I am looking through and sorting the poems that were written to those who are no more. These poems I used to read to the warm, living people when I was full of faith in our survival, in an end to all that, in a to-morrow, in vengeance, in joy, in rebuilding. 

Do read it.

This is our history.

This is what I read to the dead.

Wladyslaw Szlengel



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"The truth is that the State is a conspiracy designed not only to exploit, but above all to corrupt its citizens ... Henceforth, I shall never serve any government anywhere."

Leo Tolstoy .

If you tremble with indignation at every injustice then you are a comrade of mine.

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"Let us now relieve the Romans of their fears by the death of a feeble old man."

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The flotilla incident has boosted Sheikh Raid Salah's profile considerably. Last night al Jazeera had a documentary about him and interviews with his family. They all seemed wonderful, but it is not surprising to hear now that Israel might have been targeting him in the confusion. Men like him quickly become targets because they are effective and charismatic. I haven't read anything by him so I don't know how sophisticated his thought is, but he seems a genuine and honest man.

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Nahid Munir al Rayes - A Palestinian hero

I am ashamed to say I did not know who he was until his nephew Munir presented his poems at our bi-monthly poetry evenings in London. He passed away in Gaza a few weeks ago after a life of struggle with both the pen and the rifle. Nahid Munir al Rayes was of the old-school Fatah guard, and he worked closely with the late Abu Jihad in the sixties and seventies as well as numerous other Palestinian revolutionaries. His life was spent between Gaza, where he was wounded whilst trying to defend it in 1967, as well as Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. In 1994 he finally came back, reluctantly, to Gaza to serve as a judge and official in the government. After falling out with personalities such as Muhammad Dahlan and becoming disillusioned with what Fatah had become, he resigned and ran as an independent in the elections which saw Hamas sweep to power. A highly respected figure by both sides, he was offered a position as mayor of Gaza by Hamas, but declined the offer in order to spend his remaining years writing prolifically.

Even whilst incapacitated by illness and on his deathbed, he continued to dictate his words to his sons. Urbane, sophisticated and yet also comfortable in struggling with the masses and the common people, one of his inspirations was Che Guevara, whose book Guerrilla Warfare he translated into Arabic. Mr Nahid al Rayes also grew devoutly Muslim as he progressed in age, and inspirations from his Qur'anic readings glimmer in his poems with startling elegance. Always suspicious of Oslo, he was in two minds as to whether to return to Gaza, but decided in the end that, regardless, he would much prefer to be buried in his own land than in exile. Even as an old man, he continued to provide assistance and help as much as he could. Even as an old man, his struggle continued, sometimes unknown even to his family. At his wake they were surprised to hear by other people that he had been seen with his hands up against a wall, lined up with other men caught supplying people with blankets, food and supplies during the Israeli war against Gaza last year. An amazing man with an intense and vibrant spirit, he will be sorely missed I am sure, but fortunately his writings are still there for us to be inspired by.

The poem below is one in which he reflects on his life of struggle and his hopes and aspirations for Palestine.

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مفخرة لنا أن تعرف كل الشعوب العربية والإسلامية أننا نسجن ونعتقل لأننا نقول ربنا الله ونصغي إلى الله سبحانه وتعالى الذي يأمرنا أن نكون إلى جانب إخواننا في فلسطين وفي قطاع غزة

حسن نصر الله 4/2010

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Silence is the true friend that never betrays - Confucius

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________Hassan N____________Hassan Na

______Hassan Nasrall_______Hassan Nasrallah

____Hassan NasrallahHas___Hassan NasrallahHas

____Hassan NasrallahHassan Nasrallah_______Hass

__Hassan NasrallahHassan Nasrallah_________Hass

__Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHass_______Hass

__Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan N______H

__Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan Nasra__Has

__Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan Nasralla_H

__Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahH

__Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahH

___Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan Nasralla

____Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan Nasral

_____Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassan Nas

______Hassan NasrallahHassan NasrallahHassa

________Hassan NasrallahHassan Nasralla

___________Hassan NasrallahHassan Na

_____________Hassan NasrallahHass

________________Hassan Nasral

__________________Hassan Na

___________________Hassan

____________________Hass

_____________________Ha

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Art meets resistance

Fantastic picture I got from Amal-Saad Ghorayeb, who I'm sure got it from somewhere else. It is now adorning one of my walls in full A4 colour glory.

