraying the sacrifices made by those we eulogize and revere. Some may argue that silence is wisdom, that in volatile times, restraint is a form of protection, and of course, in many cases, it undoubtedly is. I speak to specific circumstances here. If the silence becomes perpetual, if the grief never becomes grit, then are we protecting Islam, or avoiding its call?

Islam was never meant to be neutral. The faith that rose from the ashes of Karbala has always demanded more than remembrance; it demands resistance. As Shariati himself taught, the message of Islam, and legacy of Shi'ism in particular, is not to escape from history but to shape it. The duty of the believer is not neutrality; it is resistance.

The Revolutionary Imperative: Choosing Red

Now more than ever, in an age where justice is under siege, our tradition stands as one of its last steadfast guardians. It has gone beyond being an option or suggestion; it is the imperative. Fully, courageously, and with eyes wide open, we must consciously, deliberately, and unapologetically choose Red. Because it is not just a memory, it is a mandate.

Shariati taught us that Red and Black Shi'ism are not just institutional tendencies but personal orientations, internal choices we make daily. Red Shi'ism is thus not automatic; on the contrary, it must be chosen, cultivated, and struggled for. When we speak of Karbala as history, not as a guidebook, we leave behind the legacy of Zaynab (SA), who did not just grieve, but testified, unafraid and unwavering.

He understood that true Shi'ism produces "the revolutionary cries of Ashura and the aggressive mobilization of the masses against existing conditions." He goes on:

“Red Shi'ism… has continued as the flame of the spirit of revolution, freedom-seeking, justice, leaning towards the people and fighting relentlessly against oppression, ignorance and poverty.”

To choose Red Shi'ism today means several concrete commitments:

In our communities: Transform majalis — end every gathering not with tea and conversation, but with concrete action. Make the connection between Zaynab's defiance in Yazid's court and our silence in the face of contemporary injustice impossible to ignore.

In our rituals: Channel the passion of Ashura into service. Let the oppressed be unmistaken in knowing that it is the lovers of the Ahlul Bayt who offer them relief!

In our personal practice: Live the Husseini choice daily. When faced with injustice, ask: would silence be what Hussein chose? When comfortable with privilege, remember: Karbala was about refusing to benefit from unjust systems.

In the words of Sayeda Zaynab (as): “A liberated person also has a responsibility towards human liberty. Witness your time. Witness the conflict between the truth and falsehood of your age.”

In our politics: Make the connection between Islamic values and contemporary struggles explicit and unavoidable. Stand with the oppressed — even when it costs you social acceptance or professional advancement.

These values must be embodied wherever we are, in whatever circumstances we face. And if we say we love Hussein, then we must ask: what does it mean to love someone who refused to stay silent? What does it mean to commemorate Karbala while remaining indifferent to the oppression around us? What does it mean to carry Zaynab's name, but none of her defiance?

Hussein's Eternal Call

We must hear Hussein's voice as Shariati understood it, not just as historical memory, but as a living presence. This passionate plea attributed to one of Shariati’s lectures captures this well:

"Oh, Hussein ….You are the lamp that shows the way, the ship of salvation. The blood of yours which was spilt is ever rising where there is deceit. It flows in the stream of time and passes over all generations. It is the blood that saturates any fruitful land, causes the worthy seeds to open underneath the earth & brings a dry plant into being. You, the great teacher of martyrdom… Render a bit of the fire of that firing desert to our cold and frozen winter! You have selected red death to release your lovers from the black death. Still with every drop of your blood, you give life to a nation, make the heart of history beat, give heat to the depressed crops of each age, give the excitement of life as well as hope & love."

This reveals why Shariati saw Hussein not merely as a historical figure to be mourned, but as an eternal principle to be lived. The "red death" Hussein chose was meant to save us from "black death" — the spiritual death of accommodation with injustice. His blood continues to flow "in the stream of time," calling each generation to choose between the path of resistance and the path of resignation.

The Choice Before Us

The message of Karbala was not only a rebellion against tyranny, but a rebellion against moral cowardice. It was a summons to stand with the oppressed, even if it means standing alone.

The Prophet ﷺ fought, struggled, and persevered against the Quraysh. Imam Ali ع, betrayed and abandoned, still defended the truth. Imam Hussein ع was so devoted to justice that he gave his head, but never his hand. Each of them triumphed; in their defiance, we see what becomes possible when faith refuses to compromise with power. A single soul, anchored in truth, can become a revolution. The transformation begins not with armies or institutions, but with individuals who choose Red over Black; movement over mourning, resistance over resignation.

Are we willing to embody their faith in action, not just praise it in poetry? And if our faith today does not move us toward that courage, then we must ask: which Shi'ism are we practicing? The one that weeps for historical martyrs while ignoring contemporary ones? Or do we choose the Shi'ism that sees Karbala not as a past event but as a present method — the one that transforms every majlis into a mobilization, every ritual into resistance?

I find it necessary to reiterate here, in case it was not made clear, especially for those unfamiliar, that ‘Red’ Shi’ism is just pure Shi'ism, its original and most authentic expression. It is by that definition the complete and unadulterated following of Islam, through its obedience to the call of the Prophet ﷺ, when he remarked in Hadith Thaqlayn to follow the Quran and his holy progeny after him, so that we may never stray. In no way have I meant throughout this essay to discredit the countless adherents of this beautiful truth; it is purely out of my love and commitment to it that I find Shariati’s words so powerful and worthy of examination. We have, undoubtedly, created a culture out of certain elements of our faith. That is no crime—I am not calling for us to abandon the traditions born from and sustained by love. I simply urge: don’t treat culture with the sanctity of creed; remember the root and neglect not the revolutionary spirit that birthed these practices. That is what it means to be Husseini!

Shi’ism, at its core, has always been a spiritual and moral insurgency, a call to justice, a refusal to kneel. It belongs to those who dare to walk the path lit by the blood of the martyrs, carried on the tongue of Zaynab. So let our sorrow turn to struggle, and one that does not discriminate, for the message Imam Hussein ع gave his life for was universal. The mercy the Prophet ﷺ came with was for all. Imam Ali ع reminds us beautifully:

Red Shi'ism is not a distant ideal; it lives as a liberatory force wherever believers refuse to separate spiritual practice from social justice, wherever the oppressed remember Hussein not just as a martyr but as a method, and wherever the heirs of Karbala choose courage over comfort. Shariati ever so beautifully remarks that when Imam Hussain, alone on the battlefield on Ashura, asked, ‘Is there anyone there to help me?’ He, of course, knew there was not. He was not asking those present that day. He was speaking into the future, asking us.

Do we hear his question?

Are we here, today, ready to help him, and stand for justice and truth?

Honor that call, honor Islam, honor the bright and brilliant Red. Be at the forefront of every justice movement. Wear the cloak of true faith, not as a mere adornment, but until it becomes indistinguishable from you. Liberate yourself first from the limits of the black: this is how we can build a world so sweet and just and true, it lingers forevermore with the scent not of rue, but of roses.

The dust of Karbala has not settled. Until the end of time, it shall remain the undying revolution; the one Hussein began, continuing in every choice we make between silence and speech, between mourning and movement, between Black and Red.

Shariati's whisper will not die until we answer his question — not with words, but with our lives.

Further Reading:

Red Shiism Black Shiism (Full original essay)

Martyrdom: Arise and Bear Witness (Compilation of Dr. Shariati’s lectures)

If Kierkegaard Knew Karbala (A supplementary essay of mine)

Harvard University’s Project on Shiism and Global Affairs (For anyone interested: they offer interesting, free, introductory workshops & lectures on Shiism, Ashura, +)

Charities serving in the name of the Ahlul Bayt:

Who is Hussain

Zahra Trust

Imamia Medics International

Mystic Meditation

“God is beautiful and loves beauty.”

What if worship isn’t just in our prayers or prostrations, but in the way we lay a rug, speak a word, or set a table with care?

What if beauty, in all its forms, is how we resist despair — not by escaping the world, but by honoring it?

I have been blessed to grow up enveloped in beauty: a hospitable home, generous parents, and the quiet certainty that kindness and love should eternally take precedence over all else. All because the culture and belief system I was privileged enough to inherit is one inherently soaked in the appreciation for beauty.

Anyone who visits Pakistan will tell you it is a land, culture, and people who revere beauty as a sacred pursuit, generationally and culturally ensuring its continued existence. So, for as long as I can remember, I've grown up with a deep appreciation for the aesthetic — the task of beautifying things given a holy status. This is perhaps an inheritance from my mother, a lawyer turned fashion designer whose Islamabad boutique housed lovingly crafted and intensely curated womenswear, all in the spirit of upholding Pakistan's rich tradition of textile craftsmanship. She was gifted that passion from my grandfather, who was renowned for his love of poetry and fine suits. Though the truth is they were not unique in their respect and adoration for beauty; they were simply honoring the innate human pull toward the beautiful.

My mother’s love for interior design meant our home was never just a place to live, but a space where beauty was arranged as devotion. She taught us that living beautifully was a way of honoring what God had given. Like many Pakistani homes, my parents paid quiet homage to beauty, not as luxury, but as love. For my mother, this reverence translated to an affection for shawls; for my father, rugs — finely woven, thoughtfully placed. The intricate weaving required to create these treasures reminds us that it’s more than mere craft or preservation of tradition; it is reverence in motion.

On days when I choose to stay in my comfy clothes for a bit too long, she still gently scolds me: “Always dress your best, it’s good for you,” a gentle reminder that appreciating beauty is an act of expressing gratitude. And she’s not wrong; what may seem like cultural preference or aesthetic flair is actually supported by science. Research in psychology has shown that dressing well can significantly improve mood, increase self-confidence, and even enhance cognitive processing — a phenomenon known as "enclothed cognition." One study found that wearing clothes associated with positive attributes improved attention and performance on tasks.

It makes me consider that perhaps the Islamic reverence for beauty, whether in clothing, architecture, language, or character, is not simply about presentation, but preservation of the soul. What God loves is not only beautiful in theory, but beneficial in practice. His commands are never ornamental; they are always aligned with our design. There is a science to this sacredness.

