September 30, 2024
Nasser Kandil
A Jerusalem morning, and a Nasrallah morning the Jerusalem’s sun would not have risen but for his gaze…
by God …we saw the prophets, imams, and God in his face.
He fills the world with light, breathing life into words – one brings laughter, another brings tears, and a third deep wounds it heals. When he smiles, happiness in our heart rains, and when he’s cross, it’s agony and constricted veins. And should he raise his forefinger, we stand tall though we’re seated. And when he weeps for Hussein, Iraq, Yemen, or Palestine, we say “hurry, the march to war has begun”.
A Jerusalem morning, for the one we turn to when in doubt. He cuts through it with his certainty blade and reconciles us with faith. Restoring the radiance of scripture, igniting the fight for Palestine after centuries and aeons of Arab hibernation. He restored the dignity of Arabs and war. He restored for us Jerusalem’s glow – transformed a funeral into a wedding celebration. In his hands, we found a homeland.
With his honesty, he sealed the gates of strife and temptation. His love dissolved boundaries between sects and creeds, turned the nation from a playground into a formidable actor on the agendas of ‘the powers that be’ – no longer a gambler’s unlucky card or a broker’s broken deal.
A Jerusalem morning, for the one who spared us fatigue, shouldering the burdens alone. He laughed at what seduced others – power, and prestige…or wealth in a bank… instead carved the title of “Sayyed” as the highest rank.
If virtues were a man, that man would be him and if bravery had a face, it would be his. Who else could turn knowledge into daily sustenance for the poor? He decoded the riddles of politics, reconciling it with ethics and from filth turned it pure.
He taught us to distinguish truth from hypocrisy, gave us the formula for wars’ victory, showed us how nations craft history, how the earth becomes a symbol of dignity, and how martyrdom is the epitome of nobility. He showed us that the path to heaven is in renouncing what is worldly.
A Jerusalem morning, for the one whose presence made us ashamed of our shortcomings, his words – a potion that cures our backwardness and our bad habits it can break, he was our conscience ever-awake, gently reproaching us during our evenings and daybreak. To him, in the privacy of thought we turn , for our sins seeking forgiveness, and when we take a noble action or stand, we feel his gaze, his smile, his hand on our shoulder, then like children, we confess. His approval is the highest honour. Is this not an Imam’s essence?
Today, he leaves us, having completed his lessons… our heads are held high, his jihad gives us pride. The heavy weight of his absence makes our unrestrained tears flow, and we grasp a new equation – the burden of responsibility and loss of security, hand in hand they go.
In his honour it will not suffice to write poetry, his departure is a call to action, an understanding of priority. He says, “I’ve finished my lessons for you”, and with his martyrdom, grants us graduation. To the spectators, he declares, “The time for watching is over”. Do you know the feeling of becoming orphaned? It is the coming of age. Drenched in blood of heroism he says “One might still be a child at sixty or have lived life’s full length and breadth at twenty”. This is what it means to lose your father today, with no time for a farewell. With his passing he placed a heavy burden upon your shoulders, having taught you how to bear pain and understand the world and its orders. So bless him in his martyrdom and bless him as he crosses the borders.
