Since I wrote something, effectively, despairing, I thought I'd pair that with words from more effective people. People from the Resistance, like the recently martyred Abu Shujaa. I knew Abu Shujaa (literally the father of bravery) because he was assassinated, and then showed up at his own funeral. But now—after what is at least the 6th attempt on his life—he is truly gone. These were his last words:

I don't think my heart will ever fully heal. I will always feel a sense of shortcomings throughout my life, even though there is nothing that I could do that I haven’t already done.

But I also cannot shake off the bad feeling that overwhelms me every time I see the sacrifices of others and what has befallen them. I see my arrest, the loss of my home, my separation from my family, the loss of my brother Mahmoud, and several others close to me as passing matters compared to a child who has lost his mother, or a father who has lost his child, or a prisoner who will spend decades in his cell, deprived of his children.

But I console myself that Allah protected me for a reason and that I did not choose to retreat but always chose resolve, and despite that, I am still among you. And I console myself that if we come out of this war alive, our duty is to be up to the responsibility and remain a source of strength to those around us.. And to remain loyal to those who sacrificed and offered so much...

This is a pledge upon us and I ask Allah to enable us to fulfill it.

Abu Shujaa is talking about the despair I feel—of seeing genocide from the side—even though he has obviously done everything possible. He lost his life well before he lost it, yet even he felt inadequate. The despair I feel is really dishonor. Both Sri Lanka and Arab cultures are (for lack of a better lens) shame cultures, and I feel ashamed. Bearing witness is unbearable, one actually wants the genocide to stop.

Hence you get the seeming paradox that people suffering more express less despair. Martyrs say that they're ready to die, and mothers say they're proud of their sons. This is written off as fanaticism, but it's not at all. It's faith, rooted in a deep philosophy, rooted in a social identity and, ultimately, the soil. When I read people from the Resistance directly (RNN Archives is a good source) I am struck how much they sound the same, from 1935 to 2024. And when I read the sources they refer to (specifically the Quran) I am struck by how words from 1500 years ago sound like they're written specifically for this moment. For lack of a better word, their faith gives me hope.

The Quranic Basis

The faith of men like Abu Shujaa is not incidental, it is not ornamental, it is, in fact, at the center of resistance. As Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei said (in 1974), “the faith the Quran is speaking about is a faith that is never separated from duty because, according to the Qur'an, faith is more than something in one's heart.” As the (currently ruling) Ayatollah continued (referencing the Sūrat al-Anfāl):

‘Indeed, those who have believed and migrated and struggled with their possessions and their persons’—and against their possessions and their persons—‘and those who gave them shelter’—when they were refugees without a home—‘and helped, they are guardians of one another’—they are bound together on the same side. They are of a single substance. They are the bricks and mortar of a single structure. ‘The likeness of the faithful is like an edifice; they support one another.’ Have you seen how these bricks go together in these ornate ceilings? Each brick is a single believer. Each believer is a single brick. They fit together and support one another. Together they form a structure that takes great effort to demolish. Tens of bricks side-by-side. This one brick helps to protect the whole, and the whole all help to protect this one brick. ‘They are the guardians of one another.’ Held together by strong bonds. United.

This explains the feeling of being 'bricked' (or broken) when you're not helping your brother or sister, when you're not following the clear word of God. The edifice of existence is a beautiful and noble arch, connecting you back to your ancestors, to the earth itself, and reaching upwards to God.

Doing your duty, fighting and dying for a cause, these are generally vestigial values in western civilization, buried in Flanders Field long ago. But they are still living values in the Resistance, expressed almost uniformly by those who die. In a capitalist society, solidarity just means selling your body as another commodity, like the debt slaves in the US military. As Mia Khalifa said “Honestly, I think that selling your body, like if we are going by that definition, being in the army is worse than being on OnlyFans. You're selling your body to the government.” Sacrificing your body to protect your people and the temples of your ancestors is a different thing altogether.

