Whisperings from the Desert

"You will never find justice in a world where criminals make the rules"

In Heaven the New Gaza is free of siege - Hiba Abu Nada

As the genocidal campaign in Gaza passes the 18 month mark, we must remember that every soul in Gaza has witnessed horror and suffered untold loss and heartbreak.

As the martyred Gazan poet Hiba Abu Nada wrote, everyone in Gaza is either witness to or a martyr for liberation. One day the people of Gaza will be reunited and free of occupation and genocide.

السلام والمجد للشهداء

Peace and Glory to the Martyrs

Each of us in Gaza is either witness to or martyr for liberation. Each is waiting to see which of the two they'll become up there with God. We have already started building a new city in Heaven. In Heaven, the new Gaza is free of siege. It is taking shape now. - Hiba Abu Nada

"We marvelled at our own magnificence, as we gave birth to AI"

- Morpheus: The Matrix (1999)

The recent emergence of DeepSeek has disrupted the hype and speculation surrounding AI development and wiped billions from the stock market. It has also provided a moment to consider the future we are heading towards with the commercialisation and proliferation of new and evolving AI models.

It may take decades for legislation and regulation to catch-up meanwhile nations are already militarising AI and ML tools to gain advantages on the battlefield and malicious actors are using AI to further blur the line between real and fake.

Peace and glory to the thousand martyrs of blessed Palestine.

إِنَّا لِلَّهِ وَإِنَّآ إِلَيْهِ رَٰجِعُونَ

While others sacrifice dignity for the sake of life, the Palestinians sacrifice life for the sake of dignity

What is happening in Gaza is a bloodbath, the Palestinian people are being killed in their hundreds every single day, children murdered, familiies destroyed and entire communities devastated. There is no justification whatsovever for what is being done to the people of Gaza.

What the Zionist occupiers hate so much is that the Palestinians will not willingly give up one iota of their lands or rights. Unlike other colonised indigenous groups they will not be quietly relegated into the history books. However hopeless their cause, they will continue to resist.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

"To have great pain is to have certainty. To hear that another person has pain is to have doubt"

-- Elaine Scarry

"Just as good iron is not beaten into nails; a good man is not made into a soldier."

A traditional chinese saying that reflects a cultural attitude opposed to wasting young lives full of potential on fruitless and endless war, conflict and bloodshed. Too often tyrants, demagogues and war-hawks trade away the lives of other people's children on pointless  acts of national muscle-flexing.

“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood let alone believed by the masses”

- Plato

Every culture has its own collection of myths and mistruths, it’s own biases and particular myopic outlooks. Very few people in any given society are brave enough to see beyond these limitations, to approach their own culture and society with any modicum of objectivity and to call out overlooked injustices, hypocrisy and double standards. These clear-sighted indivduals are often met with public hatred and are persecuted by the elites of their socities.

"Praise be to God, who with death did break the necks of tyrants, shattering with it the backs of Persia's kings, cutting short the aspirations of the Caesars, whose hearts were long averse to recalling death, until the true promise came to them and cast them into the pit."

Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali - Revival of the Religious Sciences

All the wealth, stations and achievements of Dunya are temporary and subject to decay, loss and collapse.

"Knowledge is better than wealth, for you have to protect your wealth whereas knowledge protects you."

- Ali ibn Abi Talib

Ad-Dukhan (Arabic: الدخان, ad-dukhān; meaning: Smoke) is the 44th chapter (surah) of the Quran with 59 verses (ayat). The word dukhan, meaning 'smoke', is mentioned in verse 10.  حم ۝  The first verse is one of Quran's Muqatta'at, the letter combinations that appear in the beginning of some chapters. Verse 37 mentions the people of Tubba, interpreters explain that this refers to the people of Sheba. [Wikipedia]

Al Quran was revealed in the glorious language of Arabic and many of us read it in that language yet don't understand it, listen to the Quran and its meaning in English recited by Sheikh Mishary Rashid Al Afasy. English translation is from the Sahih International.

The nafs, what we would call the ‘lower self’ or the id - some would refer to it as our animal self. It’s the part of ourselves that is least rational, logical or moral and the most emotional and aggressive. Our nafs encourages us to think only of the here and now and to only think of ourselves, it seeks quick gratification and pushes us to make morally questionable choices for selfish reasons; it’s the part of ourselves that we’re ashamed of the most and seek to repress or master as best we can.

'The imminent Hour draws near, and only God can disclose it. Do you [people] marvel at this? Why do you laugh instead of weeping? Why do you pay no heed? Bow down before God and worship.'  - Surah An Najm 53 : 57-62

The Kneeling, (Arabic: الجاثية, al-jāthiyah; meaning: "Upon Their Knees", "Crouching") is the 45th chapter (surah) of the Qur'an with 37 verses (ayat). It is a Meccan chapter, believed revealed according to the Islamic tradition during the Meccan phase of Muhammad's prophethood. This is one of the seven chapters in the Qur'an that start with the Muqattaʿat Hāʼ Mīm. It contains discussions of "signs of God" for humankind to reflect on, and describes punishments for those who deny God despite the signs. It also contains the only Quranic verse mentioning sharia, a term which Muslims later use to refer to the Islamic law. [Wikipedia]

Al Quran was revealed in the glorious language of Arabic and many of us read it in that language yet don't understand it, listen to the Quran and its meaning in English recited by Sheikh Mishary Rashid Al Afasy. English translation is from the Sahih International.

"They slaughtered us, our women and children were killed, our mosques were burned, but we will not kill women and children, we will not burn churches. Because the book we respect forbids Us to do that."

Izet Nanić

Even in the midst of the horrors of the Bosnian Genocide, the last genocide in Europe, the Bosnian resistance fighters remembered their religion and remained true to the tenets of Islam. May God bless the martyrs of Bosnia and accept their sacrifices, including that of Brigadier General Izet Nanic, who gave his life in defence of his people.

 Verily we belong to God and verily to him do we return (2:56) - إِنَّا لِلَّٰهِ وَإِنَّا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

Al-Ahqaf (Arabic: الأحقاف‎, al-aḥqāf; meaning: "the sand dunes" or "the winding sand tracts") is the 46th chapter (surah) of the Qur'an with 35 verses (ayat). This is the seventh and last chapter starting with the Muqattaʿat letters Hāʼ Mīm. Regarding the timing and contextual background of the believed revelation (asbāb al-nuzūl), it is one of the late Meccan chapters, except for verse 10 and possibly a few others which Muslims believe were revealed in Medina. [Wikipedia]

Al Quran was revealed in the glorious language of Arabic and many of us read it in that language yet don't understand it, listen to the Quran and its meaning in English recited by Sheikh Mishary Rashid Al Afasy. English translation is from the Sahih International.