The atrocity in Yanbu, the explosion in Riyadh, the attack last November on the Al-Muhaya Compound and the attack on the housing compounds in May of 2003 make many wonder: How will this matter end?
Start with a hypothetical situation. These criminals are in control. What will they do? What will be our reaction?
We will first have to do away with most modern luxuries; cars and planes after all are the work of the foreign enemy (the Crusaders) and will no longer be imported. The same goes for telephones, television and microphones, which would only drive the general public into corruption and immorality. Light will be meaningless, so we can do away with electricity. Schools, colleges and all kinds of degrees will be eliminated. A woman’s role is limited to hearth and home, and Qur’an lessons are all that male children need. Any field of knowledge that can create awareness, ambition or criticism is totally rejected.
Woe unto anyone who cuts their hair or wears Western clothes, for that means a fixation with appearances and leaving the battlefield, or worse, for women to appear in brightly colored garb — or to ask men to be compassionate, not to hit them or order them around, because then, instead of raising their weapons against those they hate, they might actually consider dialogue and understanding.
What I have just described are real snapshots of the lives of these terrorists, extrapolated from their inhumane actions. These acts are a trespass on God’s message. He alone is able to envelop the earth with mercy. He alone, too, can drown people in misery and suffering. God’s will was to create humans and divide the world into worship and work, good and evil, comfort and tribulation. Who then are these loathsome creatures to change God’s laws for His universe? Stealing others’ lives, terrorizing the elderly, women and children, robbing all creation of the joy of celebration.
Leave our land. Go where you can live the life of bloodshed that you so desire. Live in your caves, and may they one day swallow you and rid the earth of you. Blow yourselves up, kill your children and humiliate your wives, but know that we will prevail.
How can we relax when so many have lost their minds, unsheathed their swords to kill without waiting for proof? Publish their pictures everywhere — not just in newspapers but at traffic lights, at every street lamp, in shopping centers and in corner shops — until even the mute stones will have memorized their appearance. Can there be any escape for them after what they have done?
There are those who say, let us open the door to dialogue. What kind of dialogue do they want to open with murderers? Who are they anyway, and what is their issue? What is their law? No one in the media, none of the academics or journalists knows what this outcast group’s ideology is. They have called the whole nation apostate. As to the presence of foreigners on the peninsula, bloodshed is now halal. They have declared war on the entire nation, and the entire nation will drive them out.
Show yourselves. Publicly declare your hatred of life and see who will support you. Our perseverance and resolve is driven by our concern for the lives of our children. It comes from the depth of the hope inside us and the belief in God’s blessings upon this land. As the Qur’an says: “Seest thou such a one as taketh for his god his own passion (or impulse)? Couldst thou be a disposer of affairs for him? Or thinkest thou that most of them listen or understand? They are only like cattle; Nay, they have gone further astray from their path.” (Surah Al-Furqan: 43-44)
You who have lost your way, rest assured that you will find no one among us who you can call upon. There are some whose minds you have stunned and whose wits have failed them. Enjoy while you can the support of these mindless people and those with whom you have surrounded yourself — but leave this land. Find some other place that will have you. Life, this one and the hereafter, is ours; your lot is death in this life and the next because God is with us and He says: “That (mercy) I shall ordain for those who do right.” (Surah Al-A’raf: 156)
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(Suraya Al-Shehry is a Saudi writer. She is based in Riyadh.)