If you only read what the colonial press, you'd consider the Islamic Resistance to be savages, but consider the source. Westerners never discuss the simplest solution for the Middle East, which is them fucking off. Nor does the western press delve into the motivations and philosophy of the Resistance, beyond 'they hate your freedom.' However, especially if you consider Islamic Resistance movements like Hamas, Hezbollah, or Islamic states like Iran enemies, it's important to understand them on your own terms.

I have been trying to (dimly) understand Islamic philosophy for a year now, reading the Quran and fasting for Ramadan and (occasionally) going to the mosque with my thambis. In mosque, the first thing you learn is to 'straighten your rows,' to basically snuggle up to the guy next to you, with your feet in line. You get a very real sense of belonging, and even a sense of helping out by participating in something bigger than you.

I can see that deep feeling in my children, when they 'help' out with cooking or lighting incense or various acts (where they're actually causing me more trouble). Deep within them, they want to help, they want to be a 'useful engine', as Thomas The Tank Engine said. A body without use is abused. Your muscles, your bones, your life literally withers away and dies if you don't use them. God, knowing man, made Islam a very physical practice, because faith without works is dead.

Islam is very much a faith of action. During Ramadan, I woke up at 5:30 AM to eat and pray before the sunrise, and then didn't eat or drink water for the rest of the day. I was hangry, to be honest, but it forced me to be disciplined all day. I had to stop what I was doing multiple times to pray. I've prayed in fields, I've prayed in closets (my office is a closet), I've prayed with my kids crawling over me, only rarely has it been convenient to pray. But prayer is an action you consciously take, which changes your consciousness, which changes your actions, it's a virtuous cycle inshallah. Ritual is the most ancient programming language and prayer encodes a different sense of self in the one who prays. The very fact of bowing in the same direction with millions of other people at the very same time communicates and, indeed, creates a very different conception of being, and bowing towards a higher being really puts it all in perspective.

As a personal example, during one of the last days of Ramadan we were praying on the roof as a huge thunderstorm was happening across the ocean. It wasn't raining in Colombo but we could see lightning over the horizon. My friend Halik told me A) to straighten my row and B) to pray as if Allah was right in front of me. And I said “dude, I know. I can see Them.” The dark clouds in front of us were shuddering with some unearthly light. I don't know what believing in God means, but I definitely fear God and I definitely saw Them that day, God is everywhere, it's not that hard really. If you start, as I do, from the presumption that Allah is real then you can begin to understand the people that really believe in Them. Whether you believe this or not is immaterial, just take it as a philosophical assumption to understand an argument and see where it lead you.

Self and Selflessness

What strikes the western mind most about 'other' cultures is that they are plural and not singular. Peoples and not persons. Years of capitalism and competition have atomized the western being into an 'individual' who forms and dissolves little corporations called 'marriages' and 'friendships' at will. They say ‘you're born alone, you die alone,’ which never made sense to me at all. This Ferengi way of life is literally inhuman (we're social animals!) and causes the mental health crisis that also gets dumped on the individual. Western civilization doesn't know any better because 'they' don't know who they are. The individual is the starting point of western philosophy which has never internalized the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus is a prophet within Islam and his words are considered the words of God. Islam, like all people of the book, is about the reality of God and the unreality of this world. To me, this means that if you truly see God (and see like God), individuals perceived quite differently. You're just too zoomed out. What's a fart to a thunderstorm? As a human, bowing in front of God, God is equally close to the guy next to you. Action then becomes a question of dharma (duty) not decisions. You might have to kill the guy next to you, but as Lord Krishna told Arjuna vis-à-vis killing his cousins (in the Mahabharata):

Thy concern is with work only, but not with the fruit (of work). Let not the fruit be thy motive for work; nor let thy inclination be for inaction. Staying in devotion, apply thyself to work, casting off attachment (to it), O Dhananjaya, and being the same in success or unsuccess. This equanimity is called Yoga (devotion). Work (with desire of fruit) is far inferior to devotion, O Dhananjaya.

