The Future is Fatimid
Apparently, Trump has ushered in the “Golden Age of America.” The glittering era of “gold” evokes Goethe’s Faust, where characters would receive riches in exchange for their soul and a luring pact with the Devil. If they try break the terms or begin to see the Devil’s deceit, the “gold” will turn into what it truly is: dust, ash, or excrement as a symbol of their moral failure. We are now witnessing the ultimate Faustian bargain for the myth of endless American power.
In exchange for some fleeting dominance and supremacy, they wager the innocent blood of thousands, the countless forcibly expelled, the scores of those unjustly incarcerated. They gamble tons of rubble, the mountains of skulls and bones, the craters of American bombs in Gaza and the cold bullets in children’s skulls in the West Bank. Backed by the billions of tech oligarchs and ironclad impunity, the fascists in charge are having their heyday: they think they’ve struck gold in this most lucrative bargain with the Devil. They think are invincible. Drunk on this illusion, they carry on with their surveillance, censorship, and obliterating any type of dissent by simply labeling it as “woke” or “terrorism.”
Can you believe that there are is a fringe minority in the Muslim community who support Trump, as some kind of strongman savior who will come and save us all from social degeneracy? Another tragic Faustian bargain. How deluded, how neutered, one must be to believe that this model of late stage empire rot can offer any kind of redemptive salvation. There is no other explanation for this odd phenomenon other than a decimated consciousness. One’s faith and moral standing are both in serious peril if one still cannot see beyond the repressive clasp of corrupt lobbies, pernicious politicians and the sooth-saying, sensationalist theatrics of a convicted felon performing the role of a righteous leader.
“Muslims for Trump” stems from a nativist, integrationist mindset: that, yes, it’s sad those pesky “foreign” Muslims resisting oppression and being killed abroad, but they are less important than “our own” domestic interests right here in America. “We have enough problems as it is.” That the river of blood coursing through the veins of the Muslim world is less important than Muslim American institutions, upward mobility and gender wars. This type of insular thinking is at best, irredeemably morally repugnant and at worst, alarmingly un-Islamic.
More than ever, we find ourselves in the abyss of the abyss of absurd political theater. It feels like the agonizing, unending last scene of a really bad play. Instead of pushing for the equivalent of a Nuremberg Trial or the fall of the Apartheid Wall for the battered people of the Gaza ghetto, the political elite carry on with an unprecedented level of indifference, arrogance and conceit. Despite feigning a less interventionist policy towards the Middle East, there is very little to suggest that this administration is any less devoted to continuing Israel’s expansionist aims. Regarding Palestine, expect a bolstering of “abnormalization” efforts enshrined in the “Deal of the Century” and the pernicious Abraham Accords to come back in full, shameless swing with the dutiful, willing partnership of Saudi and the UAE. Instead of backing down, the hubris of the political and technological globalist elite has reached its pinnacle.
Oddly enough, that is actually a good thing. Nazi salutes on stage with their bellies hanging out and all. The ugliness can no longer be obscured under the fig leaf of “good” liberalism. It is for this reason that Imam Ali asked God for the gift of clear vision above all else when he said, “Lord, show us things as they truly are.” Remember, hubris always leads to nemesis. The higher and mightier the pedestal they’ve placed themselves on, the more humbling and devastating their collapse will be. Think of Pharaoh before the Red Sea swallowed him into oblivion, or Goliath’s unlikely demise by David. Consider Caesar who declared himself dictator perpetuo before being killed by his closest senators. Recall Napoleon’s downfall against the Russians at the overly ambitious Battle of Leipzig, which preceded his devastating defeat at Waterloo. The Golden Rule of history is this: no tyranny lasts forever and no repressive regime is immortal, but they tend to do their very worst at the pre-mortem stage.
This stage is now.
In a sense, ours is indeed a “golden” age: it is the golden age for state surveillance and repression. The golden age of hubris. But, the reality of that gold is ultimately just ash. This time is also the ripest age for disenfranchised and downtrodden communities to prepare themselves for the inevitable awakening from this long nightmare. This systemic, pervasive Faustian age. To orient themselves towards that moment of unlikely victory.
