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Beware Of Your Inner Cowardice by Nourah Abdul Aziz Al-Khereiji AGAIN the radiant month of Rabiul Awwal in which Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, was born has come. May God not humiliate the people of the Holy Prophet, pbuh, any longer! O Creator, You know best the miserable state in which we Arabs and Muslims are, though because we deviated from Your path. We ask in our daily prayers that You include us “among those whose portion is not wrath and who go not astray.” (Holy Qur’an, the Opening Chapter, Verse 7). Unfortunately, the prayers do not spring from the depths of our hearts as the prayers have degenerated into mere lip service. Several of us are ignorant of the meaning of this particular prayer. We behave as though we do not know the people on whom God’s wrath has descended and those who are not on the right path. Some of us, seemingly, believe that the divine wrath will not visit those who seek shelter in the White House. Why should we be afraid of a people whom the Holy Qur’an called the murderers of the prophets and the violators of covenants with God? They are a cowardly and mean people who would not fight us except from behind a protective wall. Had we known the fear and confusion in their hearts, despite their huge arsenal of highly destructive weapons, we would have crossed the barrier of fear in our hearts and resorted to fighting hoping for victory with God’s blessing. As the Holy Prophet, pbuh, has made it clear, virtue will remain with his followers until the Last Day. Let us believe that the present period of darkness and weakness will pass and Muslims will become strong enough to frighten away the enemy. Israel and the United States disapprove of the Kingdom’s support for the families of the martyrs who undertook anti-Israeli operations or those killed by the Jewish army. Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat claimed recently that the Israeli Army came across certain documents confirming the Kingdom’s financing of the families of the martyrs who carried out such operations, proving Saudi involvement in the attacks. Her “great” discovery of the “conclusive” evidence for supporting terrorism is in fact about the Kingdom’s aid to Palestinian orphans and widows. This charge is obviously yet another Israeli lie. The Zionist state behaves in a provocative manner, apparently because of the visible weakness of Arab and Muslim countries and their consequent surrender to the US administration. The financial assistance to the families of the Palestinian martyrs is, undoubtedly, one of the most important forms of jihad. The assistance to orphans and poor widows is in fact an obligatory religious duty for every Muslim. The Holy Prophet, pbuh, said: “Whoever arms a soldier is like the one who participates in the battle.” Is there any jihad more glorious than liberating Al-Aqsa Mosque and the blessed land around it? If Palestinians, an occupied and persecuted people, cannot receive external assistance, let me ask why the Jewish state seeks financial and military assistance from the US and countless other sources? It is not Israel but we ourselves who should be blamed for its impudence. Our weakness and silence about injustice embolden the enemy to blame us for what it has to do. Why don’t we demand as well the cessation of all kinds of assistance to Israel, which terrorizes the Palestinian people and violates all human rights? Why should we listen to President George W. Bush’s demand to call the Palestinian martyrs terrorists? Has he the right to issue a fatwa (religious ruling) on our religious matters? Why don’t we demand that he condemn the terrorist acts committed by the Jewish army and settlers against the Palestinians? I also wonder why the American president does not demand that the Israeli government condemn the Jewish settlers’ terrorist acts against the Palestinians. Would the Palestinians have resorted to blowing themselves up amidst the occupiers, if the Palestinians had an army of their own to defend themselves against Israeli aggression? Don’t the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves when the Israeli civilians drive them from their homes and deprive them of their land and other possessions? Why do we allow our enemies to reverse and prevaricate the facts? We can only laugh at the skewed logic of the American president who is shocked by the Palestinian suicide operations while not in the least worried about the Israeli Army’s massacre of Palestinian civilians. What can we do but laugh loudly at Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres who put the death toll at the Jenin camp at seven? But the credit for cracking the greatest joke of all time went to Ariel Sharon when he said there was no army which cared more for human rights than the Israeli Army as it carried out its operations in Jenin. Or was it a slip of the tongue and he really meant to say “an army which doesn’t care for human rights?” It could be a slip of the tongue as Bush’s use of the word “crusade” when speaking about US retaliation against those behind the Sept. 11 attacks. Arabs and Muslims, beware of your inner cowardice. The American forces are desecrating graves in Afghanistan in their search for Osama Bin Laden’s body. What can we call the desecration of graves by a superpower which imposes harsh punishment on weaker nations in the name of upholding human rights? What name should be given to US actions in Afghanistan and the treatment of Arab and Muslim prisoners of the war other than gross violations of human rights? As I mentioned earlier, the followers of the Holy Prophet, pbuh, will never be devoid of virtue until the Last Day. The Al-Aqsa Mosque and Palestine will never be returned to us until we return to fervently obeying God and praying for His help. It is a matter of immense pain that the Palestinian Authority has yielded to American demands to condemn the operations of the Palestinian martyrs and exile the Palestinian heroes. This move will most likely set a precedent of exiling anyone Israel falsely accuses of terrorism or does not want in Palestine. The original citizens of a territory are paradoxically forced into exile while Jews from other countries are invited to settle there. Words cannot describe my pain, frustration and shame at the sight of Palestinian fighters being led into exile. To my great relief I saw a beam of light at the end of the tunnel when the fighters, as they filed out of the church, fell prostrate on the earth as a mark of gratitude to the Almighty. Another sight that dispelled my depression was of a group of fighters being taken to Gaza. They ritually smeared their body with the soil of their native land before making their prayers. I take this as a sign of future victory. Also I watched on TV the weeping mothers and wives who expressed their pride at their sons or husbands being taken away on charges of fighting the thieves of their honor and land. The sight of a crying young mother with her baby on her bosom was extremely upsetting. Upon spotting her husband among the prisoners, she shrieked and fell to earth. But I was delighted when I found her saying confidently that she would wait for her husband’s return and in the meantime, bring up their baby as a true Palestinian patriot. He might grow up to be another martyr for the cause. Let Israel and its supporters be warned that suppression, violence and humiliation will never stifle the Palestinians’ love for their country which Israel and its supporters call terrorism. On the contrary, Israel’s inhuman treatment will only breed generation after generation of avengers upon the murderers of their relatives and usurpers of their homes. One martyr is followed by a thousand. The reward for martyrdom is worth sacrificing all the transient pleasures of a lifetime. Extracted 06/06/02 from Arab News
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