himself a luxurious, elegant house but makes it of sand, on the seashore, so that the house is exposed to the possibility that at any moment a wave may come and knock it down; this is the choice that is doomed to failure. As for the second choice, that to which our Lord, Almighty and Glorious, calls us, it requires that the Muslim live in this world from the perspective that it is a brief and passing stage in the life of the immortal soul. One who lives their life in this way will gain both this world and the next and be always happy, content in mind and conscience, and courageous, fearing none but our Lord, Almighty and Glorious. The true believer has no fear of death because he does not consider it the end of existence, as the materialists believe it to be. Death for the believer is the transition of the soul from the ephemeral body to everlasting life. It was this sincere faith that allowed a few thousand of the first Muslims to be victorious over the armies of the great empires of that time, such as Persia and Byzantium. Those simple Muslims were successful in raising the banner of Islam in every part of the world through the strength of their faith, their true love for death in God’s cause, and their deep contempt for the evanescent pleasures of this world. God has made it incumbent upon us to struggle to raise high His word. Gihad is a pillar of Islam, exactly like prayer and fasting. Indeed, gihad is the most important of those pillars but the corrupt rulers dedicated to the pursuit of money and the pleasures of the flesh who have ruled the Islamic world in times of decadence have attempted, with the help of their hypocritical men of religion, to exclude gihad from the pillars of Islam, knowing that if the people cleaved fast to gihad, it would in the end be turned against them and cost them their thrones. In this way, by eliminating gihad, Islam was robbed of its real meaning and our great religion was transformed into a collection of meaningless rituals that the Muslims performed like athletic exercises, mere physical movements without spiritual significance. When the Muslims abandoned gihad, they became slaves to this world, clinging to it, shy of death, cowards. Thus their enemies prevailed over them and God condemned them to defeat, backwardness, and poverty, because they had broken their trust with Him, the Almighty and Glorious.
“Beloved sons and daughters, our rulers claim that they are applying the Law of Islam and assert at the same time that they are governing us by democracy. God knows they are liars in both. Islamic law is ignored in our unhappy country and we are governed according to French secular law, which permits drunkenness, fornication, and perversion so long as it is by mutual consent. The state itself in fact benefits from gambling and the sale of alcohol, then spews out its ill-gotten gains in the form of salaries for the Muslims, who as a result are cursed with the curse of what is forbidden and God expunges His blessings from their life. The supposedly democratic state is based on the rigging of elections and the detention and torture of innocent people so that the ruling clique can remain on their thrones forever. They lie and lie and lie, and they want us to believe their revolting lies. We say to them, loud and clear, ‘We do not want our Islamic Nation to be either socialist or democratic. We want it Islamic-Islamic, and we will struggle and give up our lives and all we hold dear till Egypt is Islamic once more.’ Islam and democracy are opposites and can never meet. How can water meet with fire, or light with darkness? Democracy means people ruling themselves by themselves. Islam knows only God’s rule. They want to submit God’s Law to the People’s Assembly so that the honorable representatives may decide whether God’s Law is worthy of application or not!
Shouts and cries of “God is most great!” arose, shaking the place to its foundations, and the sheikh stopped speaking and bowed his head for a short while till silence had returned. Then he resumed, “My children, the task before Muslim youth today is to reclaim the concept of gihad and bring it back to the minds and hearts of the Muslims. It is precisely this that terrifies America and Israel and with them our traitorous rulers. They tremble in fear at the great Islamic Awakening that gains greater momentum and whose power becomes more exigent in our country day by day. A handful of warriors from Hizbollah and Hamas were able to defeat Almighty America and Invincible Israel, while Abd el Nasser’s huge armies were routed because they fought for this world and forgot their religion.”
The sheikh’s enthusiasm now reached its climax, and he shouted, “Gihad! Gihad! Gihad! Children of Abu Bakr and Umar, Khalid, and Saad! The hopes of Islam today are pinned on you as once they were on your mighty forefathers! Struggle then for God’s cause and divorce yourselves once and for all from this world as did the Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib, may God be pleased with him! God looks to you to implement His covenant with you, so stand firm and retreat not, lest you be among those who lose all! Millions of Muslims humiliated and subjected to dishonor by the Zionist occupation appeal to you to restore for them their ruined self-respect. Youth of Islam, the Zionists get drunk and commit fornication with whores in the forecourt of your el Aqsa Mosque! What then will you do?”
The students’ excitement intensified and one of their number arose from the front row, turned toward the congregation, and shouted in a voice breaking with excess of emotion, “Islamic! Islamic! Not socialist and not democratic!” and the cry was taken up by hundreds of throats behind him and all the students started chanting the paean to gihad with one powerful, thunderous voice while joyful ululations rang out from the area reserved for the female students. The voice of Sheikh Shakir rose again, his excitement mounting to a new peak, “By God, I see that this place is pure and blessed, the angels surrounding it! By God, I see that the Islamic state lies in your hands and that it has been reborn mighty and proud! Our time-serving, traitorous rulers, servants of the Crusader West, will meet their just fates at your pure hands, cleansed for prayer, if God so wills!”
Then the prayer commenced and with the hundreds of students congregated behind him he recited in a sweet, affecting voice from the chapter of the House of Imran,
In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate…
who said of their brothers (and they themselves held back),
“Had they obeyed us, they would not have been slain,”
Say: “Then avert death from yourselves, if you speak truly.”
Count not those who were slain in God’s way as dead,
but rather living with their Lord, by Him provided,
rejoicing in the bounty that God has given them,
and joyful in those who remain behind and have not joined them,
because no fear shall be upon them, neither shall they sorrow,
joyful in blessing and in bounty from God,
and that God leaves not to waste the wage of the believers.
And who answered God and the Messenger
after the wound had smitten them — to all those of them
who did good and feared God, shall be a mighty wage;
those to whom the people said,
“The people have gathered against you, therefore fear them”;
but it increased them in faith, and they said,
“God is sufficient for us; an excellent Guardian is he.”
So they returned with blessing and bounty from God, untouched by evil;
they followed the good pleasure of God; and God is of bounty abounding.
God has spoken truly.
Following the prayer, the students pushed forward to shake the sheikh’s hand. Then they spread themselves out over the courtyard of the mosque in groups of four, introducing themselves to one another, chanting from and helping one another with their study of the Qur’an. Behind the pulpit Sheikh Shakir made his way through a small, low door to his office, which was filled to capacity with students who wanted to meet with him for various reasons. Those present pushed forward toward him and embraced him and some of them made to kiss his hand, which, however, he would pull firmly away. He sat and listened with interest to each student’s issue, then a whispered conversation would take place between them after which the student would leave.
By the end, only a few students were left in the room, among them Khalid Abd el Rahim and Taha el Shazli.