Anyone who is depressed by the illusory, temporary, material strength of today’s fascist pharaohs can find the lions’ share of solace, hope and inspiration from one of history’s ultimate, triumphant mavericks: the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. That lone orphan who, despite the fact that he and his community withstood the cruelest forms of torture and denigration, still managed to unexpectedly come out on top, revolutionize a corrupt and broken society, and transform human history through tawhid (affirming the oneness of God) relying on the unbeatable power of faith alone.
Early in his mission, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ and his small group of brave, marginalized followers faced harsh persecution and ridicule by the powerful Meccan elite tribe of Quraysh, of which he himself was a member. Even his supporters that were part of Meccan nobility, like his companion Abu Bakr, were beaten unconscious when they became Muslim. Forcefully enslaved believers like Bilal were shackled and left to scorch in the midday desert sun. The first martyr in Islam, a black slavewoman named Sumayya Um Yassir, was murdered with a spear thrust through her pelvis, and her son, ‘Ammar was tortured with fire—like so many others—until he was forced to feign recanting his faith. Another companion was forced to lie on burning coals and smelled his own flesh cooking.
Just like the downtrodden people of Palestine, the early Muslims saw horror upon horror at the hands of the criminal, hubristic ruling elite. The following heart-wrenching story from the sira (the Prophetic biography) has always gripped me: the Prophet ﷺ was performing his prayers in solitude at the Ka’ba, when his sworn enemy, Abu Jahl and others from the Meccan elite were laughing at him and ridiculing him as he peacefully bowed down to his Creator. Abu Jahl then asked one of his yes-men to bring the entrails of a camel and place its heavy intestines over the Prophet as he prostrated in peace. The entrails were reportedly so heavy, that the Prophet could not lift his head up under their weight. No one would help. Abu Jahl and his wicked companions relished at the sight, laughing loudly and pointing in glee towards this beautiful man being publicly tortured for his beliefs.
Soon enough, it was the Prophet’s 8-year old daughter Fatima al-Zahra that came to the rescue. Not the grown men in Mecca who simply looked on while this injustice took place, not a single one of his so-called “relatives” or “friends.” Rather, it was a lionhearted little girl who stepped in, for she loved him more than the world. She heard news of her beloved father’s torment and she rushed to his aid. Sobbing with rage and sorrow over the pain of this injustice, she began removing the heavy, slimy camel insides one by one, so that her father could finally lift up and finish his prayer. When he was finished, it is reported the Prophet ﷺ looked at the men, lifted up his index finger to the One as a sign of defiance, and made a prayer against them one by one, invoking the well known hadith, “beware of the prayer of the oppressed, for there is no veil between it and Allah.” He prayed against them in a manner so thunderous, that they stopped laughing and the color disappeared from their faces. It is reported that each and every one of those men, all seven of them, including Abu Jahl, were soon thereafter killed swiftly in the Battle of Badr. Who’s laughing now?
If we were to describe this moment in terms of the Prophetic sira, all the free people of the world are now crushed under innards and entrails as the arrogant, tone deaf elite look on. Just look at Gaza: what is this moment if not a symbol of the ridiculed, persecuted messenger from God, hunched over in unyielding devotion under the strangulating weight of the figurative and literal rubble? Its steadfast people press firm on the qiblaof truth and justice despite unspeakable loss.
What is Gaza if not the ultimate underdog of this wretched, duplicitous world order, crushed by the weight of the heavy carcass of this compounded neoliberal brutality and deceit? Equally complicit, are the Arab countries that spectated with crocodile tears, measly “aid” trucks and their shameless collusion. Small but mighty Gaza, the ghetto of defenseless refugees, who bore the ultimate brunt of the hypocrisy of the ruse-based order, for the most part, alone. For 15 months and 76 years, it fought a nuclear superpower head on, barefoot and brave and still, it remains. Despite the billions spent by way of military aid and over four Hiroshimas worth of bombs, the defiant spirit of Gaza could not and will not be obliterated.
