Salaam Reader,
The day that Hossam Shabat, a journalist from Gaza, was martyred, I was planning to send an email about including your writing dreams in your duas in these blessed last ten nights of Ramadan.
But when I opened Instagram that morning and saw the news, a deep sense of despair set in. Watching Israel resume the horrific violence against Palestinians has been dismaying but there was something about Hossam being killed that felt like a gut punch.
I used to follow him on Instagram and X, hit like on his posts, share them to my stories and my timeline. And now suddenly, his voice and his words were gone.
I spent the rest of the day scrolling through Instagram, even as I reminded myself that I had made an intention to spend less time on the app in Ramadan.
After breaking my fast, when I usually put away my phone, I kept visiting Al Jazeera’s website, refreshing it for more updates, and then circling back to Instagram and X.
While I was putting my younger son to sleep, I paused and asked myself what exactly was keeping me away from worshipping that night.
Alhamdulillah, now that my kids are older, I’ve been able to pray taraweeh most nights.
But that night, I felt like I had fallen into some of kind of hole of despair and even the urgency of missing out on laylatul qadr wasn’t enough to make me stand up and pray.
When I asked myself why I was feeling the way that I was, I realized that my worship felt meaningless.
Here were Hossam and the people of Gaza, sacrificing their lives, and here I was, with my trivial list of good deeds — fasting, some charity, praying.
My worship and sacrifice felt like it was worth nothing when compared to the worship and sacrifice of the people of Gaza. Their duas were for significant and monumental things like safety from bombs falling on them and protection from being killed or maimed. My duas were for trivial things like an increase in rizq and getting my writing published.
That was when I knew shaitan’s programming ran deep. He may be locked up in Ramadan, but his whisperings during the rest of the year leave a strong mark.
I recognized in that moment that Allah not placing me in Gaza and not giving me the trials that He gave to people like Hossam was His decision to make, not mine. And instead of being grateful for the immense blessings of safety and shelter, I was caught up in a strange mix of shame and guilt.
There is a reason and purpose to where I am because Allah doesn’t make mistakes. He places each of us exactly where we’re meant to be. And we are required to worship Him no matter what situation we’re in.
I put away my phone, made wudu, and started praying, Alhamdulillah.
Clearly, the people of Gaza have a station with their Lord that is worthy of what they have endured and sacrificed and remained patient for.
But we don’t know our station with our Lord. We don’t know the weight of our prayers, of our charity, of our kindness to our family, our friends, our neighbours and coworkers.
We don’t know the weight of biting our tongues and resisting the urge to say something mean when we’ve been treated poorly and unfairly.
We don’t know the weight of leaving our beds at night and forcing our bodies to stand up in prayer even when our eyes burn with sleep.
And most of all, we don’t know the weight of our tears and duas for the people of Gaza, and those who are being oppressed elsewhere, for the orphans and the widows and the bereaved families and friends of the martyrs.
Only Allah knows. And perhaps it may be that through our sincerity and His mercy, our Lord will elevate us too.
Reflecting back now on that night also made me realize that this is what we do with our writing. We see someone who has written multiple books, who managed to write even with little kids or a full time job, and we think, what’s the point of trying because there’s no way I can do that.
Or we read a book we love, and we think, I’m never going to write like that. I shouldn't bother writing anymore.
Only Allah knows how your writing journey will unfold, what duas you make today will be returned to you tomorrow, answered in ways you couldn’t have imagined.
Only Allah knows the books you will write, and the people who will read them and think, I love her writing. I wish I could write like that.
Hossam was a journalist who used his voice to serve his people and to share their stories.
We are writers. We can use our words and our voices for good, to serve our faith and our people, too. And InshaAllah, the weight of our words will carry us to acceptance and closeness to our Lord.
So as Ramadan comes to a close, let’s keep making dua for our writing, alongside our duas for the people of Gaza and all those who are oppressed.
With best wishes for your writing,
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Hajera Khaja
Writer + Creative Writing Teacher & Coach
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