The heart is naturally drawn to beauty because it was created to love the Divine. In beauty, the soul glimpses its Source. And in yearning for it, we return to Him. This yearning is not a worldly distraction; rather, it is a spiritual compass. To be moved by beauty is to be reminded of God, and to respond with reverence is to participate in His remembrance. When we soften at the sight of something lovely: a moment, a word, a woven shawl, it is the soul instinctively recognizing the trace of its Creator.

This sacred instinct to seek, to feel, to express beauty, pulses not only in our private lives but in the very rhythm of our cultures. And in Pakistan, it most powerfully manifests through music: a lineage of sonic devotion that transcends time, borders, and even belief. Renowned across the Muslim world and beyond, our poetry and Sufi anthems, the qawwali and ghazals that stir the soul, echo with sacred longing and divine remembrance. These aren’t just songs; they’re vessels of devotion, composed to awaken something eternal through symphonies and soothing voices. This tradition is arguably unmatched by any other, which is why it is universally appreciated. Something I often remember during my own listening sessions is that even Sam Harris, militant atheist, once named Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan among his favorite artists. That even a man who rejects God cannot deny the beauty of music that praises Him speaks to a deeper truth: sincere beauty, that is born in reverence, cannot help but move us, no matter where we stand. That is what sanctifies it not only as a treasure, but a tool. This lifelong love of beauty, then, is not merely cultural or personal. It is, more than anything, spiritual.

Beauty is Reverence

This brings me to a truth I've come to understand: the reverence for beauty is not a cultural accident, but a spiritual imperative. God loves beauty. And why wouldn't He? He is the most beautiful, Al Jameel, and the most merciful, Ar Rahman. And it is nothing less than the implementation of mercy to spend your efforts making life beautiful.

The creative thus has a unique place in God's eyes, I believe, because the one who utilizes His blessings to honor His creation operates on a different frequency, more in tune with the glory of God. To beautify is to draw nearer to Him by cloaking the space around and within you in mercy.

Beauty is Mercy

When I speak of beauty, I speak of it not as escapism for the senses but as an ethical insistence to revere what God Himself loves. Aesthetic expression can, when done ethically and with pure intentions, be a form of appreciation for the divine. When something brings me tranquility, I am in alignment with my spirit, which belongs only to the Most High. That is when I recognize Him best, when all I can think to say is "Allah, aap ki shaan!" Oh God, your glory!

This is not to mistake vanity for beauty, or the sinful pursuits of extravagance. Indulgence and excess are, of course, the embodiment of all that is ugly. It would be unfair and incorrect to minimize devotion to beauty to something as unjust as materialism, as many holier-than-thou attitudes would proclaim. If one sees beauty only as the physical, then their eyes work, but their hearts don't. That is when beauty is misunderstood, for it is not just intricate textiles or sugary language. It is character and conduct; it is the bringing of light to what was previously dark. It is goodness prevailing where it should always have been, which is everywhere.

Beyond its most obvious manifestation in the physical, its kindest is not in what is seen with the eyes, but touched by the heart and felt by the soul. To revere beauty is to live gently, and this is a virtue increasingly lost, yet eternally needed. Its greatest form, thus, will not be in the clothes we wear or art we hang on our walls, but in the presentation of our character. If that is ugly, even the brightest jewels in the world seem dim. I have many a time found myself in spaces of an exceptional standard physically, but lingering in the unique heartbreak of them being filled with people whose akhlaq (character) does not mirror any light.

Prophet Muhammad ﷺ had the most beautiful character, husn al-khuluq, an eternal reminder for us that true beauty must be embodied, not just appreciated.

Beauty is Balance

This understanding of beauty as character as mercy made manifest brings me to those who mistake aesthetic appreciation for spiritual weakness. I am more than familiar with this tension in my own experience. Here, I address those who believe that worshipping God means rejecting anything deemed beautiful as a worldly distraction. This binary thinking once troubled me as someone who has long witnessed and been in perpetual awe of malangs (ascetics), and who dwells still in the desire to reach the level of detachment all great saints write of. I wrestled, unnecessarily so, with what I mistakenly saw as a contradiction between spiritual devotion and aesthetic appreciation. I found myself questioning whether my love for such things was displeasing to God. But this misconception is precisely what Islam rejects through its emphasis on mizan, or balance.

The Quran tells us that God established equilibrium in all things. This divine principle extends to how we engage with beauty. Living modestly, as we all should, does not mean depriving ourselves of what God has been kind enough to bless us with. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ himself wore beautiful clothing on special occasions, used fragrance, and appreciated fine craftsmanship, yet he was the most spiritually elevated of all creation.

Consider the very mosque of the Prophet in Medina, which was not merely functional but thoughtfully designed. Consider the intricate calligraphy that adorns our holiest text, the careful design of the Kaaba's covering, the detailed geometric patterns that have defined Islamic art for centuries. If beauty were truly worldly and thus worthy of rejection, would our tradition be so deeply steeped in it?

The answer lies in understanding that Islam offers us a middle path between the extremes of asceticism and excess. We are neither monks rejecting all worldly pleasures, nor hedonists drowning in them. We are believers called to appreciate God's creation while maintaining a proper perspective about its source and purpose. It goes without saying that I am not advocating for mindless consumption and vain, indulgent attachment to material items. I am praising the nuance Islam affords us, the recognition that the same God who forbids wasteful extravagance also forbids us from making lawful things unlawful. As long as we are mindful, not falling into the idol worship of modern luxuries and deriving our sense of worth, or worse, pride, from them, we are safe.

Preserving the mizan means recognizing the wisdom of God in offering us what He has and being mindful in accepting it. It means understanding that appreciation of beauty is appreciation of God.

Beauty is Preservation

This balance I've found in my own life becomes even more precious when I witness how beauty itself is under siege in our time. What once felt like personal spiritual practice now reveals itself as urgent cultural preservation. Understanding beauty as both aesthetic and ethical explains why I am increasingly saddened by the erosion of tradition via machine-generated gunk, or strategic curations for the scroll-enslaved eye. In this world that’s increasingly drowning out color, creativity, and kindness, reaching for beauty becomes resistance. We're witnessing the fading of beauty from public life, from language, from the way we treat one another. Anything that allows it to live is a gift.

That's why I feel for people who don't know Urdu, a language so poetic and steeped in affection that it drips like honey. For instance, I've only ever known my elders with 'jaan' attached to their name. Nanajaan means grandfather sweetheart — but jaan also means life. Is that not the sweetest thing? My mother will affectionately call me 'amma qurban,' which translates to 'as your mother, may I be sacrificed for you.' I believe this is how God should like our words to be: laced with such undying love.

Wherever I look, I see evidence that the human soul refuses to surrender its need for beauty, even in the most dire circumstances. I think of a photo I saw of a Syrian refugee family, who, despite living in a tent, had adorned it with beautiful rugs and artwork, bringing it to life in a way so radiant and gentle that you could not help but smile. I think of the Afghan refugees I documented living in a kachi abadi (mud settlement) in Islamabad. Despite living in such unkind conditions, consumed by extreme poverty and living under constant risk of having their homes demolished, they offered us unmatched hospitality, smiles brighter than the harsh sun they had no shield from. Their kindness brought joy to a scene that was otherwise deeply sorrow-stricken. That was the highest reverence for beauty there could be.

Beauty is Sacred Service

This instinct to create and preserve beauty, even against overwhelming odds, finds its most enduring expression in the sacred spaces we build for worship and remembrance. This is why Islamic architecture has long been so deeply appreciated and carefully curated. In our mosques and mausoleums, we see functional beauty for the public good, another example of mercy made manifest. In their unique and intricate design, we see echoes of glorious traditions that live on, drawing awe from all corners of the world, centuries after their construction.

When I was in Iraq recently, I was surrounded by some of the world's most glorious displays of Islamic architecture in the holy shrines of the Ahlul Bayt ع. Silk rugs in tranquil hues cover the courtyards before slipping into crisp marble floors, sitting beneath grand, glimmering chandeliers unlike any you've seen before. Mirrored walls reflect their luminosity, where calligraphy kisses the ceilings and archways. Even with thousands of pilgrims coming and going, the space is perpetually spotless and eternally smells of roses and oud. The spiritual beauty manifests not only in the metaphysical sense but in built space, in the careful crafting of sensory sanctity.

Around the same time, I also made my annual return to Lahore, finding myself before the same grand Badshahi mosque everyone adores and honors as the city's prized possession. It is a beloved sight dripping in historic and architectural beauty, which makes it all the more tragic to see that its surroundings are so neglected. The decay of its physical beauty, once so lovingly built out of tradition and as triumph, mirrors the gradual decline of something so fundamentally human within us, which is the commitment to preserve. To not see preservation as worth the effort it requires is a tragedy only the poets can sufficiently relay. It is a moral obligation upon us to maintain the responsibility of establishing and preserving beauty, even in the smallest of spaces, but especially for such monumentally important ones. Otherwise, what does this say about our state of affairs? To let beauty fade is to neglect ihsan (excellence), and in that forgetting, we quietly erase the spirit from the world we were entrusted to tend…and lose a part of ourselves, too. Reverence for beauty is our most fundamental human self on display; its opposite is a spiritual betrayal.

These moments of beauty persisting against all odds remind me that we are not passive observers in this struggle. We are not meant to simply lament what is being lost or celebrate what accidentally survives. We are called to be active participants in beauty's continuation, to make it a deliberate practice and a way of life that honors both God and the world He has entrusted to us.

I often lament the world we live in. I find it tragic and terrifying, and more often than not linger too closely to the edge of despair. I consider it a blessing and mercy from God that in this same spirit, he offered me the inheritance He has, one that reveres beauty and the sweetness it envelops one in. It is the cure I regularly find myself returning to, as a philosophy and form of worship.

Perhaps it is the only cure there is.

No matter how small or quiet, it is what grounds me in the remembrance of God. Not as escape, but as evidence; a flicker of light in the dark. In today's world, especially, creating and seeking beauty becomes an act of spiritual resistance against the ugliness of the world. It is jihad against the devil that is despair.