The fact which we forget in (temporary) modern comfort is that life is a life of survival, and that other beings besides the self live and die. There are many dimensions of self, both higher and lower. If you go up, you are part of a family, a nation, various causes. If you do down, your gut bacteria is its own ecosystem, and even the mitochondria that powers your every cell has its own existence. Krishna talks about 'embodied being' in general, not human being as something special. He said,

'The Holy One said,--Thou mournest those that deserve not to be mourned. Thou speakest also the words of the (so-called) wise. Those, however, that are (really) wise, grieve neither for the dead nor for the living. It is not that, I or you or those rulers of men never were, or that all of us shall not hereafter be. Of an Embodied being, as childhood, youth, and, decrepitude are in this body, so (also) is the acquisition of another body. The man, who is wise, is never deluded in this.

In the same way, every martyrdom notice I receive quotes the Quran, saying, “And do not think of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision.” What is life and death to higher beings, like a community of believers? In the face of a genocide, what's one? When you destroy one person it is like destroying the whole universe, but what is that to the creator of the universe? It is an insult but not an injury. And the Quranic God promises full recompense. The full verse is:

And do not think of those who are killed in the way of Allah as dead. Rather, they are alive with their Lord, receiving provision, rejoicing in what Allah has bestowed upon them of His bounty, and they receive good tidings about those [fighters] who have not yet joined them, that there is no fear concerning them, nor will they grieve.

This is, indeed, the verse that the martyred leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was reading on his fateful flight to Iran, before he was assassinated.

If there's one verse to understand the Islamic fight against oppression, it's this one, Al-Nisa 74-75, literally titled Fighting Against Oppression:

This is the call to jihad and people of stout heart should hasten towards jihad. There are many verses on 'those who cower', and they are an embarrassment now and cursed hereafter. The leaders of Jordan and Egypt, for example, are surely bound for hellfire, because they know and do not act. Words like Jihad and Allah scare uneducated people, but this is the same god as Christians and Jews talking sense, which divers nations agree upon. The right of oppressed people to self-defence and liberation, including armed resistance. As UN Resolution 3314, article 7 states:

Nothing in this Definition, and in particular article 3, could in any way prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom and independence, as derived from the Charter, of peoples forcibly deprived of that right and referred to in the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, particularly peoples under colonial and racist régimes or other forms of alien domination; nor the right of these peoples to struggle to that end and to seek and receive support, in accordance with the principles of the Charter and in conformity with the above-mentioned Declaration.

It is, indeed, an international duty under the UN Genocide Convention to help the resistance. It's the same thing Allah is saying. There is a deep philosophical truth to the cause of Hamas and the entire Axis of Resistance. If you've seen one Palestinian child die, you've seen enough. As James Baldwin said, the children belong to all of us. As Allah said, as if he was speaking to us today,

That is why We ordained for the Children of Israel that 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. ˹Although˺ Our messengers already came to them with clear proofs, many of them still transgressed afterwards through the land.

If you think about this seriously, if you believe it (even for argument's sake) it leads to an altered perception. If you see God (and see like God) you can see things as they are, infinite. You can see time in terms of hundreds and thousands of years, and selves as existing on multiple planes, and see existence as hundreds of thousands of rebirths (whatever you want to call the mystery behind your navel). As Frank Ocean sang, “Human beings in a mob, What's a mob to a king?, What's a king to a god?” As his verse continues, however, “What's a god to a non-believer, Who don't believe in anything?” Take, for example, Aldous Huxley. Huxley said,

We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies—all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes.”

