Saturday, October 6, 2007

A reminder from a dear friend of mine

As we seek Laylatul-Qadr, the night of Power, in the last days of Ramadan, let us also remember to reflect on the conditions of the powerless on this earth; there are hundreds of millions of them, and the majority of them are Muslim.

How can that be, when Islam categorically rejects both oppression and neglect of any Muslim, and indeed of any human being?

Let us think of the poor, the refugees, the homeless, the occupied, the besieged, the hungry, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the abused, the unjustly jailed, the tortured…

Let us think of the suffering children, the orphaned one, the scared ones, the malnourished ones…

Let us think of the anguished parents, unable to provide for their children’s basic needs…

Let us think of those suffering all over this earth…

Let us also, in particular, think of the Iraqis and the Palestinians and their terrible plight…

Let us think of ways of offering help, regardless how small that may be…

Let us learn to be ashamed to be wasteful, when there are so many in need…

Let us learn to be ashamed to be exuberant and boastful, when so many are silently weeping in despair…

Our suffering brothers and sisters will also be commemorating the Night of Power and Peace, except that they have very little power, and very little peace…

With all our collective resources as an Ummah, and they are vast, we are, nonetheless, disunited, humiliated and subjugated. ..

During the Night of Power, let us lament the ugliness of the absence of power, and I do not mean the power to conquer, but merely the power to protect the innocent and the weak...

Ahmad Jarrah