The Ceasefire is Not For You

Get to work.

Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah.

Thank You so much, dear Allah, for this respite. For the end of this escalated genocide. Thank You for the ceasing of the occupiers massacring our brothers and sisters. Alhamdulillah. Thank You for always Being close, for helping us through this.

The jubilation, the celebration, the ecstatic joy of the people of Gaza — it is so pure, and so, so infectious. (At the time of writing this, the genocide has been ceased for about two days.) After 15 months of massacre, they are getting a break from the bombing, from the escalated terror, from the torture. And we should be extremely happy for them, and thank Allah a lot that this test has ended.

Take this opportunity to reflect. Firstly, how did you yourself perform during this test? Obviously, this was a test for all of us, not just the Gazans. Did you come closer to Allah? Did you try hard to improve yourself and work for Allah to help the oppressed? If the answers are yes, then In Sha Allah your test results are good, on an individual level. What about your local community? Did you draw closer and band together for what is right? What would you do differently next time, as a community?

Keep in mind: this is not the end. Your Palestinian brothers and sisters are still under apartheid. Just now, Jenin in the occupied West Bank (i.e. the other “side” of Palestine, besides Gaza on the west and the occupied land in the middle) is being raided and our brothers being murdered by the vicious and barbaric occupiers. Even in Gaza, our brothers and sisters are still very much imprisoned in the world’s largest open-air prison (Gaza itself), at the mercy of the heartless, arrogant supremacists. Our Palestinian brothers and sisters are still occupied. Still under the boot of the colonizers. But always holding on to their Islam, to their dignity and self-respect.

And so this ceasefire doesn’t signal to us that we kick back and relax. The Gazans are now having to face the emotionally and physically daunting tasks of starting to clean up the rubble of their homes and dreams, to count their dead, to treat their butchered people, and to deal with their compounded traumas. To keep going.

And what exactly do we need to do? Serve Allah and work in His Path: we need to work on and build ourselves, both short-term and long-term, both individually and community-wise. These 4 action areas — short-term individual, short-term community, long-term individual, and long-term community — are described in this article below (one of the most popular articles on my Substack):

So rise. Don’t delay; move. Strike while the iron is hot. Don’t get used to such horrific genocides, and don’t become complacent. Our brothers and sisters still need help — financially, systemically, and morally. Donate. The Palestinians are working hard now. And I assure you, so are the Zionists, already murdering our brothers in the West Bank of Palestine, and working passionately to prepare for their upcoming evil moves. The enemies of Allah are hard at work. But so are we.

This ceasefire does not mean that it’s game over for you, my Muslim brothers and sisters. This is not a ceasefire for you. This escalated genocide was your wake up call from Allah. You’re just getting started. Let’s go. Bismillah.