This most recent iteration of the genocidal campaign of the ethno-nationalist Israeli state has led many Muslims to question our faith. For some, that interrogation has taken the form of theodicy: What is the utility of worshipping a God who either A) Pre-ordains and decrees something so horrific, B) is unable or unwilling to prevent these catastrophic events from taking place in spite of the fact that He is being appealed to by supplicants incessantly? And though we’ve had our work cut out for us, Islamic scholars/teachers/preachers have attempted to respond.

​We’ve had to provide theological frameworks to help people contextualize the Israeli-led genocide in a faith-affirming manner. The classical work by `Izz al-Dīn ibn Abdus-Salām, The Benefits of Tribulation has generated renewed interest in this regard. Personally, I too have had to wrestle with the meaning of the Israeli-led genocide. However, the issue for me hasn’t been theodicy. Though certainly gut-wrenching, I’m able to see the Hand of God in what is unfolding.

​In the context of the story of Prophet Yūsuf, the Qur’ān states emphatically, “…and the Will of God always prevails, but most people do not know.” [{12:21}]

​This verse has been an anchor. However, for me the issue has been much more one of coming to terms with religious chauvinism. At base, Zionism represents the self-serving, other-obliterating, territorial ambition of a community bound by religious/ethnic identity. Decrying its devastating consequences as sacrilege is straightforward. Zionism is disgusting; a mockery of anything claiming to represent a meaningful engagement with the religious, metaphysical, or even political—for that matter—realms of human experience. On the other hand, turning the microscope inward is more difficult. Witnessing the barbarism of this Zionist genocide has compelled me to renew my faith. I need assurance there is no worldly project so essential to my religious/cultural goals that my faith in God or identification with the Muslim community could be instrumentalized to justify such inhumanity.​

​To be sure, this does not mean I now understand Islam to be a religion of categorical pacifism. Muslims have cultivated a tradition of armed resistance. And within the medieval period—often referenced as Islam’s “Golden Ages”—Muslims were themselves the partisans of an energetic, territorially ambitious, imperial project. Anyone familiar with Islamic history knows that these were not all “bloodless” transfers of power. And yet, at no time have we seen the development of a mainstream Islamic theology that makes statist ambition the sine qua non of Islam.

The idea that any amount of carnage and violence can be justified in pursuit of land or power is an anathema to Islam. No classical Muslim legal scholar has ever condoned the targeting of civilians even in the midst of a justified war. Muslims of conscience, especially those who earnestly engage our tradition should know that the violence being carried out against the people of Gaza and the Occupied Territories is unconscionable and categorically wrong. The identity of the perpetrator and legitimacy of the pursuit make no difference at all. Were the perpetrators of such indiscriminate violence against a beleaguered, displaced civilian population identified as Muslims and they were ostensibly acting in the interest of Islam, our condemnation would need to be consistent. 

If truth be told, I’ve always harbored skepticism about the idea of the “Abrahamic” religions. Of course, as a means of highlighting the common parentage of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, “Abrahamic” is fitting. However, inasmuch as there exists an ethnocentric religio-political dogma that raises to the level of state policy indiscriminate violence against other members of that “Abrahamic” community, what does that term mean? What could we possibly have in common with them—as religious communities?  While this is primarily a time of empathy and action on behalf our Palestinian brothers and sisters, I also feel compelled to acquit my religion.

When a bomb explodes in a Parisian night club and the attackers are identified as Muslims, our community feels a visceral need to disassociate with the violence. Similarly, as a Muslim that has acknowledged politics and power as being legitimate religious concerns for Muslim individuals and polities, I feel a similar need to disassociate: If I have ever said or written anything about the geopolitical aims, objectives, or priorities of Islam and Muslims that could have, in any way, been construed as legitimizing the kind of religious chauvinism and partisanship that animates Zionism, I wholeheartedly recant my statement. And more importantly, I repent to God. A vicious self-serving, other-obliterating political ideology should never be confused with dīn.

​At this time, more than at any other, it is incumbent on the Muslim community to make our values clear. We reject all measure of political violence which fails to distinguish between combatants and civilians. When these acts are carried out by desperate bands of resistance fighters they are reprehensible and lamentable and when they are carried out by well-funded, well-equipped state actors with the imprimatur of global superpowers they represent the nadir of our (in)humanity.