Unpopular Opinion: To Solve the Palestinian Crisis, Muslims Must Rid Themselves of Their Nationalism

I know this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but truly I do not care: to solve the Palestinian crisis the Muslim community must end their nationalism and return to the God-instructed directive of being one nation, the Ummah. 

Let us start with a Qur’anic premise and work from there:

إِنَّ هَذِهِ أُمَّتُكُمْ أُمَّةً وَاحِدَةً وَأَنَا رَبُّكُمْ فَاعْبُدُونِ “Indeed this community of yours is one single community, and since I am the Lord of you all: worship, Me [alone]!” (21:92).

Despite the appeals to a Qur’anic language by scholars and believers alike, let us acknowledge we are anything but an Ummah. There are twenty-two Arab countries, nineteen majority Muslim countries in Africa, and eleven majority Muslim populations in eleven other states across the world, each jockeying for position against one another.

Let us take another Qur’anic premise: It is the tactic of the Pharoah to divide and conquer. That is, gaining and maintaining power by breaking up larger concentrations of power into pieces that individually have less power:

إِنَّ فِرْعَوْنَ عَلَا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَجَعَلَ أَهْلَهَا شِيَعًا يَسْتَضْعِفُ طَائِفَةً مِّنْهُمْ يُذَبِّحُ أَبْنَاءَهُمْ وَيَسْتَحْيِي نِسَاءَهُمْ “Pharaoh exalted himself and divided the people into factions: oppressing a segment of them and keeping their women” (28:4).

The British certainly knew this in India when they divided Muslims and made them fight each other; they knew this when they funded the Aal Sa’ud mercenary family as the new seat of power in opposition to the dwindling Ottoman Caliphate. In its 1914 proclamation ‘to the natives of Arabia, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia’ the British government stated that:

“There is no nation amongst Muslums who is now capable of upholding the Islamic Khalifate except the Arab nation and no country is more fitted for its seat than the Arab countries”.

The British knew it then; the Americans know it now. The only ones who seem not to know it today are the Muslims who fight with each other and are being massacred across the world: from the Rohingya in Myanmar to the Uyghurs in China; from the Houthi’s in Yemen to the Palestinians in the Levant.

Imagine a wealth, influence, and military force as powerful as one of a united Ummah’s. Is this not what the Awaited Saviour Imam al-Mahdi (may Allah hasten his appearance) will usher in anyways? Is this not what the Qur’an alluded to when it said the Ummah is going to be tested by its diversity:

وَلَـكِن لِّيَبْلُوَكُمْ فِي مَآ آتَاكُم “His Will is to test you with what He has given all of you” (5:48).

Advertise on TMV

So why live in such flagrant opposition to the Qur’an, to Allah’s (swt) directive, and then complain about its consequences?!

Each hour brings a new devastating, insufferable video where Palestinians are killed and dehumanised. And each day the Muslim turns doe-eyed to the very ones who fund this genocide hoping they will do something about it; each day Muslim rulers beg for more crumbs from the table of the modern-day Pharaohs like Oliver Twist squirming, “Please sir, may I have some more.”

How will they face the Messenger of Allah (s) on the Day of Ultimate Regret?!

For how long will Muslims watch Palestinian houses being confiscated, Israeli F-35 bombardments, children having stun grenades thrown at them, and Masjid al-Aqsa being terrorised without even reflecting on the root cause?

Of course, Zionism is an abomination and stain on the human conscious, but we are not litigating that here. We are interrogating how the Muslim has become complicit in genocide across the Ummah.

We started with a Qur’anic premise. Let us end with one:

وَأَطِيعُوا اللَّهَ وَرَسُولَهُ وَلَا تَنَازَعُوا فَتَفْشَلُوا وَتَذْهَبَ رِيحُكُمْ وَاصْبِرُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ مَعَ الصَّابِرِين “Obey Allah and His Messenger and do not dispute with one another, or you would be discouraged and weakened. Persevere! Surely Allah is with those who persevere” (8:46).

I repeat; if you truly want to end the Palestinian suffering, it is but one word away: al-Ummah. 

And believe me; the Pharaohs are absolutely terrified by just the thought of it.