You can, however, test all of these statements and they're false. Lovers fuse their insulated ecstasies into literal new selves, babies are physically part of the mother's body and tied to her with a cord. Very few people suffer and enjoy in solitude, that's why we have weddings and funerals. Sensations and feelings are not private, if you put people in a sensory deprivation chamber they actually go mad, we are biologically wired as social animals. And, returning to our cruel point, it is quite possible, indeed common, to be martyred together. Refaat Al-Areer was killed with his nieces, Ismail Haniyeh's precious grandchildren were murdered before him, the killers actually wait till leaders get home to kill the whole family. Entire generations are martyred together when they bomb apartment buildings. Humans obviously do not live alone and die alone, just look at our bodies. We are all born physically tied to our mothers and too many of us buried in rubble together.

I like Huxley but he's also philosophically wrong. It's peak white man to think you're alone in the world, while depending on maids and entire colonies of labor. Feeling alone actually requires a lot of people. If you look closely at the self it reveals... nothing. It doesn't even make sense. What 'self' are you in heaven? The age when you die, the age when you were the coolest, or you as a child? Those are all fairly distinct selves, each a unique point in spacetime. Which 'self' is more important? There's actually more viral and bacterial DNA in (and on) you than human DNA. There's a strong argument that we're just spaceships for microbial life, with 'consciousness' as a crude guidance system to just not disturb their ride.

The individual, taken as the core assumption of western philosophy, is a philosophical mess. The closer we look at atoms the more weird they get, how much weirder do you think it gets navel-gazing? The answer is really right there, we are all connected. The individual is no island of solidity, we are all, as the sage Dolly Parton said, islands in the stream. The universe is full of island universes, there are many dimensions of 'self', none particularly more 'real' than the other. 'Embodied' beings are always popping in and out of existence, gods, men, machines, et cetera. Family, nation, individual, man is a stranger even to himself. Like scientific models, all assertions of self are false, but some assertions of self are useful. Hence we must cleanse our doors of perception even more than the unhygienic white man, who wears his shoes in the house, kicks God out, and proclaims his self sovereign. We must take our shoes (and selves) off before God. As the Allah said to Moses in the Bible.

God said, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, because you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” So Moses covered his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

The concept of holy ground, of standing your ground, this is central to the Islamic Resistance (HAMAS is just an acronym for Islamic Resistance Movement). The October 7th rebellion is called the Al-Aqsa Flood, referring to the mosque where the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) met Abraham, Moses, and Jesus in the Night Journey. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is the lodestar of Islamic Resistance, and 'Israeli' soldiers not taking their shoes off inside is one of Hamas's stated reasons for October 7th.

This religious sense makes the Resistance much more than a nationalist movement. Indeed, as Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah says, all of the Arab borders are made up, not just 'Israel'. As he said in 1986,

We do not believe in multiple Islamic republics; we do believe, however, in a single Islamic world governed by a central government, because we consider all borders throughout the Muslim world as fake and colonialist, and therefore doomed to disappear.

We do not believe in a nation whose borders are 10,452 square kilometers in Lebanon; our project foresees Lebanon as part of the political map of an Islamic world in which specificities would cease to exist, but in which the rights, freedom, and dignity of minorities within it are guaranteed.

Therefore, in order for this project to be realized, priority should be given to removing Israel from the scene, because it was established for the express purpose of dividing and partitioning the Muslim world. We are not only against the partition of Lebanon, but also against the partition of the Muslim world; this explains why we see no alternative to fighting Israel, with all means at our disposal, until it ceases to exist.

This idea of a caliphate might be too much for people, but if you think about it as the European Union it's not that crazy. Also not your business. There's a genocide going on, while groups like Hezbollah are committed to non-coercion, because that's quite clear in the Quran. To return to the secular logic, every nation is, obligated to support the Resistance under the UN Genocide Convention, but only two nation states have answered the call—Iran and Yemen. In this case, the clear moral duty is the clear religious duty. It's irrelevant whether you believe in Allah or not, They're telling the truth. As Yemen's Ansar Allah said after blowing up the ship "Sunion,"

In light of the developments in Palestine, we all remember our religious, moral, and humanitarian responsibility towards the genocide of an oppressed Muslim people.

