The Mothers of Gaza
Originally published on February 3rd, 2025 on Sotour.net
I called my friend Fatima to accompany me on a walk. For a moment, I believed I genuinely wanted to experience a meditative walk—one free from the frantic movement of displacement under bombardment, from the rush down stairwells, and that moment at the door of not knowing where we’re going.
I just want to walk. It doesn't matter where—what matters is that I’m walking now, away from the sounds of war.
We walked through many destroyed streets, over the rubble, past exhausted and bewildered faces. We recalled many moments when there was no refuge but God—in the truest sense of the word.
She told me that during a sudden incursion, she had to carry her child, Yusuf, and flee. When she finally put him down to walk, she realized he had no shoes!
He couldn’t walk barefoot on a road littered with rubble and stones.
She said:
“The Apache helicopters were flying low, almost skimming the ground. I don’t know how I managed to walk while those helicopters hovered so close just to get my little boy’s shoes so he could walk. I honestly don’t know how I survived that moment.”
I laughed gently and told her:
“I hope Yusuf remembers that his mother risked her life just so he wouldn’t walk barefoot.”
A mother can do so much for her children. The least of it is death. That’s why God Almighty grants victory to mothers. When Lady Mary (Maryam) bore Prophet Jesus (Isa), and faced great injustice from the accusations of people, God performed a miracle by allowing Jesus to speak from the cradle in defense of his mother. His speech became a symbol for her purity, vindication, divine power, and victory. That same victory was granted to the mother of Moses when she cast her son into the river after which he was returned to her to be nursed—part of a perfect divine plan that was nothing less than a beautiful triumph reserved for the sacred rank of motherhood alone.
This trumph can even be witnessed in moments of destriuction and death. When Pharaoh cast the children of his believing servant into boiling water and when it was her infant son’s turn, her faith was about to falter—God made her baby speak to affirm her. That’s why, when the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, spoke of God's mercy, he said:
“God is more merciful to His servants than a mother to her child.”
Because a mother’s mercy is the highest human expression of compassion, and God’s mercy exceeds even that. How perfect was the Prophet’s choice in describing God’s mercy.
As I was flooded with these reflections about mothers, the image of my friend Fatima risking her life to retrieve her son’s shoes overcame me. I remembered my own slain son Kinan’s sneakers—the ones he tried on only once, and they looked so beautiful on him. He jumped in them more than once.
The shoes survived the war, but my Kinan did not.
I tried to honor Kinan—the boy who used to laugh at life—by giving his new shoes to his best friend, the one he used to play with and love. I imagined it would make him happy in paradise. It was my way of paying tribute to his soaring soul after his martyrdom, and in feeling that joy, I felt God had granted me a victory, of sorts.
The image of a Palestinian mother holding her child’s shoe amidst the rubble of their bombed home, begging rescuers to get her son out from under the debris comes to mind. She cradled that shoe like a newborn and wept over it. Since then, I could no longer see shoes as mere footwear. I wanted to tell everyone: Take care of your shoes. Give them love. You never know—someday, someone might hold them as your last memory and warmest embrace.
We walked down a road flooded with sewage. The occupation had tried for months to completely destroy the infrastructure. We jumped here and there, trying not to step in the filthy water. We had become skilled at avoiding it—perhaps repeated displacement under bombing had trained us well. I told Fatima,
“Look—despite all this destruction, we’re still trying hard to keep our shoes clean from sewage!”
It’s instinct…
Human nature leans toward beauty, life, and hope. Despite 470 days of death, my pure instincts still side with life. At the very least, I try not to let my shoes get dirtied in contaminated water. And if that's what we do on the outside, what about the inside? Every bad thought, every sinful act that displeases God, is like that polluted water. The important thing is not to let your heart get immersed in it. That’s why God said:
“Except those who come to God with a sound heart.”
A sound heart is the one that earnestly tries to avoid stepping into the sewage of wrongdoing.
I said goodbye to Fatima at the end of the road and walked back alone. As I tried to keep my shoes clean, I saw in front of me a handsome young man with a leg amputated. He stood with no foot and no shoe. My own feet began to ache from the pain I felt in my heart. I stopped noticing the sewage puddles—I’d lost that drive to protect my shoes.
In that harsh moment, suddenly, the whole street broke out in whistling and clapping. The commotion grew louder. I noticed that the amputee young man was clapping and singing too. Everyone was looking up, so I lifted my eyes to see what had happened.
The streetlight pole in the middle of the road was glowing—electricity had returned for the first time in 470 days. Just that: a streetlamp turned on. I pulled out my phone and took a picture, smiling.
It wasn’t a scene from a street in Paris, nor fireworks in Australia, nor a parade in Milan.
It was just… a streetlight shining in Gaza!
And when I saw that young amputee smiling and laughing, my feet no longer hurt. I began dodging sewage puddles again to protect my shoes. I looked at that streetlight as if it were a small miracle—a tiny, beautiful thing worthy of celebration in our immense darkness.
A little light made us—war-weary and exhausted—feel joy. And I wondered: if this light, repaired by a human hand, could brighten a street plunged in darkness for over a year, what about the One who is The Light? What about the Eternal Light of God, if He were to pour it into the inner and outer being of His servant?
How great is the Creator, and how small the created.
How powerful the Divine Light, and how faint the human one.
The world remains dark… until God lights your heart—and then, the entire world is brightened by it.
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