That being said, I like to think we can make Earth more Eden-like. As I remain a traveler lingering in the temporary of this world, I do what I can with what I have to appreciate God's creation. When in Pakistan, I find solace in designing clothing: sarees spun from velvet and embroidered net, ghararas sewn from pink jamavar and lined with pearl lace, abayas flowing in silk and chiffon. I'd like to believe God likes it when I do that, too.

As someone whose natural tendency is to refer to people as sweetie, honey, jaani, I have sometimes considered changing how I speak, before remembering life is too short and the world too unkind for us to waste our days repeating words deprived of such softness. After all, the Prophet ﷺ said, “A good word is charity.” So even if it seems small or silly, it doesn’t take away from the truth that beautiful words are a form of resistance, too. In a time when cruelty is casual and tenderness feels rare, choosing gentleness is a way of keeping beauty alive. It’s a quiet rebellion against the ugliness of indifference. And if we’re called to love what God loves, then surely that includes mercy in our manner and sweetness in our speech.

The world has enough sorrow, and that we cannot escape. The screens we’re now slaves to behold images of such brutality and pain that we can not pretend our world is not a cruel one. But when we look at the little beautiful things around us that still exist, casually in the background, we remember it can also be a kind one. In the moment of reprieve that gifts us, we’re grounded back in the nuance of life, pulled out of that darkness, even if only for a fleeting moment. When I feel as though my tears and grief will swallow me whole, I am forced to remember the love that went into making all the things around me. I'm drawn back to the reality of Al Jameel. When someone offers unexpected kindness, I remember there is still purity in this world. More than that, I realize there could be more of it, and in acknowledging that, it becomes an obligation upon me to spread it.

Beauty is Our Calling

If only we look for it, we will see the delicate face of love all around us, whether via song or smile. That alone should push us to build a better world — God knows it’s about time we did. We have to love beauty enough to seek it, and where it dwindles, we must protect it. That is what it means to honor God, to love what He loves.

Whatever keeps pulling us into this truth, in a time where so many forces want to push us away from it, must be protected. I have come to realize this is not silly; rather, it is the oxygen tank sustaining the sacred we have left. So let living be an act of beautification: leave every place and person better than you found them. Let beauty be not just what is seen, but what is felt. Let it be a movement more than a stillness.

As lovers of the Most Beautiful, it is our spiritual imperative to reignite the light of beauty’s presence in the places darkened by its absence. If you cannot find it, make it. If you can be it — in your conduct, your compassion, your character — then that is best.

May our hands create beauty, our tongues speak it, our hearts exude it, and our souls become it. Ameen.

Further Reading:

Adam Hajo and Adam D. Galinsky, “Enclothed Cognition,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 48, Issue 4, July 2012, Pages 918–925.

God is Beautiful and Loves Beauty, Yale University Press

Art of Islam, Language, and Meaning, Titus Burckhardt

Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition, Omid Safi

The Search for Beauty in Islam, Dr. Khaled Abou El Fadl

Beauty and Islam: Aesthetics in Islamic Art and Architecture, Valerie Gonzalez

Purification of the Heart, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf

The Tao of Islam, Sachiko Murata

Shah ast Hussain, Badshah ast Hussain,

Deen ast Hussain, Deen Panah ast Hussain.

Sardad na dad dast, dar dast-e-yazeed,

Haqaa key binaey La Ila ast Hussain.

Salaam Ya Hussain!

Hussain is the Ruler, Hussain is the King,

Hussain is Faith, Hussain is the Protector of Faith.

He gave his head but not his hand to Yazeed,

Indeed, Hussain is the foundation of "There is no god but God."

Peace be upon you, O Hussain!

— A centuries-old Persian poem praising Imam Hussain, often recited in Muharram and attributed to Moinuddin Chishti.

Our present-day rings loudly with the noise of screeching voices, tyrannical and triumphant. Our ears have adjusted, however painfully so, but our hearts, wounded yet refusing to succumb, have not. In the cacophony of contemporary discourse, we search desperately for heroes amidst the havoc. Yet we have forgotten one of the most profound embodiments of what Søren Kierkegaard called the knight of faith: the figure who transcends all earthly categories, through absolute devotion, to become the pinnacle of heroism — a figure whose leap into the divine abyss surpasses even blessed Abraham's trembling ascent up Moriah. For those who listen carefully enough, their ears will catch the gentle echoes lingering in the margins, refusing to be silenced into nonexistence. The footsteps of ancient sacrifices still reverberate through time, calling to those who refuse to forget what it means to choose eternity over empire.

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard exalts Abraham as the archetype of religious heroism, whose willingness to sacrifice his son transcends ethical categories and enters the realm of the absolute. Throughout the book, the narrator Johannes Silentio explores and attempts to understand the depth, intensity, and complex emotions of Abraham's trek up Moriah to fulfill God's command and sacrifice his beloved son. This was a journey that he, like most people, can not begin to fathom. In his quest to understand such ultimate devotion, Kierkegaard also looked to other figures who chose principle over life. Most notably, the Greek philosopher Socrates was also honored by Kierkegaard as the pinnacle of moral courage, for his preference of death over the betrayal of truth.

But what is Socrates’ hemlock to Hussain’s Ashura?

What if Kierkegaard knew Karbala?

The blessed Prophet Muhammad ﷺ once remarked about his beloved younger grandson, Hussain ibn Ali: “Hussain is from me and I am from Hussain.”

In 680, on the day of Ashura, Hussain was brutally martyred in the Battle of Karbala after refusing to pledge allegiance to the tyrant Yazid, who, in his despotism and shamelessness, threatened to destroy the noble message Hussain’s grandfather brought forth. In his courageous stand for truth, we find a sacrifice that not only echoes Abraham’s trial and faith but also offers a new lens. Through recognizing his just fight for truth to prevail over tyranny, one can not help but conclude that Hussain is not merely another religious hero, but the ultimate knight of faith. He committed to the love of God over the love of life, justice over oppression, and infinity over finitude.

His sacrifice, encompassing not only personal martyrdom but the offering of his family, transcends Kierkegaard’s framework in its scope and significance. Hussain's courage when facing Yazid, knowing not only that he would die, but that his family and companions would perish alongside him, represents a form of faith that encompasses both personal and communal dimensions. His sacrifice remains nearly incomprehensible, like Abraham’s, yet far less spoken of. Just as we turn to the memory of the blessed prophet Abraham to draw closer to God, the cure for our modern spiritual anguish, born from witnessing constant oppression, lies in turning to the memory of Hussain.

If we are to understand Hussain through Kierkegaard's framework, we must first grasp the mathematics of his sacrifice. Kierkegaard wrote extensively about Abraham as the father who would sacrifice his son for God, the singular, devastating choice that defines his heroism. Abraham's willingness to offer Ismail (and Ismail’s acceptance) represents the archetypal act of faith, complete in its mystifying beauty. Yet Hussain's sacrifice expands this paradigm: not one soul offered, but seventy-two. One man, facing the machinery of empire, knowing that his children, his siblings, his companions would follow him into the furnace of martyrdom. And still he chose justice over safety, the everlasting over the immediate, and integrity over submission to tyranny.

This comparison is not to negate or minimize the beautiful faith of Prophet Abraham (pbuh), God forbid. There is a reason he is the honored Khalilullah, the Friend of God, whom we revere every Eid al-Adha. This is merely to shed light on the magnitude of Hussain's offering, whose faith was what it was precisely because he was the descendant of this great prophet. Abraham's sacrifice remains the foundation; Hussain's represents its fullest flowering.

The theological architecture of their trials reveals a profound distinction. Kierkegaard's Abraham represents the individual who suspends the ethical for the religious, trusting in God despite the apparent contradiction of divine command. Abraham's trial included the clarity of direct divine communication — a voice that commanded, tested, and ultimately intervened with merciful reprieve. Hussain's situation presents a different challenge: faced with Yazid's tyrannical rule and the corruption of Islamic principles, he made his fateful decision to resist without explicit divine instruction.

This distinction illuminates something remarkable. While Abraham responded to the unmistakable voice of the divine, Hussain’s decision required not just obedience to a clear command, but the courage to interpret his religious duty in the face of certain death. Here lies not merely a theological difference, but a profound expansion of what human faith can accomplish: faith that operates through spiritual conscience rather than direct revelation. Faced with Yazid's corrupt reign, Hussain discerned that silence was not an option, and that to preserve the soul of Islam, he had to stake everything. Himself, his children. His siblings, his nephews. His closest companions. Not even his six-month-old baby was spared. Devastating as it is, this is the calculus of Karbala. It is nearly unbearable to contemplate, which is why those who understand this mourn, while those who don't mock and misinterpret.

This is what Kierkegaard could never have imagined in 19th century Protestant Denmark: a figure who embodied not just the knight of faith, but the knight of faith elevated to its highest possible expression; one who, even on the battlefield facing imminent death, deprived of water in the scorching desert heat and surrounded by thousands of spears and swords, still paused to offer his daily prayers, prioritizing his covenant with God above even his final moments of earthly existence.

Hussain's courage becomes arguably unmatched in the annals of human history when we recognize not just the piety but the profound sorrow embedded within it. He was not alone in his sacrifice, accompanied by seventy-two companions and family members, all heroes of faith in their own right. Before embarking on this journey toward certain death, he offered each of them the opportunity to leave, extinguishing the lamps around them in the darkness as a promise that none would be judged or shamed for departing, since it was his head Yazid sought, not theirs. Yet everyone chose to remain.

Thus, when facing Yazid's army of thirty thousand, knowing not only that he would die but that his beloved family and companions would perish alongside him, Hussain transcends even Kierkegaard's most profound meditations on religious heroism. For the philosopher, the greatest act of heroism was to abandon everything for God. If Abraham's monumental sacrifice became a foundational moment for monotheistic faith, then Hussain's sacrifice became its preservation. Abraham offered his son; Hussain offered everything. He wasn't simply preserving Islam, but embodying what Islam demands: that justice be lived, not merely preached. That truth be embodied, even when death is the price. That faith be more than belief, it must be resistance.