The clear reluctance of many members of the [Arab/Islamic] nation has significantly contributed to the suffering of the Palestinian people. The state of deafness and ignorance that some try to adopt towards what is happening does not absolve them of responsibility nor protects them from the consequences of negligence and failure.

It's important to understand that Ansar Allah is not talking about an earthly punishment, he's saying that the cowards' souls are forfeit. As the Quran says, “Those who stay at home—except those with valid excuses—are not equal to those who strive in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives.” Hence Yemen holds million man marches every week, wishing that the cowardly Saudis would get out of the way and let them march to Gaza. Protecting the oppressed is not just an obligation in Islam, it is a test. And this is not an inherently Islamic value, it's just objectively valuable, and we're lucky to have had multiple prophets tell us so. As Jesus lived, love your neighbor as I have loved you, and take a whip to the temple if you need to.

In Context

In this context, the martyrdom message of Abu Shujaa makes sense. His committment is actually quite common. For example, this is Umma Mohammed, the mother of a Hezbollah fighter martyred at just 19. As RNN reports:

At the funeral of 19-year-old Mohammed Ali Hassan Qdouh, a young Hezbollah fighter martyred on the road to Al-Quds, his mother declares: "I offer my son, and the blood of my son, to the eyes of the children of Gaza, the women of Gaza, the men of Gaza, and the blood that falls from every resistor in this world. I am offering, with all satisfaction. And I say more than that. Are you satisfied my Lord? Take until you are satisfied! Until we reach victory and firmness for this nation. Praise be to Allah."

This seems like zealotry unless you engage with her culture, and the history these people have lived through. Then ask yourself what you would do. Would you be as brave for your people, if they were invaded and violated so? Remember that we're not just talking about the genocide of Gaza, the White Empire has killed nearly 5 million and displaced nearly 40 million Muslims since 2001. 'Israel' is just the tip of the spear, and America is supplying it. Any culture is going to react to being attacked like this, and Islam, mashallah, has been ready for this for centuries. Going back a century, RNN reports:

On the day of his final battle in 1935, the British surrounded Sheikh Al-Qassam and his fighters. An Arab collaborator with British forces called out, demanding their surrender. At this moment, Al-Qassam declared, "We do not surrender. This is jihad for the sake of Allah and the homeland." He turned to his comrades and said, "Die as martyrs."

As Leila Khaled, a communist PFLP fighter, said, “The PFLP began where Al-Qassam left off. His generation started the revolution. My generation intends to finish it.” You can see how revolution within Palestine is not necessarily Muslim or Communist, or Sunni (like Hamas or Ansar Allah) or Shia (like Iran and Hezbollah). Resistance is simply the right thing to do, whatever lens you choose. The proper response to genocide is the genos fighting back, and given that we're all part of the human gene pool, that onus is on all of us too. As the philosopher martyr Basil Al-Araj said, “every Palestinian (in the broad sense, meaning anyone who sees Palestine as a part of their struggle, regardless of their secondary identities), every Palestinian is on the front lines of the battle for Palestine, so be careful not to fail in your duty.”

Given that we have a duty, and we live in a society, shirking that duty makes us look like schmucks. Not hastening to jihad or the Genocide Convention is—in a shame culture—something to be deeply ashamed of. In a guilt culture like the West it's something you write a mea culpa about 10 years later, but their culture is bullshit. A genocide is happening now and not stopping it is a stain on everyone living. Those who do not resist will forever be ‘those assholes’ in the history books, and condemned by every holy book in the hereafter.

If you read these books, or listen to the people that live them, it's a striking experience. I can read people from 1446 years ago, or 89 years ago and they're saying the same thing as now. These people simply have a wide perspective of self (comprising the Muslim ummah) and a long perception of time. As the martyred founder of Hamas, Sheikh Al-Yassin said:

Ahmed Mansour: “As someone who witnessed the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, and now that this state has existed for 50 years – how do you see its future?”

