As we witness the relentless suffering of the ummah, especially in Gaza, there is a certain passage in Surah Ale-Imran that helps to put things in perspective like nothing else. Let’s ponder on just two of the verses from that passage.
If you have suffered a blow, they too have suffered one like it. We deal out such days among people in turn, for God to find out who truly believes, for Him to choose martyrs from among you- God does not love evildoers-for Him to cleanse those who believe and for Him to destroy the disbelievers. [Ale-Imran, 140-141]
This passage reassures me that the current state of affairs is temporary. That the enemies of the ummah will not always have the upper hand over us. That victory and defeat are given to people in turn.
And it also helps me make sense of why the oppressors are given power over us at all even when they cause immense suffering.
There are a few wisdoms mentioned. I want to focus on two.
Firstly, so that Allah may choose martyrs. It is not a tragic accident, a stray bullet or a random shrapnel that determines martyrdom. Rather, as Sayyid Qutb beautifully explains in his commentary, it is a “careful selection of martyrs” by Allah, The Most Majestic, Himself. And what an honour it is:
The way this point is expressed in the Quran is particularly remarkable: “God wants…to choose from among you such as [with their lives] bear witness to the truth.”.…Therefore, it is neither a tragedy nor a loss that anyone is chosen to be a martyr. Indeed, it is a matter of honour because the choice is made by God and those martyrs are given, by God, a special position near Him.
Secondly, so that Allah may destroy the tyrants. Now, this may sound counterintuitive. How can our enemies having the upper hand lead them to their own destruction? Ashraf Ali Thanwi explains in his tafsir that this happens because, when they get the upper hand, they become emboldened. They delude themselves into thinking that they are invincible. Their blind arrogance then leads them to engage in confrontations and escalate the violence to the point that they end up being defeated and annihilated.
I do believe that we live in an age when we are witnessing the gradual unravelling of the powers of the superpowers. Their slow demise by a thousand excruciating cuts. But before all of this, the irreparable crumbling of their moral edifice and credibility in the eyes of millions around the world who care about justice.
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Qur'anic Reflections 
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