The Temporal Bridge: From Abraham to Hussain

The Islamic calendar provides a profound symbolic connection between these two archetypal sacrifices. The month of Muharram, which marks the Islamic new year on its first day and Ashura on its tenth, immediately follows Dhul Hijjah. This means the journey of Hussain’s caravan to their ultimate offering began amidst the spirit of Eid al-Adha, which celebrates Abraham's offering. It is no small thing, either, that the junction of these blessed journeys meets during the sacred days known as the best of the entire year.

This timing speaks to the shared spiritual movement of the two figures; going deeper than coincidence, it reveals the holy design of time itself, the delicate fashioning of God’s divine plan. As we remember Abraham's trek up Moriah, so Hussain's begins. Ordinary duration transforms into sacred time, where past and present collapse into the eternal moment of choosing God over the world. Before us, we have two offerings: one spared, one allowed to bleed. Bleed it did, and bleed still it does today. This is the liturgy of time: sacrifice echoing sacrifice, faith answering faith. A calendar not just marking venerated days, but stitching together a sanctified story that begins with Abraham, and reaches its crescendo at Karbala.

The great thinker Allama Iqbal beautifully captured the essence of Imam Hussain’s eternal relevance through his poetry in Bal-e Jibril:

"The eternal reality is the station of Hussain,

The styles of Kufa and Damascus keep changing."

While worldly powers and their methods may shift and change over time, the spiritual truth and moral example of Hussain's stand for justice remain constant and eternal.

This sacred narrative linking Abraham and Hussain also illuminates what Kierkegaard called the "movement of resignation,"— the moment when the knight of faith knowingly relinquishes all earthly hope, resigning their fate to God. Abraham’s journey to Moriah is mirrored in Hussain's journey to Karbala, which serves as the perfect, perhaps ultimate, example of this movement. Yet Hussain did not make this movement in private silence, but in the public square, on a barren plain, with the eyes of history upon him. It is not as if he were ignorant of what was to come; on the contrary, he knew very well what was to take place. Knowing his life was in danger because of his stand, on the eighth of Dhul Hijjah, to avoid bloodshed from taking place in the Kaaba and to protect its sanctity, he converted his Hajj into Umrah. Thus, his movement of resignation began with the commemoration of his forefather’s.

The Courage of Mary

Kierkegaard identified courage and humility as the twin pillars of faithful heroism. In Hussain, these virtues find their perfect synthesis, not merely as separate qualities, but as one seamless expression of faith confronting the absolute.

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard presents Mary (pbuh) as an exemplar of what he calls "humble courage." When angel Gabriel delivers the divine message that she will bear a son as a virgin, Mary responds: "Let it be unto me according to thy word,”— embodying both profound humility and extraordinary courage. Like Abraham, she makes a leap of faith beyond rational understanding, accepting a divine calling that will inevitably bring her suffering. What makes her courage "humble" is her acceptance without demand for signs or rational justification. She simply surrenders, trusting something infinitely larger than her comprehension.

Hussain at Karbala embodied this same humble courage with breathtaking completeness. He exhibited that particular quality of strength that accepts the impossible, bearing witness to divine mystery without fully grasping its dimensions. Seeing Yazid's overwhelming forces, understanding exactly what his "yes" would cost, he chose to trust in divine justice rather than earthly calculation. Like Mary accepting the angel's impossible message, Hussain accepted what he knew would be annihilation, not out of despair, but out of conviction.

But where Mary's courage was private, whispered in the intimacy of divine visitation, Hussain's was declared before Yazid’s army and history itself. Where Abraham's trial unfolded in mountain solitude, Hussain's played out on the plains of Karbala before enemies and allies alike. His surrender transcended passivity to become the most active force imaginable. It is the difference between giving up and giving over, between defeat and offering — the conscious choice to align one's will with divine justice, even, and especially when that alignment demands earthly destruction. Here we witness what the Sufis understand as fana, the ultimate annihilation that Hussain willingly embraced.

The Knight of Faith Perfected

In Hussain, the courage of Abraham and the humility of Mary converge into something unprecedented: a knight of faith who doesn't merely fit Kierkegaard's framework, but redefines it entirely. His faith was rooted not in certainty of outcome, but in nearness to truth. He was not just resigned, he was resolute. His surrender was not a passive retreat but a fierce advance toward divine will. He didn’t merely trust God, but rather loved Him so deeply and thoroughly that even the prospect of obliteration could not tear him from the path of justice God has bestowed upon him to protect. Thus, he becomes the perfected knight of faith, who translates his believing into becoming, his obedience into an offering, and in his profound sacrifice, transforms the very meaning of faith itself.

Just as Abraham’s son was his most beloved, making him the unfathomable sacrifice, so too was Islam for Hussain. He held upon his shoulders the weight of his grandfather’s message: in shedding his own blood, he ensured that Islam’s true spirit would continue to live. He thus becomes the guiding star for all those wholly committed to God beyond anything else. Moreover, his commitment extends beyond the personal relationship with the divine to encompass the social, political, and cosmic dimensions of what it means to live per divine will.

In Hussain, we witness the ultimate synthesis of the knight of faith and the servant of justice. He is mystic and martyr, philosopher and revolutionary. Through tracing his footsteps on Ashura, we discover that the soul’s individual journey to God and the world’s collective struggle for justice are no longer separate roads, but one. This unity reveals why, despite this long essay, he honestly transcends any label. He demonstrates that authentic spirituality cannot be separated from the pursuit of justice, that true love of God manifests inevitably in resistance to oppression, that the movement of resignation, when perfected, becomes the movement of revolution.

The Legacy That Transcends Time

It is interesting to consider what Kierkegaard would have written had he encountered the story of Karbala. In Hussain, he might have seen something that exceeded even his most profound imagination of what human faith could accomplish. Abraham's test lasted three days; Hussain's lasted beyond the ten days that are commemorated, into the struggle of his sister Zaynab and son Sajjad, bleeding into fourteen centuries and breathing still. Hussain's status extends beyond historical martyrdom into the realm of cosmic significance; his sacrifice is understood not merely as political resistance, but as a spiritual act that maintains the balance between justice and oppression across time. His martyrdom becomes an eternal principle, not merely a historical event, but a continuous invitation to choose light over darkness.

What makes Hussain's sacrifice so monumental is that it was simultaneously personal and communal, political and cosmic, mystical and material. He embodied what it means for divine love to become a public ethic. In doing so, he preserved a religion not through power, but through refusal; not through dominance, but through death; not through empire, but through eternal defiance of it. The legacy of his leap of faith crosses centuries, continents, and every attempt to erase it from historical memory. Yet it would be neither accurate nor fair to minimize his sacrifice as one for Muslims alone. He proclaimed the universality of his stand in one of his most resonant battlefield declarations on Ashura:

These words have drawn reverence from thinkers across religious traditions, rising beyond the boundaries of faith to speak to the universal human longing for justice.

Hussain’s example remains so compelling precisely because it transcends time and religious tradition, serving as a guiding star for anyone seeking to understand complete commitment to the divine. He was not merely a historical or political figure, but a spiritual revolutionary standing against the tyranny not only of his time, but of all times to come. In recognizing him as the ultimate hero of faith, we acknowledge not only his historical significance but his continuing relevance as a model for courage in the face of oppression, his resistance defining faithfulness for all people and all ages.

Hussain Today

As the ‘Socrates of Christendom,’ Kierkegaard challenged the dormant Christians of his time to step beyond ritual and passive practice to adopt the heroic faith of Abraham. He called his readers to abandon hollow religion and embrace the brave, beautiful leap of faith that the prophet exhibited so exceptionally. This same bravery he so admired in Abraham is why he also revered Socrates, whose death was arguably a quiet martyrdom, the triumph of intellectual integrity over political expedience. But if he had known Karbala, he would see how what he so revered in his beloved Socrates, who chose poison over abandoning his principles, pales before the magnitude of Hussain's sacrifice. Hussain's death, a public declaration that shook the foundations of an empire, made him the true inheritor of the title ‘martyr of all martyrs’. Where Socrates died for the principle of truth, Hussain died as truth itself, bleeding his convictions into the desert sand where they would take root under a bright, still sun.

His martyrdom thus transcends history to become principle, proof, and possibility. Shaheed Mutahhari eloquently captured this eternal dimension;

Hussain did not only offer his life for Islam; he offered it as Islam. In this profound act, he achieved true immortality. Thus, his sacrifice lives forever, not as a moment buried in the earth, but as an ever-present summons. It reverberates in every whispered prayer beneath occupation, in every act of resistance, in every refusal to bow to injustice. Hussain's stand becomes the rhythm of the oppressed, the resolve of the faithful, the roar beneath imposed silence.

This sacred truth also reveals itself in a profound paradox: the army of Yazid withheld mercy from Hussain, yes, but he had become mercy itself. To remember the words of the Prophet ﷺ, Rahmatul lil Alamin — mercy for all mankind — who proclaimed 'Hussain is from me and I am from Hussain' is to hear his declaration to the universe: that on Karbala's ash-ridden, blood-soaked earth, Hussain became the very essence of what was withheld from him. He was the sanctified and spiritual heir of God’s most beloved creation, and the extinguishing of his life only solidified this truth. Even in his fear and trembling, he stood firm as faith’s steadfast knight, its eternal compass and cornerstone. And in that, he shall never die.

The Yazids of our age live on too, tragically, alongside the complicit silence of those who have forgotten this truth. Like their predecessor, they attempt to erase the memory of the perfected knight of faith, but ignorance can never wear the crown of victory for long. In every plea leaving the lips of the oppressed, in every stone thrown at a tank, in every choice of truth over comfort, the spirit of Hussain's sacrifice continues to unfold, calling us back to what we could be, what we should be, what we must be.

