10 Comments
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Isa Khan's avatar

You never fail to amaze me Zahra. Beautiful!

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Zahra Hassan's avatar

Too kind Isa! Thank you :))

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Marwa Essam's avatar

This is the most powerful, beautiful, and moving piece I have ever read today. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your words. I love your writing and I admire your soul💖✨

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Zahra Hassan's avatar

Thank you so much for your kind words dearest Marwa, they mean so much coming from a Palestinian and a sweetheart like you 🤍 Likewise, your writing is a treasure just like your spirit! 💕

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Arif Anwar's avatar

A most unexpected essay.

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IqraSense's avatar

Very nicely written. What I liked here was how the article portrayed songs… not as background or tradition, but as something that keeps a people alive when everything else is taken. The line about the dwarves “singing songs of a homeland lost to fire and greed” was already powerful, but when it was placed next to the image of Palestinians “clutching keys to homes inhabited by others,” it stopped feeling like fiction. It became real… painfully real.

I was especially moved by the line, “memory transcends preservation to become resistance made manifest.” I thought about this not because it’s abstract, but because the article grounds it in real, everyday acts: stories shared in tents, drawings of erased villages, lullabies sung beneath siege. These aren’t gestures of nostalgia. They are the quiet continuity of belonging. Just like the dwarves carried their mountain in their songs, Palestinians carry their homeland in the way they remember it aloud, so their children might never forget what the world tries so hard to silence.

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Zahra Hassan's avatar

Thank you! Appreciate your reading and thoughtful engagement :) May the children and adults of Palestine alike see a new dawn in our lifetime 🤲🏼

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Benish Hassan's avatar

Aameen

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Khatoun's avatar

Every dragon eventually falls. Worse have met inglorious ends.

But the burden of memory is on us. This is our lifetime. The stories and akhlaq that we transmit to our children are our responsibiltiy.

Thanks for reminding of that in this beautiful, readable language. And how lovely to think of another world instead of this one for a second.

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Zahra Hassan's avatar

Thank you for reading and your kind words 🩷

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