Updated 5 January 2009

Sajida Zahra Manji of Peterborough, UK has written a poem about the tragic events taking place in Gaza, entitled ‘From Karbala to Gaza, my awakening’:

Gaza.
I close my eyes.
But the pictures are still flashing in my mind.
The scenes of terror and pain.
The brutality.
The inhumane.

How long will this suffering continue?
The children massacred.
The young orphans, the widows and the armless babies.

I feel a shiver
My eyes welling with tears
I cannot look at the scenes no longer.
My heart wrenched
The blood on the floor
The baby no more

Just for land,
Just for greed
The pictures are shown
But it is met with silence
Where are the just?

Why are we so quiet?
The hands clamped on our mouths.
Dripping with the blood of the innocents

At night I sleep
Toss and turn
The pictures,
The wail
And the heartbreak of the mother
As she picks up her young baby
Her child, too young to lose her brother

A scene so similar to Karbala
When my Maula Husain was brutally murdered
His 6 month old baby
An arrow pierced his throat

So small,
So fragile,
So much to live for.

“Is there anyone to help us?”
I wake up,
The call ringing in my ears.

I couldn’t be there at Karbala
But I will stand up for the truth
And be with the oppressed.
The brave ones
Who value Imam Husain’s saying:
“It is better to die in honour than to live with humiliation.”

There is no day like Husain’s.
But we will not be silenced when we see suffering.
Husain’s message of justice will never be forgotten.
It is not just a value for Karbala and Muslims.
But for any injustice in the world.