For my entire adult life, going to al-Aqsa has been a dream of mine and I know I am not unique in this.
A “good time” was never going to come, and al-Quds has not enjoyed a “good time” for over a century. Now more than ever, however, there is a very real risk that Muslims around the world will never get to pray in al-Aqsa again.
In a world where the occupation operate with total impunity, all bets are off and anything is possible. If the entire “Muslim world” is unwilling to stop a livestreamed genocide, there is little doubt they would impotently allow the permanent seizure of al-Aqsa in Jerusalem.
My dream of praying in al-Aqsa
So this year, this September, it was going to be. Except… it wasn’t going to be.
What was going to be is exactly what was written, and that was to be denied entry into Israel with an irrevocable lifetime ban. That was to be told you are a threat to Israeli national security.
What transpired over the next 24 hours was nothing short of an illumination the likes of which you cannot get from attending talks, reading books, or consuming online content.
Some experiences cannot be internalised on that cellular level until you are put through it in real time.
Denied entry while Palestinians are denied life
After a long and ridiculously jumbled mishmash of questions, interrogation by immigration officers was a blend of comical and exasperating.
A This Is Your Life (Israeli Style) won’t have Michael Aspel in a kippa coming at you. Instead, you’ll have a junior officer who understands perhaps 50 per cent of your English, writing by hand every time they hit upon a key word in your answers that sets off their warning bells.
There is no rhyme or reason. Just vibes and vindictiveness. The phrase “national security threat” needs no qualification or explanation. It is a label spoken into existence with both indifference and disregard.
I was denied entry, but the people of Palestine are denied their very existence. Their reality must always be front and centre and remain so in all the discourse about Palestine. This personal experience is not even a fleeting shadow of what Palestinians have experienced without respite or pause for multiple generations. What it is though, is to show you the true nature of the occupation they are at the mercy of.
After denial of entry comes detention
Underneath Tel Aviv’s airport, through some long hallways and security-controlled rooms, the bright lights and bustle of an active airport suddenly morph into a dilapidated, grim, dust-covered series of narrow corridors.
The “detention centre” is a large room with the lights turned off, and the heaving bodies of grown men underneath your feet. It is like a scene from a Coen brothers movie gone wrong.
Random deportees and a large group of Thai men who most likely came on work visas are left to sleep on broken sofas, chairs, and the bare floor. You are not spoken to. You are not even grunted at. There are no windows, clocks, or ventilation. A small desk area at the front has indifferent workers staring at blaring Israeli TV.
Football commentary with a panel of three men. A political talk show with guests all shouting over each other. Loud, guttural, and throaty Hebrew assaults your senses as all lights are out and the only other noises are male deportees who are shivering, snoring, and having their joints creak with no blankets and AC on full blast.
Ethiopian Jews as Israeli guards!
Who do they hire as the guards of the detention centre? Dark-skinned Ethiopian Jews. It’s hard to know whether to laugh or cry.
The same people whose women are being forcefully and often unknowingly sterilised as the Israeli government does not want the breeding of Black Jews — presumably, they put them in these positions as they’ll absorb any abuse and can put up with behaviours the “higher” Israelis are too good for.
Still yet, they do it dutifully and with full gusto. To see Black Israeli Zionists aggressively handling the people they are given temporary authority over is a multi-layered irony, considering the ethno-supremacist nature of their entire society. They live in a world where their skin colour and ethnicity mean they occupy the rock-bottom rung of the ladder in their society, barely above the “Israeli Arabs” who can compete for how to scrub the shame of their collaboration from their selves.
Barbarism in uniform
What is clear is that the perceived current power of Israel is entirely a house of cards, built atop the force of military might and the threat of injury or death for those who do not succumb.
Is power real when it can only be enforced through violence? Is there anything compelling, irresistible, or sincere about your legitimacy as a country, when it must be enforced through ethnic cleansing and genocide?
This snap reaction to force came into play for me when I refused an order to sit between sleeping men in a dark room. Each time the order came, it was with more aggression. When I refused a third time, I saw a bead of sweat trickle from the guard’s temple before he pulled out the gun from his belt and brandished it as his last party trick.
The weakness of this moment plays in my mind for how pitiful it truly is.
When I refused a final time and indicated where I would be sitting instead, he only tutted and returned his weapon to his belt. The confidence with which they operate is a direct consequence of the total impunity they are given. They would have no hesitation in shooting a “deportee” to injure or kill and never having to answer any questions for it.
Nothing of the power they hold is real, it is only barbarism in uniform.
They can hardly get along with themselves
Over a mere handful of hours, there were at least a dozen incidents — separate yet related — where the abuse and aggression of Israeli staff was on full display.
This was not only targeted against non-Jews either. There were loud and jarring clashes between secular and Orthodox Israelis, Russian Jews vs. Israeli Jews, dark-skinned Israelis vs. light-skinned Israelis.
The tension in the air, where awful character collided with awful character was so brazen that it is not an unrealistic leap to attribute this to a national character. And so, if their arrogance and hostility between themselves is open for the world to observe, then what are the Palestinians ever due to receive?
