Welcome to Gaza — The Great Revealer

A very small handful of events in life impact in a way that language is entirely inadequate to describe. The last 20 months in Gaza has played host to every range of human emotion, each one reaching the maximum known intensity and then breaking through even that.

As we witness this theatre of suffering, live-streamed to us in handheld devices, Gaza should have turned all of our worlds upside down and inside out.

But it has revealed, it has exposed, and it has meant nothing can ever be the same again.

Truth isn’t truth, lies aren’t lies

For all those who thought truth was truth, and lies were lies, Gaza has revealed that false narratives can be spun, reinforced, and emblazoned upon every mainstream outlet.

Debates circle around the same approved talking points with no deviation from the script.

Truth is martyred to manufacture consent, and realities are massaged and moulded into the approved discourse.

Power writes the rules and breaks them at will

For all those who had a basic trust in a rules-based order, Gaza has revealed that laws, policies, procedures, and conventions are only applied to protect the powerful and penalise the powerless.

New precedents can and will be invented when required, and protocols will be relinquished when inconvenient.

News is to manufacture consent, not to inform

For all those who believed the news was there to inform, Gaza has revealed the entire apparatus of mainstream media is dedicated to the “soft war”.

This is to manufacture consent, manage dissent, and misrepresent the parameters, breadth, and depth of the injustice in Palestine.

The “hot war” of the bombs in the sky would not be possible without the discursive ground being laid in advance.

All lines imaginable have been crossed

For all those who thought there were lines that could never be crossed, Gaza has revealed children, women, the disabled, the vulnerable, the elderly, and the unborn to all be legitimate deaths that will barely raise the ire of global spectators.

All civilian infrastructure can and will be destroyed
Rape, torture, detention, and mass arrest and killing are seen and hushed out of public view
IV patients can burn in clear view, but there will surely be a reason why and how this was necessary.

Dehumanisation is real

For all those who never considered what dehumanisation was, Gaza has revealed that not all lives are equal, and those “less equal” are afforded less humanity than animals that walk on four legs.

Switch around the death tolls, number of hospitals, schools, universities, desalination plants, and pretend for a moment this was happening to those we consider human.

Imagine — just for a moment — the scale of the outrage that would be due.

How little we’ve truly endured

For all those who thought life could be lived in personal comfort and satiety, Gaza has revealed the levels of sacrifice and suffering that is possible to go through in the Dunya.

And if other humans are going through that, and will have their reward magnified accordingly in the Ākhirah, then what are our sacrifices by comparison?

How can we expect a commensurate accountability when, in our lives of convenience and comfort, we cannot even fathom a fraction of what they do and have endured?

We aren’t as safe as we think

For all those who thought what happens “there” has nothing to do with what happens “here”, Gaza has revealed our lives lack just as much value as every innocent soul taken in Gaza.

If any one of us was born into a different geography, our fate would be the same. Dehumanisation is a human, global, and ingrained disease that manifests with one face in London 2025 as it has in Gaza.

The mass slaughter accepted for the people of Gaza has a “lesser” range of dehumanisation that affects every non-privileged individual globally.

No end to how low Zionists may stoop

For all those who believed there was an end point to evil and depravity, Gaza has revealed that when you think nothing can be worse than this, the Zionists find innovative ways to display how low they are willing and able to go.

The sun sets on a day of tragedy, just for dawn to bring something so twisted, new, and sadistic, the mind revels in how they are able to conceive of what they enact.

Now we know who talks and who keeps schtum

For all those who trusted that they had friends, family, and colleagues who would do the bare minimum, Gaza has revealed there to be people among us that will wilfully turn a blind eye to genocide because it disturbs their convenience.

There are people who we thought had a working conscience, could call a thing what it is and be disturbed by it — but the silence, the indifference is deafening.

Conversely, there are those who had barely cast an eye towards “politics”, and have been so strongly galvanised by everything happening in Gaza that they can never return back to the same slumber.

This is generational destruction

For all those who thought they knew what injustice looked like, Gaza has revealed there to be many layers and levels to what humans can inflict on one another, from the blood, bombs, and flesh torn apart to the psychological, mental, social, and personal anguish that comes with war and its impact for generations to come.

It is the attempt to instil hopelessness into the people of Gaza and their global allies, so the future is blown up in ash as the bodies are. The harm afflicted has got invisible tentacles that are unseen and unseeable here and now, but may continue for hundreds of years to come.

In this way, just as we have Sadaqa Jāriyah for ongoing rewardable acts, there is evil that will grow and harm people for ages to come.

So this is what a Dajjalic world looks like

For all those who thought they understood what a Dajjalic world order was, Gaza has revealed how much of the world can be duped into not believing their own lying eyes.

Deaths can be shrugged at, destruction can be explained away, and those being slain can be portrayed as responsible for their own slaughter.

The Dajjalic world order is a lens where reality is subverted to the extent that we look upon the same event, but those profiting from the scene can come away with an interpretation that flies in the face of what is evident in front of us all.

We need to do far more in our lives

For all those who thought life could ever be the same again, Gaza has revealed that we must all double, triple, and quadruple our efforts to level up in every facet of our lives.

We must understand what is required of us for our lives is on a different scale than before. We have seen too much, heard too much, witnessed too much, and are much too accountable to continue on with our life as before.

Whatever we decided to do for Allah has to be amplified, our intentions must be sharpened, and our commitment to a better, stronger, more faith-focused life must be iron-tight.

Palestinians are the true victors, not the victims

For all those who thought Palestinians were the victims, Gaza has revealed that they are the only ones who are living and dying in a truth the likes of which none of us have experienced.

They are closest to sacrifice, nearest to Allah, called to testify with their lives, blood, and children. They are being called up by Allah and turning up with faith that causes us to marvel as we watch.

They remember Allah as they look inside the skulls of their children, they praise Allah as they gather the tattered limbs of their babies, and they declare their loyalty to Him as they face a volley of gunfire in trying to find a handful of flour for their starving families.

They are not the victims; we and our inertia are. They are our teachers.

Are we ready to bleed for Paradise?

For all those who believed Paradise was attainable without being forced into unimaginable sacrifices, Gaza has revealed that the tales of suffering and pain we have read in the Qur’ān, hadīth literature, and past stories are not confined to history — they now play out in real time.

The themes and motifs are the same, as are the outcomes. Those who oppress only increase in their arrogance and entitlement, those who speak up are penalised and targeted, those who don’t care look away with barely an eyebrow raised. But most importantly: those who remain faithful to Allah do it while willingly paying the highest possible price for it: their lives.

The bar for Paradise is high, and the people of Gaza have given their souls in martyrdom for it. This should only cause us to look at ourselves and what really we think we have to offer in our favour to prove ourselves to Allah.

As the intensity of every day in Gaza peaks, simply unpacking a single aspect of a single lesson happening in that tiny strip of land is enough to keep us preoccupied in contemplation for years to come.

Gaza stands for so much, and if it is acting as the great revealer of our age, we must be ready to receive the ocean of lessons that Allah is sending our way through them. As Gaza is the great revealer, let us internalise what it reveals of ourselves to ourselves — this is the only starting point of true and honest personal rectification.