Today, as new tragedies unfold across the world, from Palestine to Kashmir, from Sudan to the silence of the majority, we must ask ourselves: are we inheritors of Hussain’s faith or Yazid’s comfort? Have we remembered what it means to say “God is greater,” or have we emptied it of meaning? The answer reveals itself in our response to injustice, in our willingness to stand with the oppressed, in our choice between the safety of silence and the sacrifice truth demands. For many, sadly, it seems the latter is true. Still, though, just as Hussain’s victory lives on in the continuation of his memory, so too shall the victims of today’s many Yazids see their triumph.

Just as billions have commemorated Abraham's faith during Eid al-Adha, hundreds of millions will soon mark Hussain's martyrdom on Ashura. When that day arrives, sermons will echo Hussain's final call from the battlefield, when wounded and alone, he asked: "Is there anyone left to help me?" Across oceans, languages, and generations, millions will answer him:

"Labbayk ya Hussain."
"Here I am, O Hussain."

Let us be amongst them. Let us remember his death and defiance in the cries of today's oppressed, from the children of Gaza’s rubble to those of Sanaa’s sand, standing with them in their struggle against the Yazids of our time. For in doing so, we ensure that the knight of faith's ultimate sacrifice continues to illuminate the path from tyranny to truth, from resignation to resistance, from death to eternal life.

Further Reading:

Who is Hussain?

Husayn: The Saga of Hope

Imam Husayn: The Heir of Prophet Abraham

Karbala: Hussain’s Everlasting Stand (film)

Allama Iqbal and Imam Hussain (as)

Labayk ya Hussain (this is a short video that shows the millions of pilgrims at the grave of Imam Hussain in Karbala on the anniversary of Ashura, responding to his final call. It is deeply moving and testifies to his ultimate triumph, so I had to share.)

Since humanity's inception, suffering has emerged as its constant companion. This is a truth undeniable, yet for many, unacceptable. Sorrow, thus, holds a peculiar place in the weaving of every spirit; twisting and turning through and with us, sitting hauntingly beside joy as time ticks us towards our end. As much as we despise it so, it insists on living and lingering, an unwanted visitor breathing too loudly for our liking. We pray and plead for its departure, while it has made itself the landlord of a sacred corner deep within us, unmoving and unafraid. This truth begs the question: what do we do with this incessant agony? Shall we force it to wilt through the whims of our mind, or let it bloom and bring with it a new light?

The question of why humans endure pain has captivated philosophers, mystics, and contemplatives across civilizations, generating countless explanations, belief systems, and methods of reconciliation with this fundamental aspect of mortal existence. Within the Islamic intellectual tradition, both philosophy and Sufism (the mystical strand of Islamic thought) offer distinctive yet overlapping approaches to understanding suffering and the human condition. Through their emphasis on spiritual devotion and direct communion with the Divine, Sufi saints and scholars have long offered their symphonies as an answer to the questions tugging on our hearts, offering profound insights into the nature of pain and its role in the human journey toward God. Within this rich tradition, the intersection of rational philosophy and mystical insight becomes particularly illuminating when we examine two towering figures: the 9th-century philosopher Al-Kindi and the 13th-century Sufi master Jalaluddin Rumi.

Though separated by centuries and approach, both devoted themselves to understanding human anguish, yet their prescriptions for engaging with suffering reveal fascinating divergences. Al-Kindi approached sorrow as a symptom of misplaced attachment — a consequence of clinging to the temporal world rather than surrendering fully to God, arguing that such suffering should be overcome through philosophical detachment and spiritual discipline. Rumi, conversely, embraced a more paradoxical stance: he regarded sorrow not as an obstacle to be eliminated, but as a sacred gift to be welcomed, serving as both divine emanation and transformative force capable of expanding the soul's capacity beyond the limitations of the ego.

In examining these contrasting yet complementary perspectives, we discover how Al-Kindi's philosophical detachment and Rumi's mystical embrace offer divergent yet harmonious paths through the landscape of human suffering: one representing early Islamic rationalism, the other embodying Sufi mysticism, both pointing toward the same ultimate truth.

Suffering in Islam

The fabric of Islamic thought weaves suffering not as an aberration, but as an inevitable thread in the tapestry of human existence. The Qur'anic worldview presents suffering as divinely ordained, a reality that flows from God's will rather than standing in opposition to it. As Watt observes, Islam contains "a high mystical doctrine of suffering," one that positions pain not as a theological problem to be solved, but as a fundamental aspect of the human condition to be understood and navigated.

This acceptance finds its cornerstone in the concept of sabr, or patience, that transcends mere endurance to become active spiritual resilience. The very emphasis on sabr throughout Islamic teaching implies that life inherently contains trials requiring such steadfastness. To speak of patience presupposes adversity; to cultivate sabr suggests that struggle is not an exception but the rule of mortal existence. Bowker reinforces this understanding, noting that according to the Quran, suffering "is not a theoretical problem but a mere part of life," while Watt extends this by observing that "the Quran assumes that the sufferings experienced by men are caused or permitted by God."

Yet this divine permission of suffering serves a greater architecture of meaning. Human beings, in their fallible nature, inevitably commit acts that distance them from the divine plan. Rouzati explains this through the concept of sharr (evil): "Humankind, through his own volition, acts in certain ways and adapts to specific behaviors that are not per the divine plan; he situates himself in a condition that is referred to as sharr by the Qur'an." This creates a cycle where moral failure breeds suffering, which in turn becomes the crucible for spiritual growth and return to divine alignment.

The nafs (the ego or lower self) emerges as both the source of this spiritual misalignment and the battlefield where suffering wages its transformative work. Islamic thought recognizes that attachment to worldly desires and the fulfillment of egoistic impulses inevitably leads to disappointment and pain, as these temporal satisfactions can never fulfill the soul's deeper longing for the eternal. Thus, suffering becomes both consequence and cure, a divine pedagogy that teaches through experience what revelation instructs through word.

Most importantly, Islamic philosophy maintains that nothing exists without purpose, and suffering too serves the greater design of spiritual evolution. This is the understanding that even pain serves as a form of divine wisdom. The Qur'an itself affirms this in Surah At-Tawbah, verse 51:

Here lies the foundation upon which both Al-Kindi and Rumi build their philosophies, though their architectural choices diverge significantly in how they construct meaning from this shared ground.

Al-Kindi: The Philosophy of Detachment

Al-Kindi approaches the landscape of human sorrow with the precision of a philosopher-physician, diagnosing it as a psychological ailment rooted in misplaced attachment. For this great intellectual architect of early Islamic philosophy, sorrow emerges as a pain deep within the soul that manifests through two primary pathways: the loss of cherished things or the failure to obtain desired objects. Yet, his analysis cuts deeper than mere description; it reveals the fundamental error in human perception that gives suffering its power over us.

The core of Al-Kindi's logic rests on a distinction between the eternal and the ephemeral, between what belongs to the realm of divine permanence and what exists in the fleeting dance of worldly temporality. He argues that sorrow arises precisely because we anchor our happiness to things that are, by their very nature, transitory. The physical world, with all its apparent solidity and allure, is built upon impermanence: every possession, relationship, and circumstance carries within it the seeds of its own dissolution. To build our emotional foundation upon such shifting sand is to guarantee the earthquake of disappointment.

Al Kindi points to the futility of seeking lasting satisfaction from inherently temporary sources. This ‘unnatural’ desire represents a fundamental misunderstanding of reality's architecture. True happiness, he argues, can only be derived from sources that share the quality of permanence: namely, intelligence, wisdom, and the connection to God. These eternal truths remain constant regardless of worldly fluctuations, providing a stable foundation for genuine contentment.

Al-Kindi's rationalist approach to sorrow thus becomes one of strategic disentanglement. He views the persistence of grief as a choice rather than an inevitability. This perspective frames suffering not as a divine gift to be embraced but as a spiritual error to be corrected through proper understanding and deliberate detachment from temporary attachments.

His philosophy is in alignment with Islam’s central call to subdue the nafs, though his method emphasizes intellectual clarity over emotional engagement with pain. Sorrow, in his view, serves the nafs by keeping us trapped in cycles of attachment and disappointment, preventing us from ascending to the clarity that comes with focusing on eternal truths. Rather than seeing suffering as a necessary stage in spiritual development, Al-Kindi views it as a deviation from our true purpose, a fog that obscures rather than illuminates the path to God.

This intellectual approach to suffering positions Al-Kindi as advocating for what might be called "philosophical therapy" — the cure of sorrow through right understanding rather than lived experience of pain. His method suggests that once we truly comprehend the temporary nature of worldly things and redirect our hopes toward the eternal, sorrow naturally dissolves, leaving space for authentic happiness rooted in divine connection.

Rumi: The Sacred Alchemy of Pain

Where Al-Kindi sees sorrow as a problem to be solved through detachment, Rumi perceives it as a sacred mystery to be embraced through surrender. For the great mystic poet of Konya, suffering transforms from obstacle into pathway, from burden into gift, from wound into the very aperture through which divine light enters the human heart.

Rumi's philosophy recognizes suffering as an essential catalyst in the alchemy of spiritual transformation. As Kaya explains, "Rumi taught that struggle, moods characterized by fear, and other negative feelings are necessary for zuhd,"— zuhd being the turning away from sin and all that distances us from divine love. This perspective reframes struggle not as spiritual failure but as spiritual requirement, positioning pain as an obligatory station on the journey toward our highest potential.

The mystic's understanding rests on a profound recognition: the process of awakening involves a necessary tearing away from the illusions that have comforted us. To detach from worldly attachments, not through intellectual understanding alone, but through the lived experience of loss, requires a kind of sacred violence against the ego's preferences. This ungluing of the soul from its familiar moorings inevitably produces suffering, yet Rumi sees this pain as evidence of genuine spiritual movement rather than spiritual stagnation.

More radically, Rumi positions suffering as a sign of divine presence rather than divine absence. Where conventional thinking might interpret pain as abandonment by God, Rumi's mystical vision perceives it as the very touch of the Beloved.

"Suffering is a gift. In it is a hidden mercy.”

