What can be done?
We often wonder what exactly we can do for Palestine and its noble cause. The answer is “a lot.”
In addition to the conventional means, such as praying, donating, protesting, educating ourselves about the issue at hand, and spreading the truth, there is something else more delicate and more demanding that is needed not only for Palestine today but also for all other present and future “Palestines.” That something is also the most powerful of means.
Almighty Allah is clear that His help is near (al-Baqarah, 214), there is neither help nor victory except from Allah (Alu ‘Imran, 126), Allah is competent to give them (and anybody) victory (al-Hajj, 39), Allah gives victory to whom He wills (al-Rum, 5), and that helping the believers is ever incumbent on Allah (al-Rum, 47).
(Photo by Ashraf Amra/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
As inspiring and attractive as the above decrees are, there are nevertheless serious prerequisites that must be fulfilled before the former can be put into action. As if beneath those a disclaimer “terms and conditions apply” gleams.
Those prerequisites either stand side by side with the mentioned decrees or are subtly woven into their profound messages. For that reason, when deliberating upon the topic of Allah’s help and victory, one should take into consideration the entire context.
Accordingly, the Qur’an is explicit that Allah inevitably helps the (true) believers, that surely Allah will help the one who helps Him (His cause) (al-Hajj, 40), and that if the believers help Allah (His cause), He will help them and plant firmly their feet (Muhammad, 7).
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If Allah says that His help is near, that His help is the exclusive and supreme help, that He can help under any circumstances if He so wills, and that He helps whomever He wills – this does not mean that Allah’s help is guaranteed and unconditional.
Rather, it means that the Divine help is ever available and accessible. The avenues leading to it are always open and the needed resources (prerequisites) are fairly straightforward.
Though the All-powerful and All-Wise Allah can do whatever He wants, the time-honored rule is that a person (a nation) is helped only if he (it) helps, and is destroyed only if he (it) destroys. It is a reciprocal arrangement.
In retrospect, even the Prophet and his companions – the most exceptional people to have ever graced this planet – lost the battle of Uhud because the conditions of the heavenly help and victory had not been met.
The battle of Hunayn was almost lost too, on account of its participants feeling overly elated due to their great number. That is, they were almost ruined by the afflictions of overconfidence, underestimating the enemy, and prioritizing quantity to the detriment of quality (al-Tawbah, 25).
The importance of human resources as the most valued assets
What is needed therefore for procuring Divine interventions is to have people (human resources or assets) who will act both individually and collectively as embodiments of the Islamic message.
Those people (new generations of the Muslim ummah) will betoken the outcome of the implementation of comprehensively clever and well-planned strategies.
They will not be disoriented, confused, torn between East and West (Orient and Occident), artificially cultured and one-dimensionally civilized. They will be real, not fake; built (created), not veneered; and made to be in front, not to follow or ape.
Such people’s strengths will be faith, knowledge, confidence, courage, tenacity, willingness to take initiative and sacrifice. Worthy of every promise Allah made in the Qur’an for the true believers, they will be able to move mountains.
Satans from the ranks of both the jinn and mankind will dread them. They will be filled with trepidation at the prospect of encountering them either on the actual or ideological battlefields.
Let’s remember that before building a civilization in Madinah, the Prophet built people first, and before taking control of the physical Ka’bah in Makkah, he moved away from it first to build spiritual “ka’bahs” in the hearts of people.
The Prophet knew all too well if he was surrounded by real people as the most valued assets, no civilizational obstacle or challenge would prove insurmountable; and if he managed to plant spiritual “ka’bahs” inside the hearts of such extraordinary people, the physical Ka’bah in Makkah was destined to be his sooner rather than later, even though he resided about 450 kilometers away from the latter.
Clearly, the Prophet diligently attended to the root causes which unsurprisingly culminated in the anticipated outcomes.
Needless to say, to liberate Palestine the same set of conditions are required. Without people as epitomes of a vision, without action as a rendition of ideas or plan as an acme of a cooperative thought, nothing will be possible.
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