بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Allah (swt) said,
[الٓمٓ ١ أَحَسِبَ ٱلنَّاسُ أَن يُتۡرَكُوٓاْ أَن يَقُولُوٓاْ ءَامَنَّا وَهُمۡ لَا يُفۡتَنُونَ ٢ وَلَقَدۡ فَتَنَّا ٱلَّذِينَ مِن قَبۡلِهِمۡۖ فَلَيَعۡلَمَنَّ ٱللَّهُ ٱلَّذِينَ صَدَقُواْ وَلَيَعۡلَمَنَّ ٱلۡكَٰذِبِينَ]
“Alif, Lam, Meem. (1) Do people think that they will be left alone to say, “We believe” and they will not be tested? (2) And We have certainly tested those before them, and Allah will surely make evident those who are truthful, and He will surely make evident the liars. (3)” [TMQ Surah Al-Ankabut: 1-3].
Ibn Kathir says in his interpretation of this noble verse, “As for His Speech, “Do people think that they will be left alone to say, “We believe” and they will not be tested?” Regarding, “And they will not be tested?” This is a questioning in the style of negation and its meaning is that Allah, glory be to Him, the Most High, will inevitably test His believing servants according to the level of Iman they have, as stated in the authentic hadith, «أَشَدُّ النَّاسِ بَلَاءً الْأَنْبِيَاءُ ثُمَّ الصَّالِحُونَ، ثُمَّ الْأَمْثَلُ فَالْأَمْثَلُ، يُبْتَلَى الرَّجُلُ عَلَى حَسَبِ دِينِهِ، فَإِنْ كَانَ فِي دِينِهِ صَلَابَةٌ زِيدَ فِي الْبَلَاءِ»“The people most severely tested are the Prophets (as), then the righteous, then the next best and the next best. A man is tested according to his commitment to Deen. If his commitment to Deen is firm, it will be increased in the affliction.””
Allah (swt) did not create a human being without placing before him trials according to the extent of his Iman and commitment to the Deen, so that Allah (swt) might know who would be patient in the face of those trials and put his reliance (tawwakul) in Allah (swt) . This is so that Allah (swt) might then save him from the trials. As for those who would fall in failure within the trials, they would fall only because of their poor judgment, their negligence of the Commands of Allah (swt), and their weak Iman.
Among these tribulations that have afflicted the entire Ummah today is the tribulation of Gaza, including what is happening there, and the stance of Muslims towards it in the East and West. Many Muslims, and here we mean Muslims, not munafiqs, normalizers, neglectful, or those who follow the path of the kuffar, say, ‘If Hamas had not done what it did, what happened would not have happened, and this great massacre of its people would not have occurred in Gaza, along with the destruction of its homes and the hunger of its people.’ They then add, ‘The people of Gaza had lives.’
It is as if the Muslim human being was created only to eat and reproduce as animals do, may Allah (swt) protect all of us. This is certainly not the reality of Muslims, nor is it one of their goals, except for those who accept to live the life of animals. We cannot consider such people to be aware Muslims striving to snatch their pride and dignity from the harmful sights of their enemies. Allah (swt) gave us two recent examples, before and during the events in Gaza, as a lesson to people. On February 6, 2023, areas in Turkey and Syria, namely Kahramanmaraş and Maraş, were almost completely destroyed by a massive earthquake that caused hundreds of residential buildings to collapse on the heads of their owners in both regions. The victims numbered in the tens of thousands, with 44,212 dead on the Turkish side and 5,914 dead on the Syrian side, for a total of more than fifty thousand deaths in a matter of seconds! Seven months later, on the night of September 10 and 11, two dams in the Libyan region of Derna collapsed in the wake of Hurricane Daniel. This caused approximately 30 million cubic meters of water to flow toward people's homes along the river, resulting in the deaths of approximately 4,333 people. This is a preliminary toll from this painful disaster. We ask Allah (swt) to have mercy on them all.
From here we understand that people, individually and collectively, are exposed at any moment to death in various ways. Those who died in the earthquake and the flood were not on the battlefield, nor were they raising their weapons against their enemies. Instead, they were sleeping soundly, dreaming of a beautiful tomorrow. So why did they die all at once? That is the Will of Allah (swt). Allah (swt) manages the affairs of His servants as He wishes and in the manner He wishes. Therefore, the large number of our martyrs in Gaza is not a reason for us to blame the mujahideen there for what they did in humiliating the enemy, destroying all their defensive levels, forcibly taking them captive, killing a large number of their cowardly soldiers, and exposing the shame of the fragile state of those who angered Allah, which would not have existed and survived were it not for the conspiracy and treachery of the rulers of Muslims in the region, and the traitorous rulers beyond them who control the rest of the Muslim countries.
Whoever among the Muslims who died in Gaza, died at the end of the lifespan (ajl) ordained for them by Allah (swt), without any increase or decrease, while attaining the honor of martyrdom at the hands of a cowardly and treacherous enemy. To those who condemn the actions of the mujahideen on the basis of the large number of dead, we say, all of these people could have died in an earthquake like the one in Turkey, or drowned in a terrifying tsunami like what happened years ago in Indonesia, where around 227,000 people were killed. The number of martyrs in Gaza is no justification for us to object to Allah’s (swt) command to guard the affairs of His servants in this world. From here, we must examine ourselves in this great calamity. Am I concerned with Gaza and stand with it, or am I concerned with it and neglectful of it, blaming its people, attacking them and their actions, and belittling what they have done?
O Allah (swt), show us the truth as truth and enable us to follow it, and show us falsehood as falsehood and enable us to avoid it.