Letters from a Muslim Woman Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

For nearly a year now, whenever I close my eyes I see bloodied Palestinian children covered in dust that used to be concrete. Now, my mind’s eye brings me a new vision. The bright, beautiful face of Marcellus Khalifa Williams, a Black Muslim man who was executed several days ago by the State of Missouri for a crime he did not commit.

In the aftermath of his killing, my feed was flooded with pictures of his poetry, written for the children of Palestine, and his last words, a testimony.

All it takes to become a Muslim is the utterance of a simple statement, a testimony called the shahada.

Ash-hadu anla illaha illa Allah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan rasool Allah.I bear witness that there is no god but God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God.

I’ve sat in the mosque a hundred times and heard these words spoken as new Muslims are welcomed into the fold. I’ve heard them in the call to prayer before salah.

I utter them myself during the prayer, a reminder of what I believe and what I declare. God is One. His prophet, Muhammad, is my guide for His teachings.

Would I have put my hopes in God, or in my executors?

All of this to prepare me for the time that these words will matter most. At death.

My biggest fear is that I will be on my deathbed and not manage the shahada. That I will forget the words. That my carelessness in life, my lack of attention, my insufficient faith, will show in what doesn’t come out of my mouth.

In the moments before death, we are reduced to our very core, and what if the testimony isn’t at my core? What if my core is empty?

In Arabic, the shahada is so called because it’s a statement from a witness. I imagine a court, but not the broken courts of our broken criminal justice systems. Not the courts in which America can kill its own Black citizens, nor the ones in which it can veto any statements for the end of occupation, the end of genocide, the end of one massacre after another, after another.

In Arabic, a witness is called a shaheed. This is the same word for martyr.

Marcellus Williams, who wrote poetry for the children of Palestine, is a shaheed, much like the children of Palestine.

Marcellus Williams, in his moments before death, was not reduced, but elevated to his core, a core that was content. A core that praised God and knew it was going home, to God.

Our faith teachers have written volumes about diseases of the heart. About envy. Covetousness. Greed.

In Islam, the original sin, the one that cast the devil out of heaven, is arrogance. The cure to arrogance is humility. The cure to envy and covetousness is contentment.

This is why you will hear the mothers of murdered children in Gaza say, Alhamdulillah between their tears. Alhamdulillah alaa kol haal. All praise be to God in every situation. The same words Marcellus wrote for his final statement.

They mean, I’m hurting, but I still trust you, God. They mean, I’m hurting but you are still worthy of my contentment. You are always worthy. They are the words of a true believer.

I imagine myself in his place, asked for a final statement. I imagine my denial, my refusal. I would have written an essay on my innocence. Would I have put my hopes in God, or in my executors?

In our tradition, when someone dies, we say inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’oon. To God we belong and to him we return.

Marcellus knew this. We do not belong to the executors. We belong to God.

Subscribe to Letters from a Muslim Woman Demystifying the Western Muslim experience.

If you haven’t already, you can read the details of the ways that the criminal justice system failed Marcellus’ specific case below. Click through the carousel to read.

Marcellus from an earlier interview. Such conviction.

The always eloquent Hanif Abdurraqib on Marcellus and the concept of “innocence”. Click through the carousel to read.

Marcellus’ poem for the children of Palestine.

If you’re like me, you’ve been following the US election even though you’d rather look away. As a Canadian, I have no vote, and yet, I care more than I’ve ever cared before. It’s hard not to care when American policy affects so much of what happens not just within its own borders, but across the world.

My first thought continues to be Palestine. The killing of Palestinians now not only in Gaza, but in the West Bank. The destruction of whatever little civil infrastructure still exists. The annexing of more and more and more land. This is the first thing on my mind as I watch a speech, a rally, a debate. And last week’s presidential debate was no exception.

Last week, after the presidential debate, I furiously wrote this out on my phone when I found myself unable to sleep.

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The world’s most lethal fighting force

When you promise”the world’s most lethal fighting force”

what I hearisCraters the length of football fieldspregnant with tentsfilled with familieswho fledafter the school was bombedafter the friend’s house was bombedafter their uncle’s house was bombedafter their house was bombed

What I seeisA girl who wakes up to the chaosin the burnt husk of another hospitalshrapnel covering her little faceA girl who asks her doctorin a panicif this is the heaven her mother promised

She is concernedbecause it’s noisyand it’s scary and it still smells like death(the stench is unbearable, you see, and we can’t smell it through our screens,but it is blood and rotting flesh, and raw sewagemixed together with the sharp sting of still-hot metal.)and the dust? The dust is everywhereit cakes her face it lines the beds and the windowsillsit is the remains of every building no longer standing.

Her mother said that if the bombs comethe next time she woke up, she’d be in heavenand her mother has never lied before, but this?this does not seem like heaven

What I see is A father of newborn twinscelebrating new lifeso rare in these partsA father who walks the rubble-filled streets to get his babies’ birth certificates and walks back to find the apartmentwith his wife and babies (those perfect, tiny creatures! 10 fingers! 10 toes!) GoneA blackened hole in its place

What I see is A man abducted off the streets of GazaReturned months laterHis eyeshauntedunable to hide the animal fear of what they’ve endured

When you promisethe world’s most lethal fighting forceI’m not impressed but terrified

But thenyou were never trying to impress mewere you?

Every scenario I’ve described above is real.

The craters are the result of a recently bombed tent camp in Khan Younis, Gaza, where Israel dropped 2000 pound bombs on families sleeping in tents in the middle of the night, killing or burying alive whole families in a matter of seconds on the night of September 10th.

The girl in the hospital asked this doctor if she was in heaven in this clip below.

The father of newborn twins’ story can be found here

And finally, this man. This poor man’s face is haunted, and will haunt me to my dying day.

This poem could have been hundreds of pages long. I’ve left out some of the most indelible images, because I cannot bring myself to write extensively about beheaded babies, pregnant women and their husbands, killed and hung by soldiers on the roof of their house, innocent men taken into torture camps called prisons and raped, hungry dogs eating human remains on the streets.

We need more than a ceasefire. We need an arms embargo. We need unfettered access to aid and health workers. We need a massive influx of everything required to rebuild society in both Gaza and the West Bank, and we need the authority figures who led this charge held to account. Anything less is not justice, and not enough.

Thank you for reading Letters from a Muslim Woman. I share the joys and challenges of being a visibly Muslim woman in a sometimes-unfriendly world. A paid subscription is $5 a month and gives you access to my unfinished letters, published every other week, where I share my most tender, unvarnished thoughts on topics like Islamophobia, sincerity and hypocrisy, the visibility in being a visible minority and the pressure to be perfect.

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Let’s chat in the comments:

* Have you been following the US presidential election?

* What are your thoughts on Kamala? Are you conflicted like me?

* Are there statements you’ve heard, political or otherwise, that were meant to impress you but instead terrified you? Tell me about them.