You realise how much the Words of Allah are true, when you see people role play it live in front of you:
Their malice for each other is intense: you think they are united, yet their hearts are divided. That is because they are a people with no real understanding.” [1]
It is important to centre the Palestinian reality before all else. If they are willing to do this to someone coming from the comfortable West, as a UK passport holder, then your mind cannot even fathom what the natives of the land endure at their hands.
My experience was not even a millionth of the daily reality of every Palestinian, but it was a sobering and more importantly, real lived experience, of who and what they truly are.
Thankful for what was written for me
The romantic images I had of walking through the narrow cobbled streets of the Old City, having kunafa at local cafes in the evening, or studying Qur’ānic tadabbur in the care of trusted teachers was not written for me.
The high of soaking in the beauty of Aqsa was not written, neither was being physically present in the land of our first qiblah, the land of our prophets, the land of the Ascension into the Heavens. The land where it all started.
Instead, what I gained in its place I will cherish with as much serenity.
What was written for me was to witness the dark face of occupation. What was written was to be — just for 24 hours — left under the authority of an occupation enterprise that sees, speaks, treats, and views you as entirely sub-human.
What was written was to have even more veils of delusion torn asunder, to expose the rot at the root of it all. What was written was to understand Dunya with a sharper, clearer lens… even as it makes you shudder at its ugliness.
A renewed gratitude for Islam
You cannot help but feel a deeper appreciation for the perfection of Islam as a way of life, a state of being, a lens through which to see the world.
- You heighten your gratitude for the highest conduct Islam mandates upon you
- You appreciate the red lines of acceptable behaviour policing against the worst excesses of human failings
- You are grateful that Islam demands you always hold on to your humanity, in every situation, at every level
- You realise you have taken for granted the strict ethical guidelines on how you treat alike those who believe and do not believe.
Witnessing the repulsive extreme opposite, you renew your gratitude for a Dīn that is truly for the goodness of all mankind, and towards every form of creation that we know and do not know about.
Alhamdulillāh for Islam, alhamdulillāh for the humanity we never relinquish.
Salvation isn’t tied to visiting sacred lands
What I gained from this experience was a renewed insight on the deepest, most visceral level: our faith and soul’s salvation is not tied or contingent upon visiting any patch of land that Allah has deemed sacred.
There are souls who have gone through this life without ever leaving their own neighbourhood and will enter Firdaws al-A’la. There are souls who have been in the heart of the most blessed lands in the world and will spend eternity receiving the full wrath they deserve.
These lands are a vehicle for us to access a higher truth; however, the vehicles to deeper understanding and higher resonance are numerous. And sometimes they do not come in attractive packaging. It is those lessons — delivered in discomfort and pain — that are the most important to pay heed to.
Never let anyone say “I’m not political”
Being in Israeli detention has done nothing but inflame my commitment to the cause of Palestinian liberation by a factor of a thousand. And by that, I don’t simply mean the narrow and identifiable modes of activism that have erupted around the globe in the last two years. I am talking about the long game.
The life-changing work of building people, building infrastructure, building institutions. Building what will outlive you and benefit the Ummah. We must turn and keep the lens focused outwards. The affairs of the global Muslim community must be personal, urgent, and in the top priorities of our life’s work.
Whatever can be done, must be done. Alongside the personal ibādah, the character development, and responsibilities to our families and community, there must be something we are doing in debt of our privilege. Something for Sudan, for Congo, for Syria, for Kashmir, for East Turkestan, for the Rohingya, for anyone anywhere that you know you can uplift and relieve, right now.
Never let anyone get away with saying “I’m not political” again. Nobody is political until the political comes knocking at your door. Scrap that, everyone in political, because the politics is being done around you, with you, through you, and using you.
Never be comfortable being comfortable
Don’t settle for an ordinary life, doing ordinary things. Don’t stop at your Islam being about fulfilling the bare minimum obligations. Don’t live like the masses and simply give a comfortable Islamic veneer to your life. Don’t buy into the monoculture and feel your privilege living in the West will grant you immunity against anything uncomfortable.
Comfort has afflicted us all, and the price we have paid is stagnancy. The mould spores from our inertia as a community are the invisible virus that has infected us all at some level.
Nobody is a neutral actor in this game, and as believers we do not demarcate the boundaries of our concern and action around lines drawn by colonial hands on a map.
- Don’t know much about X, Y, and Z? Research, learn, read, and grow.
- Don’t know what you can do? Consult those who are already doing it.
- Not sure what you can contribute? Introspect and offer your skills to those crying out for volunteers, support, and others to share the load with.
- Raising children? Raise them to know, care, and be deeply invested in the affairs of the believers.
- In a position of authority or operating in a sphere of influence? Use that to create awareness and direct action.
We have got to inspire thought-leadership, shake people out of their mental rut, point to a higher ambition, and light the fire of action in the bellies of those not yet roused from their slumber!
This handful of years we call our lifespan is our sole and singular shot at eternity, do not spend that time-currency in any ambition lesser than changing this world before it ever tries to change you first.
For this urgency and illumination, I am and will remain forever grateful for the gift of those 24 hours in Israeli detention.
Source: Islam21c
Notes
[1] al-Qur’ān, 59:14