Today, we are all in the figurative Ka’ba, circumbulating around the axis of truth, whether knowingly or unknowingly. The hubristic Meccan elite of today are represented in the likes of Netanyahu, Trump and his merry band of billionaire supremacist tech oligarchs. Abu Jahl and his henchmen are today the lot of Arab tyrants, the hypocrites in Muslim garb who compete in upholding what African American theologian James Cone called “structural sin.” The camel entrails of the neoliberal modern age are represented in the crushing weight of the rubble of Gaza, the destruction of villages in Sudan and Yemen, the carnage at the hands of state-sponsored terrorist militias, and the concrete slabs of torture dungeons where even women and children are starved and brutalized.
But then, in the darkest, most bitter of moments, enters hope. It comes in the form of a brave little girl: Fatima al-Zahra. She, who did what grown men could not. A girl who would become the matrilineal bearer of the Aal al-Bayt, the Prophetic household, thereby standing as a powerful symbol for the neglected tradition of wisdom and justice in Islam. Today, more than ever, we need to unite as an ummah and restore that spirit of the Aal al Bayt. That signature Fatimid moral courage.
We all need to carry the spirit of that brave little Hashemite girl and re-integrate some basic, primordial innocence and humanity to the bleak canvas of our ailing age. A spirit that is willing to walk the path less trodden in defense of what is true and just. When all of society does one thing; laughs, disparages, rebukes, and undermines the oppressed—like Fatima—we need to cultivate the courage to walk alone and defend them. Away from the pack of laughing hyenas, from the growls and stares of the high and mighty elite, let us be Fatimid in our futuristic orientation and rebuild the kind of world we want to live in for ourselves and our children.
Because a Fatimid orientation is not a feminist one, it is a universal, uniting call. It points towards the necessity of working against the “divide and conquer” strategy that the modern-day colonizers have long relied on to drive intra-Muslim chasms: just look at how quickly sectarian rhetoric became inflamed in the aftermath of the most recent Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the end of the Ba’thist regime in Syria. Voices that were once a united front against Zionism quickly pointed their fingers towards one another and mistrust, suspicion and disunity was sown. It is no coincidence that the state powers that are traditionally more defiant of NATO/Israeli axis military interests are Shi’i groups, from Yemen to Lebanon to Iran. This is arguably due to the fact that the Aal al-Bayt/Fatimid ethic and the story of Karbala is so central to Shi’i political theology. Meanwhile, it is quite shameful that so-called Sunni states have largely adopted the more Yazidi/Umayyad approach of quietism and collaboration with the oppressive powers-that-be. Thus, there is an existential need to restore the Fatimid ethic across Muslim communities, because it has the potential to unite, heal rifts and hearts and re-center the neglected Prophetic path of justice.
In this moment of rebuilding, let us roll up our sleeves and clear the debris off of the back of Palestine—our collective moral qibla—both figuratively and literally. The dust of this genocidal war has settled and the vision is now clear: when we succumb to systemic injustice, when we accept it as status quo, we are all in peril and are vulnerable to collapse. None of us are safe. Collectively, our souls have all been crushed by the heaviness of corruption, abuse of power and hypocrisy so rampant across communities globally. We are all morally mangled under the weight of the existential peril that comes when we succumb to quietism, mechanical acquiescence and cowardly, selfish, pacifism and nativist thinking.
From its rubble, graveyards and ashes, Gaza has actually built the infrastructure for global liberation. Its exterior tells of unimaginable destruction, but its interior reality is that of strength and foundational power. After their singular, superhuman sacrifice, it is our turn to shoulder a bit of that burden for them. Gazans have dealt blow after blow to the chinks in the armor of Zionism and state repression, now the baton has been passed to the rest of the free people of the world to finish the job.
In a sense, it is the spirit of Hind, Sidra and Reem— the little Fatimid martyrs of Gaza—that will redefine the world’s future and forever haunt the genociders, their collaborators and apologists. Unlike the maniacal, power-lusting machismo of this moment of this imperium mori and moral rot, beyond the cliche, “the future is female,” thefuture will be Fatimid. It will be universal. It will ring with the laughter of children, and the contagious spunk of a proud, defiant little girl. Like Fatima, strive to remove the debris from the bodies of the oppressed. Uplift injustice bit by bit from the back of this ailing world. Efface the wreckage of structural sin with your hands, tongues, hearts to make space for the future to come.
A Fatimid Future.
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