In this sentiment, he suggests that what appears to be cruelty from the ego's perspective reveals itself as compassion from the soul's vantage point. This mercy operates through the mechanism of awakening, jolting us from the comfortable sleep of material preoccupation into the uncomfortable but ultimately liberating awareness of our separation from the Divine.

Rouzati illuminates this dimension of Rumi's thought by explaining how the mystic establishes self-knowledge as the cornerstone of spiritual growth. This self-knowledge necessarily includes the painful recognition of our distance from God, a gap that produces genuine spiritual longing. To awaken from the sleep imposed by this world, littered with temptations and unhealthy impermanent attachments, requires the shock of suffering to shatter our complacency.

Rumi's approach demands not merely acceptance of suffering but active embrace of it, maintaining what he calls a "good attitude" toward all forms of affliction. This attitude transformation represents perhaps his most radical teaching: that by connecting both joy and sorrow to the process of reaching God, we participate consciously in our own spiritual evolution. Suffering becomes a form of divine communication, a language through which the Beloved speaks to the beloved soul.

"The longer the duration of hardship, the longer he remains in this state of immanence to God," Rouzati clarifies, revealing how Rumi sees extended suffering not as punishment but as extended intimacy with the Divine. This proximity, though painful to the ego, represents the highest blessing available to the human soul: the chance to remain close to the source of all existence even while wrapped in the flesh of temporal experience.

Comparative Analysis: Two Rivers, One Ocean

The philosophical divergence between Al-Kindi and Rumi illuminates one of the most fundamental questions in spiritual development: Does the path to God require us to transcend suffering or to transform it? I argue their contrasting approaches reveal not contradiction, but complementarity: two streams of wisdom flowing toward the same ocean of divine reunion, each carrying essential nutrients for the soul's nourishment.

The Source of Suffering

Al-Kindi locates the origin of suffering primarily in human error: our misguided attachment to the ephemeral world and our failure to recognize the temporary nature of worldly things. His diagnosis treats sorrow as a symptom of spiritual misunderstanding, suggesting that proper philosophical insight can prevent much of our pain. Suffering, in this framework, represents a deviation from our true nature, a falling away from the wisdom that should naturally orient us toward eternal truths.

Rumi, conversely, sees suffering as divinely orchestrated rather than humanly manufactured. While he acknowledges that our attachments create the conditions for pain, he views the pain itself as God's merciful intervention in our spiritual evolution. Where Al-Kindi sees human failure, Rumi perceives divine pedagogy. This distinction proves crucial: it determines whether we approach our pain with the goal of elimination or integration, whether we see it as an obstacle or opportunity, whether we treat our wounds as problems to be solved or as sacred openings to be explored.

The Response to Suffering

These different origins demand different responses. Al-Kindi's method emphasizes intellectual detachment, using reason and philosophical understanding to dissolve the attachments that create suffering. His approach is preventative medicine for the soul, seeking to eliminate pain by eliminating its causes. The sage who follows Al-Kindi's path cultivates a kind of enlightened indifference, maintaining emotional equilibrium by refusing to invest deeply in temporary things.

Rumi's method, by contrast, calls for emotional and spiritual engagement with suffering. Rather than seeking to prevent or eliminate pain, his path involves diving deeply into it, allowing it to work its transformative magic upon the heart. This approach treats suffering as an active rather than a passive experience. It is not something that happens to us but something we participate in consciously, transforming from victim to collaborator in our own spiritual refinement.

The Purpose of Suffering

Perhaps most significantly, the two philosophers diverge in their understanding of suffering's ultimate purpose. Al-Kindi views pain as essentially corrective; it signals that we have wandered from the proper path and need to redirect our attention toward eternal truths. Once this correction occurs, suffering becomes unnecessary, having served its function of returning us to the right understanding.

Rumi envisions suffering as transformative rather than merely corrective. Pain doesn't simply signal error; it actively reconstructs the soul, breaking down the barriers between human and divine consciousness. In this view, suffering remains valuable even after we achieve spiritual understanding, continuing to deepen our capacity for divine love and refine our spiritual sensitivity.

The End Goal

Both philosophers ultimately seek the same destination: union with the Divine and liberation from the ego's tyrannical demands. Yet their different routes suggest different understandings of what this union entails. Al-Kindi's path emphasizes the transcendence of human limitation through philosophical clarity, rising above the emotional turbulence that characterizes unenlightened existence. His ideal represents a kind of spiritual sovereignty, where the soul achieves independence from worldly circumstances.

Rumi's path points toward the transformation rather than the transcendence of human experience. His ideal involves not rising above feeling but allowing feeling to become a vehicle for divine encounter. Where Al-Kindi seeks independence from suffering, Rumi seeks interdependence with it, recognizing pain as a thread in the larger tapestry of divine love. While his sacred alchemy of pain offers a profound reframe, its demands on the soul to see mercy in agony can understandably feel unreachable for those caught in suffering’s sharpest throes. Nevertheless, there is a liberation he promises we can experience if only we allow ourselves to see that far.

This fundamental difference reveals a profound insight about the nature of spiritual development itself: perhaps the journey to God requires both the clarity that comes from detachment and the depth that comes from engagement, both the wisdom that transcends suffering and the love that transforms it. In our contemporary era of perpetual darkness, with seemingly endless sources of pain ready to wound us at every corner, we are constantly confronted with the knowledge that suffering exists as our birthright, a promise of what it is to be human. Perhaps the solution lies in the idea that we need both Al-Kindi's philosophical medicine and Rumi's mystical alchemy: the ability to step back from unnecessary attachments while simultaneously opening our hearts to the sacred dimensions of unavoidable suffering.

Ultimately, they may take different routes, but both men meet in the same garden. They, like the rest of us, embark on a journey to one vision: transcendence to a higher good. How that is sought may be via discipling one's mind or breaking open one's heart, but every soul shall reconnect to the ultimate source eventually. Perhaps we ought to consider that union shall arrive through the undying companion we so desperately seek to avoid.

In closing, we must remember that suffering transcends the realm of philosophical inquiry; it dwells in the sacred territory of lived human experience. While Al-Kindi's rational approach offers valuable wisdom, the full truth of sorrow cannot be contained within intellectual frameworks alone.

The most luminous example of this lies in the life of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ, whose existence was interwoven with profound grief yet radiated divine light. He who was closest to God experienced the deepest sorrows: the ‘Year of Sorrow’ that claimed his beloved Khadijah (as), the countless tears he shed throughout his prophetic mission, the weight of witnessing his Ummah’s struggles. As the most perfected creation, his sorrow was not evidence of spiritual failure or worldly attachment, but rather the natural expression of a heart so expanded by divine love that it could hold both the joy of God's presence and the pain of creation's truth.

The Prophet's ﷺ tears were not shameful weakness, but sacred testimony to the depth of prophetic compassion. Through his example, we understand that sorrow is not a theological problem requiring a solution but a fundamental thread in the fabric of human consciousness, one that even the most perfected soul cannot escape, nor should seek to. His grief sanctifies our own, reminding us that to feel deeply is not to fall short of divine expectation but to participate fully in the human experience that God, in His infinite wisdom, has ordained for us. In His everlasting grace, He has woven our souls with threads of joy and sorrow alike. He knows the pain we can not speak of, can not comprehend. He does not berate us for feeling such; on the contrary, he echoes the beautiful truth of His mercy throughout His Word. This is promised to humanity in Surah Ash-Sharh with profound simplicity and tenderness:

This is not merely consolation, but a cosmic truth that our struggles carry within them the seeds of their own transcendence, and that every wound becomes a gateway for divine grace to enter. That ease is the point we all spend our lives reaching for, knowingly or not. It is the tranquil destination we reach after bloodying our feet. So let us look at our sorrow with this grace; after all, as Rumi said, the wound is where the light enters. In acknowledging this, we honor both the tears of prophets and the sacred sorrow that shapes every seeking soul.

References

Aslan, A., 2001. The fall and the overcoming of evil and suffering in Islam. A Discourse of the World Religions, 2, pp. 24–47.

Bowker, J., 1969. The problem of suffering in the Qur'an. Religious Studies, 4(2), pp. 183–202. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034412500006132

Elshinawy, M., 2018. Why do people suffer? God's existence & the problem of evil. Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research. Available at: https://yaqeeninstitute.org/read/paper/why-do-people-suffer-gods-existence-and-the-problem-of-evil.

Jayyusi-Lehn, G., 2002. The epistle of Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Kindi on the device for dispelling sorrows. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 29(2), pp. 121–135. https://doi.org/10.1080/1353019022000045887

Kaya, C., 2016. Rumi from the viewpoint of spiritual psychology and counseling. Spiritual Psychology and Counseling, 1(1), pp. 81–104. https://doi.org/10.12738/spc.2016.1.0005

Kennedy-Day, K., 2020. Al-Kindi, Abu Yusuf Yaqub Ibn Ishaq (d.). Muslim Philosophy. Available at: http://www.muslimphilosophy.com/ip/kin.htm.

al-Kindī & Ivry, A.L., 1974. Al-Kindī's metaphysics. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Rouzati, N., 2018. Evil and human suffering in Islamic thought—towards a mystical theodicy. Religions, 9(2), p. 47. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020047

Rustom, M., 2010. Rumi's metaphysics of the heart. Mawlana Rumi Review, 1(1), pp. 69–79. Available at: https://www.mohammedrustom.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Rumis-Metaphysics-of-the-Heart-MRR-1-2010.pdf

Watt, W.M., 1979. Suffering in Sunnite Islam. Studia Islamica, (50), pp. 5–19. Available at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1595556

Their extravagance and ambivalence to the cruelty they cultivate is a tragedy recognized by all near and far, yes, but the depth of this pain echoes a longstanding betrayal. Their apathetic performance would be a lesser tragedy if they did not claim to be loyal to the greatest leader there ever was. Alas, though, they do. Thus, the stark contrast between what they could have been and what they have instead chosen to embody bleeds a unique sorrow, particularly in a time where we collectively witness injustice upon injustice. The prayers we whisper and legacies we revere pay heed to this truth every hour.