أرضكم أرضنا .. دمكم دمنا .. قدسكم قدسنا .. أبناؤكم أبناؤنا. واننا على موعد مع الصبح !! أليس الصبح بقريب ؟

"Your land is our land, your blood is our blood, your sons are our sons and we are awaiting the dawn, is not the dawn drawing near?"

Sayid Hassan Nasrallah

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On Hannibal Barca...

What seems like a life time ago, I began reading about Hannibal Barca, a fascinating figure in world history. My interest became an obsession and I like to think that I am a mini-expert on the subject, though of course I am far from it. During my time researching about the man, I had frequented a site by one Dr Hilary Gowen, a site which sadly disappeared without a trace a few years later. Through some ingenuity and lots of hard work, I was eventually able to reconstruct her site to the best of my abilities, to allow other people access to this amazing part of history.

The fruit of my labour became Carthagelives.com a site that has been running for a few years now and in which you can read all you need. It is simple yet functional and I do hope you enjoy it. Within this site is information about Ancient Carthage, the Punic Wars and of course Hannibal Barca.

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Milestones by Sayid Qutb

There has never been so much said by so many people about a book that so little have read. Milestones by Sayid Qutb shot to prominence following the September 11 attacks against the United States of America. I was first introduced to his thought when I watched Adam Curtis' remarkable The Power of Nightmares documentary - a three part series in which the ideological inspirations of the Bush White House and Osama Bin Laden's al Qaeda were traced back to Leo Strauss and Sayid Qutb. Two remarkable men of vision and conviction who actually shared similar views about the corruption and decadence of modern society - yet inhabited two diametrically opposing poles of political thought. Later, I learned more by watching the excellent Hussein Saleh's documentary on Qutb in his series Mamno'oon (Forbidden) which was aired on al Jazeera a few years ago but it was only till a few months ago that I had time to read his much maligned book Milestones and digest what I had learned.

In the opening chapters of Milestones, Qutb begins forcefully by stating that the period of dominance for the Western man in world affairs is coming to an end. The West, whilst having made remarkable achievements for the development of civilization materially, had reached the end of the road. Politically and morally, the West was, as it had always been, bankrupt, and humanity is at the crossroads. It is only Islam which can offer a meaningful solution for the world and whose adherents must now lead.

In many ways, much of what Qutb has to say was not very new to me, nor was it a surprise. But then again those who live in the shadow of thinkers and personalities like Frantz or Malcolm X can be forgiven if they take for granted the remarkable impact that their influence would have made during their lives, as well as on later generations. Qutb argues that humanity is living through a second Jahiliyah (Age of Ignorance), the first being the period before Islam arrived. This concept was interestingly noted by Karen Armstrong who argued similarly in her excellent book on the life of the Prophet Muhammad.

In this age, morality has declined, what is wrong is upheld as right and those who uphold the right are outcasts. The only way out of this is for a brave vanguard of Muslims to truly live according to the Quran. Qutb is adamant about this, Islamic civilization, philosophy, science, all these pale into insignificance as compared to the driving force which was the belief in Allah only and submission to Him only. None of the later civilizational achievements were essential to this period of greatness. Key to Qutb's call for a renewal of a truly Islamic nation is that complete sovereignty must lie with Allah alone, not with man. This is a recurrent theme in the Milestones and an important keystone for what is in effect Qutb's reinterpretation of Islam into a liberation theology. Quoting the remarkable story of Rub'ee bin Amer when he was speaking with the Persian nobles:

إن الله ابتعثنا لنخرج من شاء من عبادة العباد إلى عبادة رب العباد، ومن ضيق الدنيا إلى سعتها، ومن جور الأديان إلى عدل الإسلام

Allah has sent us to free those who wish so from the worshipping of man to the worshipping of the God of man - and from the confines of the world to its spaciousness, and from the injustice of religions to the justice of Islam.

Islam for Qutb has nothing to feel defensive about, it is other faiths and ideologies that must explain themselves in front of the one true faith. There is nothing backwards about it, nothing which is only for a certain period of history, it is a truth which is valid in all times and places, for all creeds of humanity. It liberates humans from the limits of ideology, race, creed and ignorance into the united, very human faith devoted to the worship of the one true God.

