Sister RAISE YOUR HEAD

Sister - RAISE Your Head
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I have been too scared to write about you, more precisely too ashamed to have abandoned you, a shame that turned into fear, my beloved sisters, but now, it can wait no more. Yes I mean you, O my oppressed sisters in the prisons and you, who are now released yet living the Hell of social taboo, in our merciless societies. Why... you have committed no sin, you have done no wrong, yet those looks of pity and lowness do not leave your pious beings.

I do not know whether to condemn our societies, or whether to console you. You, who are victims of our silence, the sacrifice on behalf of the remaining us, milestones on the road to victory. When did anyone see you do evil? When did they see you look at another man? Did not these same societies stand witness to you chastity? Did they not praise you for being one so righteous? And now after these tough times when you were taken away from yourself, when you were not allowed to be yourself, when things done to you were out of your control, when people were sleeping comfortably in their homes while your screams and cries were ringing across the prisons and police stations... why then are you looked at differently?

You should be considered an ideal... your virginity should be considered a martyr... you should be talked about as a person, who has suffered due to OUR cowardliness. You should have been honoured and raised... you should have been soothed and loved... you should have been... and what have we done to you...

Many of you don't even return to us, fearing that look, fearing to face... and if you do return you fear to show your face... when you give birth to a child, faces hang down in gloom...

What is your fault?

Is it that you were raped?

Is it that you were beaten?

Is it that your hands were tied and your clothes torn off?

Is it that these same people of our societies stood silently as you were dragged to the cars?

Is it that when you called, the world turned a deaf ear?


Yet you are not to be accepted back? They fear to marry you? Maybe even into your family? So you choose to go somewhere else, preferring to be eaten by dogs and wolves than returning to a life of disgrace...

Certainly, I remember, it was you who never left a prayer, and it was you who would observe complete Hijab, and it was your eyes that would tear before the Lord. The night was familiar with your prayer, the Fajr knew your recitation and Asr witnessed your remembrance. You would shine with the radiance of Imaan, and you would blush at the talk of Jannah, and your sobs on hearing Hell would put many in fits of crying. You urged your brothers to Jihad, you stood up for the oppressed...

Yet when you were transgressed, lips were zipped and we all saw you taken away and only prayed a while. Your hands were shackled, ours were not, your eyes were blinded, ours were not, you were surrounded by them and we were not... and yet we watched and watched and cried and then you were gone... and when you returned, the world from around you was also gone

Yet today I hold your hand and raise you, sister, stand up! Raise your head, for your Lord has said,

"But force not your maids to prostitution when they desire chastity, in order that ye may make a gain in the goods of this life. But if anyone compels them, yet, after such compulsion, is Allah, Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful (to them)," (Surah An Noor Verse 33)

There is no shame, you have been oppressed and you stood again, you have been martyred and you stood again, raise you head high, for if the world has forsaken, the Lord of the World, forsakes not the oppressed.

Lend us today, your strength again, lend us today your Imaan again, for in our eyes you are most honorable. In our eyes you are ever more defiant, bold and courageous than the government dogs, media dogs and all the other dogs.

You are a pearl, and you will remain so, you are a light and you will remain so, you are our beloved sister and you will remain so.

Certainly, if the whole world spits at us, we will spit at the whole world, for we are the soldiers of Allah...

Do not think that cutting a tree
Will decrease the produce by any
That produce even if delayed
Will pour in hundreds and increase

By
Anbar Bikr

Published by
Dar Al Murabiteen Publications