Imagine this...

     I don’t normally like to get too serious or delve into heavy social subjects on my blog. I like to keep it light hearted...fun. My blog is more about encouragement and telling my story in a way that, God willing, will educate or inspire others. There is a topic, however, that has been weighing heavily on my heart. In this blog post, I am going to ask you to come on a walk with me. One that will be hard. One that, if you are taking it seriously, may be painful and emotional. Warning: it is going to get raw. My intentions are not to incite fear or anger, but empathy and understanding. If you are not down with that, I completely understand and urge you, sincerely, not to read. Instead, catch up on some of my older blogs, perhaps Why Islam or Why I Wear Hijab.

     Ok, if you are still with me, I only have one small request: open up your mind. Not just your imagination, but your understanding of the world.

     Picture the town you live in. Picture the parks: green grass, play equipment, children laughing and playing. Now, the schools: kids laughing and playing as teachers look on. How about the local grocery store? People from all walks of life filling carts and thinking about their to-do lists, jobs, families, etc. What does your town look like? Reflect on the peace, the people, the steady, somewhat chaotic pace of daily life.

     Feel the peace of mind as you unwind from your busy day. Feel the happiness you experience when sitting in your backyard, enjoying a BBQ. Maybe you are watching your kids run around, or visiting with friends, or maybe you are sitting by yourself, sipping on a glass of iced tea. Imagine a little later as you put your kids to bed and lay your head on your comfortable pillow after a long day. You are at peace. You are safe. You love your little corner of the world. You are proud of your nation and your heritage. You feel so blessed that God put you where he did.

     But things aren’t exactly perfect. It seems these days people are more divided than united. So many voices calling for change in so many different ways, often calling for opposing actions. All of them are right, or none of them, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that is perfectly clear is that people are not getting along and the chasm between them is growing wider and wider. But it’s ok! Everything will work out. Remember, you are in a safe neighborhood. You are in a safe country.

Imagine for me now a random house on your street. You don’t know the family well but you know they consider themselves to be nationalistic, patriotic, and true to their God. Their roots date back to the founding of the nation. They are proud. They love their country. They grumble openly about the corruption of values in society today, about how something needs to be done before the country they love so much deteriorates further into moral decay. You still don’t know it, but they are growing more and more dissatisfied as, according to them, they see the fabric of their society coming apart. They decide it is time for a change.

     They are not alone in their dissatisfaction. Many throughout the nation begin to echo such sentiment. Slowly, quietly, right under your nose, a movement begins. And it grows. Pretty soon this movement becomes organized, with their most militant members numbering in the hundreds. You may, by that time, have heard some blips on the media. A few outbursts here, a demonstration gone violent there, the bombing of a church belonging to an ethnicity the perpetrators claim are children of Satan. All tragic, but all far away from you, in another part of the country. At this point, you have no idea your neighbor is involved.

     And so you go about your business, getting up, going to work, caring for your family. You are confident your nation’s law enforcement will quickly get a handle on things. You still don’t even know that at that very moment your neighbor is edging ever closer to the extremism born of fear, ignorance, and desperation that leads people to commit unimaginable acts. Sure, you’ve heard them utter their slurs and angry remarks, but everyone’s entitled to their prejudices, right? Even ignorant prejudices.

     Months, maybe years, go by as the water grows slowly hotter, so slowly you didn’t even realize how bad it’s become. The members of this extremist group are now openly calling for the downfall of your government and have taken part in many violent outbursts. As they call for liberty and justice people begin to herald their call, taking up proverbial arms on social media and through financial contributions. Skirmishes break out between the police and the group, resulting in casualties on both sides but worse, among the innocent civilians. Militants blame the police and among many distraught ears, their voices are heard. Their numbers swell, now in the tens of thousands. But that’s not all that’s rising. The death toll is too.

     You begin to worry now. Where once you put your kids to bed without a second thought, now you fear for their safety. What if one of those events on the news, a bombing of a mall or the killing of specific ethnicities, happens in your town? What will you do to protect your family? People in the heavily affected areas begin to leave the country, fleeing to safety in the hopes of one day returning to the country of their birth. You, however, continue to push the fear aside. After all, this is still a safe country, isn’t it? The unrest will die down and normalcy will continue. Besides, where would you go? You have a family, a house, a career. And so you push on, sharing in the fear, but largely trying to just get by.

     One day things change. The unspeakable happens. The family down the street from you is recruited by the militant organization to take part in militant operations. They intend to send a message to the government that they mean business. They plan to hit the nation where it hurts, to wake people up. Overnight your peaceful, quiet town is flooded with military looking individuals, but they are not military. They are a few hundred of the militant members of the extremist group. They parole the streets, bully the citizens, shout their propaganda, and begin establishing their own laws. They are hyper religious and intend to turn people back to the “right path”. If people won't do so willingly, well, they are ready to apply force. You don’t know what is going to happen, but they are planning something big.

     Now you are ready to leave, but it’s too late. The extremist group is not allowing people to leave.  You don’t sleep at night, you have pulled the kids from school, and you’re afraid to go to the store to feed your family. In a bizarre twist of fate, the government has shut off supplies to your area in the hopes of forcing the militants to concede. No food, no water, no bad guys. But they are not the ones who suffer.

     Your family goes days living off of meager supplies, bottled water, and sheer willpower. One of your kids have become sick but there is no medicine in the town and so you worry about how you will care for him. You typically don’t eat, leaving what little food there is for your children. As a result, you are growing more exhausted and you wonder how you will make it through each day or how you will get your family out of the hellish town once so beloved to you.

     Military troops are sent into the town to face off against the enemy, but they aren’t troops from your country, they are foreign. The troops are not as familiar with the surroundings and urban warfare leaves them at a disadvantage. Buildings are bombed, storefronts are pelleted with stray bullets, and people are cowering in fear.

     Weeks go by before they pull back, leaving behind them the devastation from skirmishes that claimed the lives of hundreds of innocents. People you knew. People who were your friends, who had hopes and dreams. Children in your town have stopped laughing and playing as they witness the tragic events around them. Life for them has become hopeless. No comfort comes from the fact that other nations are rallying together to end the threat. More forces seem only to mean more destruction and loss of lives.

      You imagine perhaps this story has a happy ending, one of the rescue and rebirth of your nation, but this story has no happy ending. A bomb is targeted at your neighbor’s house, where, unbeknownst to you, key leadership of the extremist group is meeting. But the bomb misses, just by a hair. You survive, but you dig desperately through the rubble. Your children, who have not been attending school, were in the house! Please God, let them live! You think fervently, eyes tear-filled, as you remove one piece of shattered wood after another. Never in your life have you prayed so hard and so sincerely.

     Imagine with me that you are about to face the hardest trial in your life. You are about to discover you will have to burry your beloved children.

     I know that must be painful to imagine. No one wants to think about their world being shattered, but bear with me for one more moment as you imagine in the scenario one more detail about who you are. In this scenario you are Syrian. You see, this blog post is not the story of a government. Nor is it the story of the extremist groups. It’s not about ideals or who’s right and who’s wrong in the Syrian or any civil war. This is the story of the everyday people, caught in the middle of a horrific war zone as forces from all sides battle each other at their doorsteps. Can you imagine now being a refugee being told you have to go back to that home?

     May Allah's peace, mercy, and blessings be upon all those who are living in war torn nations. May Allah  subHana wa ta’ala guide us to show his mercy to those less fortunate.