Qutb does over-emphasise these views ad nauseum at times, but it is only to drive home the importance of seeing Islam as it is, of understanding the actions of the Prophet and his companians as they truly were, and in doing so, of benefiting humanity, as he believed, and rescuing it from the moral cesspool it has driven itself into. The book is insightful Islamically, and his remarkable knowledge and faith truly show in almost every paragraph. But this book is a polemic, it is not an academic study or theoretical paper where he expounds his views. Crucial to his belief in a living breathing Islam is his view of a kind of praxis, a fusion of Quranic understanding and of immediate application to life in its every day variations. The Quran for Qutb is not a literary work, not a poetry or history text, it is not a book to be mulled over intellectually. These features are accidental and not essential to its true nature, it is the word of God - nothing less.

Only once there is a living, breathing embodiment of Muslims on earth can humanity see an example of a society in which justice between the genders, political and social justice and environmental and economic stability are finally addressed. To distract ourselves with any of these side issues is to doom ourselves to failure. Qutb is adamant that a true Muslim would find justice in all matters by focusing on the one true paths, and the ill's of human society are symptoms of the straying from this path.

On three occasions, Qutb seemed to emerge from the text, to give his view on contemporary issues. In his chapter, Islam is civilization, we see a more personal side to his writing as he describes his struggle in first attacking notions of "Civilization" as the European man painted it during his colonial adventures in the world, and as a concept in itself. At first he felt that to use that term was to submit to the European "Weltenschauung" of what civilization and modernity were all about. The soluton came when he realised that whilst the Western empires had tried to monopolise the term Civilization, their backwardness could not be hidden. It was, says Sayid Qutb, Islam which was the truly civilising power for man. All else could truly be called backwards in its most crystal clear meaning. Islam was Civilization, not the West.

In one of his closing chapters, he reflects on the formative period he spent in the United States. He describes how some Muslims he met there became apologetic about Islam, arguing that true Islam is not how it is wrongfully portrayed. Qutb says that he refused to be defensive about his faith, arguing with those who accused him and placing them in the defendents seat rather than the other way around. He used as his ammunition the lax morality, the materiality and the bankruptcy of Western modern life. He referred to the freedom for men and women to mix as the "freedom for animals". Those he spoke with would then feel ashamed about the truth of what he had to say whilst people who claimed to be Muslims held a defeatist attitude, a position which bewildered and upset Qutb.

Overall, Milestones is the expression of a confident and extremely pious man who seemed deeply worried about the pervasiveness of Western materialist ideologies throughout the world and the damage they are causing. In his view, the answer lay in the Quran and could not be simpler. Interestingly enough Qutb never specifically calls for war - an accusation commonly levelled against him and Leo Strauss. What he does say though is that the presence of a truly independent and strong Islamic nation would inevitably be provocative to those "Kings" of the world who would not tolerate a nation submitting only to Allah. Here Qutb is clear, there is no backing down from obligation and no compromise in the faith. It is, I suspect, this unyielding positon and dramatic revival of Islamic principles which probably made his thought such a threat to those who opposed him and which would eventually cost him his life.

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سهام رفقي - يا أم العباية

If there is one singer who will always remind me of happier days, it is the famous Siham Rifqi (aka Fatima Qassab) in the classic song - Omm al Abaya. She comes from a different time, when artists were artists and not the cardboard cutouts from our Rotana generation. Unlike the present day fakes, she really was rebellious and proud of it, click here to read about this remarkable woman.

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Mohammed Abdullah Hassan

Somalia is in the news a lot today and, drifting through Wikipedia, I wanted to read more about this country. We have a new addition to the brave heroes who rejected the occupation and colonisation of Muslim countries: Mohammad Abdullah Hassan. Here is an extract from the entry on the man so that he would not be forgotten:

Religious Mission

In 1895, Hassan returned to Berbera which was then considered by the British merely as 'Aden's butcher's shop', since they were interested only in getting regular supplies of meat from Somalia through this port for their British India outpost of Aden.

Taking advantage of British complacency and arrogance, Emperor Menelek II of Ethiopia asked Ras Makonnen, the Governor of his newly conquered Hararghe Province, to send armed bands to plunder and occupy Ogaden politically. The British withdrew from this area of their territory in Somalia.

In Berbera, Hassan could not succeed in spreading the teaching of the Saalihiya order due to the hostility of the local Qadiriyyah inhabitants who did not like him criticising their eating khat and gorging on the fat of sheep's tail and for following their traditional Qadiriyyah order. In 1897, he left Berbera to be with his Dulbahante kinsmen. On the way, at a place called Daymoole, he met some Somalis who were being looked after by a Catholic Mission. When he asked them about their tribe and parents, the Somali orphans replied that they belonged to the "clan of the (Catholic) Fathers." This reply shook his conscience, for he felt that the "Christian Overlordship in his country was tantamount to the destruction of his people's faith."