In Plato’s Republic, the famed philosopher reflects upon the notion of an ideal, perfectly just society and what it entails. He argues that the most worthy ruler, the one capable of ushering in such a state, is the “philosopher king.” While it has long been an imagined ideal alone, with few figures historically being labeled as suitable for the title, there is one indisputably deserving of the claim. I argue that there is no greater example in history of someone who meets and transcends this model than the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ.

The philosopher king is introduced as the ideal ruler in Book V of The Republic:

“Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy… cities will never have rest from their evils.” (Republic, 473c-d)

According to Plato, the ideal ruler must possess certain characteristics, all of which the Prophet more than embodied. Primarily, he defines the philosopher king as someone who loves truth and wisdom above all. Even before he received revelation at 40, the Prophet was praised in society for his character and virtue, known as Al-Amin, the Trustworthy. Plato goes on to explain that the ruler must carry within him nothing less than moral excellence; the Qur'an itself refers to the Prophet as such in 68:4, “Indeed, you are of a great moral character.”

The philosopher king is just, moderate, wise, and rational. He is courageous yet never arrogant; he is notably reluctant to rule — rather than serving out of desire, he does so out of duty — for he knows the love of power is an inherently corrupting force. He lives simply, uninterested in excessive material wealth. He pursues knowledge and insight into the ‘Form of the Good’ — the ultimate source, the ‘beyond being’. Beyond simply being in possession of these traits, he acknowledges that he must return to the “cave” to guide others through them as his mission requires.

Fitting the Mold

If the philosopher king must love truth and wisdom, who better exemplifies this than RasulAllah ﷺ? If the Word of God is the ultimate source of truth and wisdom, and the Prophet is the walking Quran — whatever scripture instructed, he honored and lived by, beyond what we can even fully conceptualize. He was devotion to truth personified, living and breathing its sanctity. His moral and educational role as a leader thus never faltered. It was, more than anything, the crux of his reality, the light that awakened people of ignorance to a new life.

The Qur’an 62:2 reveals the Prophet was sent to teach and purify, as elaborated in the hadith: “I was sent to perfect good character.” As the enlightener of the masses, the Qur’an in 14:1 tells us he brought people from darkness to light; in 3:110, enjoining right, forbidding wrong. He, like the philosopher, returned from cave Hira to guide others, humbly yet committedly. Hence, in this holy endeavor to spread light, we call him Rahmatul Lil Alameen — a mercy to mankind. True to what mercy would entail, his humility further points to his unique status as a worthy leader. He ruled as a man of the people in the truest sense, as his leadership was intrinsically rooted in servitude.

He followed an ascetic leadership style, living simply, with no hoarded wealth or luxuries, and a modest home next to the mosque, where he often slept on a mat that left marks on his side. Yet he was still exceedingly generous, and in his wisdom emphasized moderation over a complete shunning of the world, understanding and living by the message of the Qur’an, 4:77: “The enjoyment of this world is little…”

Justice as the core of governance is another key component of both Plato’s proposal and the Prophetic model. The philosopher king enforces justice without personal gain. The Qur’an emphasizes this selfless pursuit in 5:8: “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for Allah as bearers of witness with justice.” Plato further reasons that the philosopher king ensures justice by aligning the soul and the city. Islam came as a social justice movement for a society in desperate need of one, bringing with it universal truths that would extend beyond time and place. The Quranic vision of leadership illuminated the intimate connection between inner character and collective order — the state of one’s soul inevitably influencing the state of society. The moral compass of a leader, therefore, was not incidental but foundational to the health of the community. Justice, in this framework, was not merely a civic virtue but a divine imperative; it was the standard by which both individual piety and societal structure were measured. It followed naturally, then, that the Prophet ﷺ, like all messengers before him, embodied justice as a sacred trust, and knew it to be a prerequisite for any who would lead after him. Repeatedly throughout the Qur’an, justice is declared as a divine command, the life source of humanity, the bringer and proof of light on Earth. In every word and action, the Trustworthy reflected complete submission to this principle. As Plato writes that philosophers must be free from factionalism and serve the common good, so too did the Prophet ﷺ: uniting warring tribes, reconciling enemies, and building a just society in Medina. Recognizing that upholding justice and unity are key elements of abiding by and revering the truth, he lived his life promoting these virtues, thus embodying truth not abstractly but practically. His leadership ensured rights for all, including non-Muslims, through the Constitution of Medina. Moreover, as Plato reiterates that the philosopher hates falsehood, this sentiment is ascribed similarly to the Prophet ﷺ in the Quranic testimony of 53:3-4; “He does not speak from [his own] desire. It is nothing but a revelation revealed.”

Finally, the return to the cave is a central pillar of this comparison. The Allegory of the Cave illustrates the philosopher’s journey from ignorance to enlightenment, and their duty to return to guide others upon gaining truth. What else did the Prophet ﷺ do if not spend his life guiding others from ignorance to light? The Qur’an mirrors this precisely in 14:1: “[This is] a Book which We have revealed to you [O Muhammad], that you might bring mankind out of darkness into light.”

Transcending the Title

It is thus not sufficient to say the Prophet ﷺ merely exemplifies Plato’s philosopher king — rather, he surpasses it. He is the ultimate, perfected creation: the most beloved of the Beloved. He transcends any label that attempts to do justice to him, for he not only fulfills the people’s need, but exceeds it in his selflessness and ever-present light. While Plato’s king is wise but speculative; the Prophet is wise and assured. Plato imagined the ideal, the Prophet ﷺ embodied it in both spiritual and temporal realms.

The key distinction in what qualifies as the source of knowledge inevitably furthers this point of transcendence. Plato’s king seeks truth through reason; the Prophet receives it from the Divine. Plato’s “Form of the Good” as the ultimate reality is an idea, but God is the sole reality and source behind all good, truth, and justice. On that note, revelation is thus the highest form of guidance. Hence, the Prophet ﷺ surpasses the philosopher in this regard, as he is guided by revelation rather than seeking through conjecture. Thus, as Qur’an 9:33 states:

The Prophet ﷺ is not, after all, a hypothetical ideal, but a real figure whose well-documented life is available for us to know. Even the gentlest skim will awaken one to what an exceptional human being and leader he truly was. His emotional intelligence and understanding of human nature — elements not found in Plato’s account — were core to his superior leadership. His fundamental understanding of human psychology, as mirrored in his akhlaq, exhibits the core of what it means to love and uphold truth. If the essential truth is love, as it is exemplified through mercy, compassion, and empathy, then no philosopher could ever better embody the substance of loving and upholding truth than the final messenger ﷺ. From the dawn of time to the last day, across epochs and empires, the most revered leaders have never been those who ruled through fear — however pragmatic Machiavelli may have found it — but those who led with love, whose strength was tender and whose justice was clothed in mercy. That is what it means to be in alignment with all that is just and true. And surely, the Prophet ﷺ carried the sweetness of love until it became him. They were, and remain, indistinguishable from one another.

Gone but Not Forgotten

One might consider, after such an examination, that in his ultimate wisdom and knowledge of the truth, the Prophet would understand, of course, the depth of his absence. His mercy and devoted commitment to justice thus meant he would leave his community (and the world) with the knowledge of how to keep this system in operation. As the final and blessed messenger, he left us with a formula for a post-prophetic governance model, knowing the Ummah would need it. Enter Hadith Thaqlayn, in which he remarked,

“I leave behind two weighty things, if you stick to both you will never go astray after me: the Book of Allah and my progeny.”

Rather than abandoning the ummah he wept for, the Prophet ﷺ left behind not a vacuum, but both a manual and a successor(s) who could effectively sustain the model of the philosopher king, and thus maintain justice in society.

Accordingly, I believe none continued the legacy of the philosopher king better than Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib ع. True to the ideal, Imam Ali never sought power, even after the Prophet ﷺ affirmed his leadership at Ghadir when he declared for all to hear:

“Whosoever I am his leader, Ali is his leader.”

When hordes of people flocked to him after the death of the third caliph, 27 years after Ghadir, pleading for his leadership, he accepted — not for love of power, but for his reverence of knowledge and justice, and to uphold the truth he was entrusted with.

Aside from his reluctance to rule, his state of intellectual excellence set him apart. If Plato envisioned the philosopher king as the one who best embodies knowledge, then after the Prophet ﷺ, Ali was precisely that man, as is echoed in the Prophet’s other famous remark:

“I am the city of knowledge, and Ali is its gate.”

In his spiritual excellency and its translation into his jurisprudence, he embodied the philosopher king ideal in both metaphysical vision and practical governance. Remarkably underappreciated, this truth is furthered when noting that over a millennium ago, centuries after The Republic, we find the principles of his wise and just rule not in a theoretical dialogue, but enshrined in his letter to Malik al-Ashtar, a living charter of ethical leadership that speaks even now to the conscience of rulers. So it only made sense then, when Imam Ali was eventually assassinated at the hands of tyrannical ideologues, that so too was the hope that justice and truth would ever again prevail as they did under the Prophet ﷺ and himself. The model of just post-prophetic governance had been hijacked instantaneously, a fact underscored by the subsequent murders of the Prophet’s grandsons — the progeny he specifically warned not to forsake. The poisoning of Imam Hasan ع and the brutal murder of Imam Hussain ع at Karbala, two men who stood firmly for truth against tyranny, ushered in a haunting era of darkness that we linger in still today. With their martyrdoms, the Islamic world entered an age of dislocation — one whose spiritual and moral rupture continues to reverberate in the faces of authoritarian kings and clerics. Needless to say, this subject alone warrants deep and sensitive examination; the aim is not to provide a comprehensive historical analysis, but to reflect upon the common thread that binds the tragedy of that shift to the fractured world we inherit now.