Ahmed Yassin: “I say Israel was founded upon injustice and plunder. Any entity founded on injustice and plunder is destined to be destroyed.”

Mansour: “Even if it has power that allows it to survive?”

Yassin: “The power of no one in the world lasts forever. You start as a child, then you become a teenager, and a young man, and then you become an aged man, an elderly man, and then it’s over. The same is true of countries. They progress little by little until they become extinct. This cannot be helped.”

Mansour: “At what stage is Israel now?”

Yassin: “I say that Israel will be gone in the first quarter of the next [21st] century, inshallah. To be precise, I say that by 2027, there will be no Israel.”

Mansour: “Why that [specific] date?”

Yassin: “Because I believe in the noble Quran. The Quran tells us that the generations change every 40 years. During the first 40 years, we had the Nakba, in the second 40 years, the Intifada started, with confrontations the fighting, and the bombs, and the third [group of] 40 years, will see [Israel’s] end, inshallah.”

Mansour: “So this estimate...”

Yassin: “This is a Quranic conclusion.”

Despite 'Israel' torturing and killing his family, despite them air striking him in his wheelchair, Yassin was not killed just as Al-Qassam was not killed in 1935. Today the Al-Qassam Brigades fires Yassin 105 RPGs at tanks and the latter's predictions don't just look possible, it looks probable. As the martyr Naji Al-Ali said in the 1980s, “Palestine is not far. Nor is it near. It is within reach of the revolution.”

This is what gives me hope amidst all the horror, #1 reading the Quran and #2 reading people that live (and die) the Quran. Those fighting the horror don't have the feeling of being trapped in it, because they're fighting against it, and they have faith in a higher power that loves justice. Whether you believe in this God or not, you can appreciate what They're saying with your own reason and your own beating heart. If you approach the Islamic Resistance on its own terms or on your own terms, there's no world where watching this many men, women, and children die is a good thing. In neither this world nor the next is this genocide justifiable. As Basil Al-Araj said, “Palestine is the moral standard for any human. If you want to see the moral side of any person, know their stance on the Palestinian cause and the Resistance in Palestine.”

That is why I think supporting Palestine and condemning Hamas is a contradiction. As the saying goes, those who are in solidarity with our corpses and not our rockets are hypocrites, and not of us. If you do any serious reading of Hamas beyond ‘HAMAS BAD’ you'll see that Hamas is not bad, they are in fact the guys resisting a genocide with their tortured bodies. And genocide is bad, in case you forgot. Whenever I feel bad, I read from the Resistance themselves and they're always less despondent than I am. Most of their communiqués end with a steely determination, whether you read them from 1935 or 2024. For example, this is from Saraya Al-Quds, the military wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who offered up the martyr Abu Shujaa, as mentioned at the beginning of this article. They said,

Rest assured that we are in excellent condition, and your resistance is steadfast and unyielding, unbreakable by the army of cowards. The illusion that the enemy spreads, thinking that it can put an end to this pure journey, is a clear indication of its foolishness and ignorance of what is happening and what has been prepared for it on the ground today, tomorrow, and beyond. We will all witness what we mean, and in due time, the days will tell of the good news they carry.

It is a jihad of victory or martyrdom.

Neither jihad nor martyrdom are losses in this context. As the martyred spokesperson of PIJ, Tariq Izz El-Din said, “Whenever a leader ascends, ten will emerge to replace them. When a martyr ascends, 100 martyrs will emerge to replace them. The march continues, and it does not stop until the defeat of the occupation.” These people truly have a long-term view of history and, as events all across the globe show us, the long term is upon us. The fall of 'Israel', the fall of 'America,' the fall of this entire civilization. Whenever I feel discomfited, I take a strange comfort in this. Allah's promise is justice, and I actually believe in it.