In 1899, an unfortunate event took place. Some soldiers of the British armed forces met Hassan and sold him an official gun. When questioned about the loss of the gun, they told their superiors that Hassan had stolen the gun from them. On 29 March 1899, the British Vice Consul wrote a very insulting and stern letter to him asking him to return the gun immediately, which someone in Hassan's camp had reported stolen. This enraged Hassan and he sent a very brief and curt reply refuting the allegation.

While Hassan had really been against the Ethiopian imperialist plunderers of Somalia, this small incident made him clash with the British. The British and Ethiopian Emperor Menelek II joined together to crush the Dervish movement of Hassan and some antagonistic Somalis also cooperated with Menelek II against him.

Armed Struggle

In several of his poems and speeches, Hassan emphasized that the British infidels "have destroyed our religion and made our children their children" and that the Christian Ethiopians in league with the British were bent upon plundering the political and religious freedom of the Somali nation. He soon emerged as "a champion of his country's political and religious freedom, defending it against all Christian invaders." He issued a religious ordinance that any Somali national who did not accept the goal of unity of Somalia and would not fight under his leadership would be considered as kafir or gaal. He acquired weapons from Turkey, Sudan, and other Islamic and/or Arabian countries. He appointed his ministers and advisers in charges of different areas or sectors of Somalia. He gave a clarion call for Somali unity and independence.

Hassan organized his follower-warriors. His 'Dervish' movement had essentially a military character and the Dervish state was fashioned on the model of a Saalihiya brotherhood. It had rigid hierarchy and rigid centralization.

Though Hassan threatened to drive the Christians into the sea, he committed the first attack by launching his first major military offensive with his 1500 Dervish equipped with 20 modem rifles on the British soldiers stationed in the region.

Hassan sent one of his men to Yemen in disguise for reconnaissance activities to report the new aeroplanes preparedness for attack. He sent his emissaries all over the country appealing for Somali people to join his movement and many responded to him enthusiastically.

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Lalla Fatma N'Soumer

I have never heard of this woman before reading more about the Algerian invasion but I was fascinated by the descriptions of her feats. A contemporary of the great Abd al Qadir al Jazairi, she led fierce resistance against the French occupation of her homeland and was finally captured and sent to one of their infamous detention camps, where she died. More here.

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For those with no satellite dish and living abroad, AqsaTube is showing each Bab el Hara episode as and when it comes up. You can watch all the episodes here. Enjoy!

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Dalal Mughrabi...I'm embarrassed to say I hadn't heard of her before Hezbullah had requested her body be included in the prisoner exchange. It is shameful that Arafat and Abbas have never even given this matter any thought and that it is Hezbullah which had to ask for these, not that I have a problem with them. Resistance-wise their credentials are impeccable and they have always had my full moral support. Still, as someone dear to me pointed out, Nasrallah had also once demanded the release of all the Palestinian prisoners. I don't honestly believe he has sold the Palestinians out in the name of pragmatism, but this does raise a few eyebrows. Still, he has always gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that whenever he promised, he delivered. I will adopt a wait and see attitude.

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كان يهاجم ويجرح ويدمي ونحن نصفق يزداد ضراوة ونحن نضحك ونطلب المزيد صار مقاتلا شرسا نيابة عنا ألا يٌذِّكر هذا بموقفنا اليوم من أطفال الحجارة جعلناهم أيقونات فازدادوا ضراوة صاروا يجترئون أكثر ويقتربون من الدبابة بنشوة من يسمع تهليل الجمهور لكن الطفل الفلسطيني يواجه الطلقة وحده، كنا مع ناجي العلي حين يلسع ويجرح ويضرم النيران لكنه كان وحده حين انطلق كاتم الصوت

Hussein Saleh is amazingly articulate and his "Banned" series on important literary and political thinkers of the Arab and Islamic world was one of my favourites. I tried translating the passage above but couldn't do justice to it with the little time I have today. If anybody is interested, I have just copied the streams from al Jazeera for his show (audio only and in MP3 format) and will try to repost them on my Youtube channel shortly.

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So far, none of the main newspapers here in the UK have realised how big this is, with the news item conveniently tucked away below the headlines. The biggest coverage so far is naturally from ecstatic Israeli news sources whilst al Manar is playing recitations of the Quran with a small headline announcing that Imad Mughniyeh has been martyred. I can't overemphasize the importance of what's just happened and the position Israel has just put itself in.

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