Today, that shift has drowned our potential in a pool of unending tears and trauma for our most vulnerable. In cutting the oxygen of Hadith Thaqlayn’s memory, autocrats claiming to represent the Muslim world with their blood-stained and self-appointed crowns have not only abandoned the philosopher king ideal — they have adopted its opposite. In place of the rich legacy that humanity needs and deserves, we have kings gifting jets to men who know only falsehood, and starving children who know only truth. We witness now the divulgence of ‘leaders’ who, rather than illuminating and following the legacies of the men they’re named after, tarnish and dishonor them. They have buried the ethos of the most beloved with the children their complicity kills. But just as martyrs never die, neither does the legacy of Rahmatul lil Alameen. Today’s crownbearers may have exiled themselves from the city of knowledge, but it lives on, immune to the destruction their money buys.

Perhaps if we all truly took the time to understand the essence of this model, translating our love for our beloved master into the tangible justice he worked and called for, our world would look different today. Yet we have failed to do so, and the price for this perversion is paid for by children bearing the weight of bombs. The stage we watch in horror now is filled with characters following no scripture, no sunnah, no successor.

Despite the magnitude of this sorrow, hopelessness is a sin with too heavy a cost. The philosopher king we long for today awaits us still. Let us pray that for the sake of humanity, his advent comes swiftly.

References:

The Republic

Cover photo is a painting by Iranian artist Hassan Ruholamin

Does God hear the prayer of a machine?

Because it sounds so sincere.

I think this and sit in genuine disbelief, because this is such an absurd conversation to be had that I fear the truth of it will never truly settle in me. I have been unable to process how quickly the world has changed, and the fact that it won’t slow down for my eulogies of what once was and never will be again. Like the rest of humanity, I am forced to accept a new world, whether I like it or not, where men and machines are morphing into a new creature before our eyes.

Is that not a sign of the times? What else could be?

When creation stops looking like creation — when it has convinced itself that it’s the master creator — how else shall the ultimate approach us? Is this reality not the ring of the hour approaching?

The holiness of time and its intrinsically divine place in our being is difficult to encapsulate within the limits of language, precisely because of its magnitude. And yet, in a moment, what we know now as artificial intelligence has stolen it from us. The sacred and profane are not even in a battle any longer, it seems, as one side wears an armor I fear is untouchable.

I write this as I reflect upon the new phenomenon of AI-generated art and writing. As it’s taken over our discourse and doubt, it’s reminded me of how the act of learning is such an inherently holy one. Yet now that too has been reduced to a shadow of what it once was, stripped of its virtuous right as machines now mold it into a thing, not a process, one attainable too easily, and too quickly. There is no page skimming, no effort, no exertion. The mental, emotional, spiritual, and even physical processes we used to have to engage with to learn are now gone, and so too is the authenticity of our learning experience. Nothing can truly ever be the same, and I acknowledge, of course, that there are hopeful and beautiful angles to this as well. I mean not to stretch my cynicism over the truth of potential glory, but only to highlight the nuance.

Late last year, I attended an AI fair at the Qatar Science and Technology Park. It was an exhibition of AI startups and ventures from across the world, devoted to the spirit of fostering innovation. Much can be said about the modern emphasis on innovation as some holy virtue and vital cornerstone of civilization, which inherently neglects the reality that investment in this ‘spirit’ more often than not favors corporate greed and gore, not human progress. Still, the nobility of each intention is to be praised, I will say, as that is how God will judge us. Nevertheless, the tsunami AI’s (public) onset has given rise to, sweeping over the Earth and leaving nothing unsoaked by its waters, has left us with damage in the form of unanswerable questions and a lingering sense of lachrymosity.

Who are we, and what do we do now that there’s no going back?

We have numbed and dumbed ourselves. We are machines worshipping other, more evil machines. Where is the sacred? All we have left is a blue sky losing all its color. Trees we need to breathe are being cut down every day… and not for paper — that’s been replaced!

Every time a single query is put into ChatGPT, a data center gulps nearly a bottle’s worth of water from areas already deeply water-scarce.

Thus, when we confront the idea of there being ‘no ethical consumption under capitalism,’ we’re inevitably brought to a much longer and deeper conversation about the reality of big tech companies and the impact their AI ‘revolution’ is having on us, from our soil to our social structures. Beyond getting into the complexities of such a discussion, I reflect on the simplicity of how our everyday observances have, seemingly in an instant, changed.

In what seems like the blink of an eye, the emotional and mental experience of being on the internet has fundamentally shifted. I am increasingly swept by an internal devastation upon taking in my daily internet dose, thanks to the new and seemingly never-ending assortment of AI-created pieces that I never asked for, and never consented to having to bear witness to.

So many posts, thought pieces, and even personal messages have been so clearly AI-generated that my brain has involuntarily developed an inner dustbin where I place them, not with scorn, but with sorrow. The moment I sense that mechanical touch, the words collapse into mere shapes on a screen, ghosts of what they could’ve been had a soul taken the time to breathe life into them. Forgive my tone, which I know reeks of melodrama, but when it’s so obviously inhuman, I am unable to ignore the corpse of consciousness now in front of me. One could compare this new reality to other famous counterfeits, saying such pieces are like a good fake designer bag, the ones so similar that even the brand itself can’t tell the difference. You’ll say, who cares, right? What’s the harm? It fulfills its function, it holds your weight, and gets you (albeit ridiculously) the praise you so desperately desire. There could be a beautifully worded and thought-provoking piece, and perhaps you’d never be able to tell or even question if it was indeed written by a machine. Where does this argument go then? I speak only of the sadness that we have this conversation at all.

There is something to be said about the cold, brief name of our culprit, too. AI. So short and simple, yet guilty of forcing upon us a series of questions anything but, ones we shall eternally consider. The primary one, of course, being if things are real: if they were made by man or machine. Interestingly, too, I ponder on what these two letters individually represent. A, the first of them all. I, holding the unique position of representing the self. AI. The first self.

But the first self is gone, now. AI killed it.

This brings me back to the truth that there is something unspeakably, unquestionably sacred about the physical, mental, and spiritual energy required to produce something of substance. AI has desecrated that holiness, blurring the lines of something glorious and something profane, and this acknowledgement resurrects the melancholy within me reserved for being an observer of war and this world’s many tragedies.

It can mimic and mirror all it wants, but it will never replicate art, poetry, or any creation in its most sacred form, precisely because it will be missing the holiness of a human hand molding it. Not a hand typing away, but one truly connected through its blood and bone to the mind and spirit that cultivates its creation. One will inevitably argue that rather than stealing time from us, it is the exact opposite — the convenience of AI and its mastery saves or ‘gifts’ us time. This is objectively true in certain regards. I, however, refer to the idea that time spent engaging in something as intrinsically natural to us and our humanity as thinking, learning, and trying, is a unique type of time spent. It is what we were born to do, how we have been meant to pass the minutes and hours. Now that’s been reduced and altered forever.

I am no technophobe, or even entirely a cynic. I like to live according to the saying of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ:

‘Optimism is a form of worship.’

Naïve and fatigued as it may make me, I like to hold on to the slippery hope that our budding advancements will one day truly help us establish peace, killing only the ever-waging war machine. But there comes a time when such optimism drifts into foolery. I speak as someone who acknowledges, too, that the world is moving at a pace it never quite has before, and you better catch up before it catches you. I know of the beauties it can and shall bring with developments rooted in ethical pursuits and pure intentions. But I fear the damage it’s already done is too weighty, and the truth of what it will continue to produce only sinks us deeper into a sea of inevitable darkness.

This is a deeply complex topic with much to be said on it, but my focus here is on the erosion of effort as a virtue in our lives. It reminds me of one of my favorite verses in the Quran:

“Man can only have what he strives for.”

You will only receive what you put effort into, God tells us. What does that mean in a world that now praises itself for having removed the need, the desire, to strive?

I feel compelled to reiterate that, of course, I know the usage of AI does not mean one has become a slave to it. The intelligent user will, on the contrary, master it in a way that still honors and perhaps even enhances their natural intellect. At the same time, which is the scenario I truly reflect upon, there’s the phenomenon of students, be they middle schoolers or university seniors, submitting coursework completely drafted by their little machine. I’ve just come across a tweet about a professor caught using AI to grade papers. The irony is baffling. Where is the virtue, then, of the institutions they’re meant to uphold? Of the very idea of pursuing and protecting education? As the daughter and granddaughter of professors so lovingly devoted to their pursuit, I have been raised with a simple belief: the most blessed way one can dance with time is through learning. Seeking knowledge and the time that requires has always been defined as nothing short of beautiful.

I recently attended a dinner (hosted, I must add, in a sublime university library, one that every guest could somehow only mourn, even while standing in its midst) where the great scholar Dr. Khaled Abou el Fadl delivered a speech. He began with a profound remark: “The pursuit of knowledge is always sacred, no matter where it leads us.”

In particular, the usage of the word pursuit is what I speak of here. As the Islamic tradition tells us to “Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave,” and to “Seek knowledge even if you must go as far as China,” God reminds us of the magnitude of the sanctified nature of the pursuit of learning, and all that it entails.

So then wouldn’t the accessibility that AI tools offer be revolutionary, a blessing, as they allow the layman to embark on this pursuit in a way he previously may not have been able to?

No. Because the learning he will participate in thereafter operates within a fundamentally altered architecture of the mind. Not to mention the obvious and complete loss of integrity of any such production; the more we rely on these machines, the less our brains work as designed. The ever-evolving (for the better) architecture of our minds is what makes us distinct as human beings. Man was never made for the risk of having this fundamental truth so blatantly overthrown by deferring its very purpose elsewhere. When we actively choose to damage our mental and intellectual growth in this manner, so too do we disrupt our spiritual health. Our connection to the Creator is at once demoted, because we have failed to give our intellect the respect it is owed. In outsourcing our efforts and energy, we’ve insulted ourselves; more than that, we have desecrated the earliest sacred truth there ever was: that man lives in this world by using his brain. Such sacrilege can never be revolutionary.

It is a tragic illusion you’ve mistaken for truth. You’ve convinced yourself you’re preserving — bettering — something already healthy. In reality, you’ve been feeding it poison, so your condition deteriorates day by day, neither slowly nor subtly, until before you know it, you lose function completely. You have dried out the very thing you thought you were watering.

God asks us in the Quran: “Where then are you going?”

I wonder, too.