There is a planet floating in space.

It has no name, but we who live on it usually call it “Earth.”

Earth has been around a long time.

We did not make it.

Someone else did.

I usually call that Someone “Allah” or “God.”

We also did not make us.

I mean, we did not make ourselves.

I had a mother and father. So did Benjamin Netanyahu.

My parents did not choose for me to be a boy, nor to be born on that day in November.

Netanyahu’s parents also did not choose all the details about who their child would become.

They just did what parents do, tried to eat well and get rest, and then 9 months later there we were.

Little, completely helpless babies.

My parents looked at me and thought, “what a nice White American Christian baby,” although they probably did not use those words – it was more implicit.

Netanyahu’s parents thought, in a similar way, “what a nice Ashkenazi Jewish Israeli baby.”

But I do not think that either set of parents thought what really had just happened: “Allah just manifested another creature into the world by Allah’s will, yet through the material medium of his parents. For after all, were not we created in a similar fashion by our parents, and them by their parents?! Did we not all come into existence by a will other than our own, in a time and place not of our choosing, even though now we are adults who have some power and agency? Are we not all, at our fundamental existential core, completely helpless in the beginning and the end?!”

Yeah, probably not.

But nevertheless, the truth it is.

As Sayyid Taqī al-Mudarrisī states: “Allah does not wrong anyone. Rather it is the human being himself that does not benefit from his sight and hearing, and therefore wrongs himself. So people do not benefit from the senses with which Allah has endowed them to be guided with.” [Laws of Islam, p. 19]

I could have been born without sight or hearing. I could be dead by now, like my friends Sohaib, Usama, and Seth. But here I am, writing this post with my fingers, looking at the screen with my eyes, hearing the sound of my fingers typing the keys. I could be an intellect trapped in a body without capabilities, only able to exert my will onto the world to the extent that human technology (and my access to it, depending on my social privilege) makes it possible. When Usama and I had our last conversation in this life, for 3 hours he spoke with his eyes, using them to type out what he wanted to say on an Ipad which then spoke for him with a robotic voice. Once an adult as vibrant, creative, passionate and willful as any other. Yet, once a helpless baby too. Now in the grave.

“Allah brought you out of the wombs of your mothers while you knew nothing, and gave you hearing, sight, and intellect so perhaps you would be thankful.” [16.78]

So too will I one day be in the grave, as will Netanyahu. It is as certain as the rising of the sun.

It is the oldest story there is.

The story of a helpless baby who grows up to be either a Moses/Aaron or a Pharaoh, and then one day is no more. We only hear and see and act for a few years, even though we think that is “the real world.”

Because let’s be really real for a second.

Even though you know you are going to die, you want the Pharaoh lifestyle.

Do not even try to deny it.

Wandering around tending sheep for your father-in-law is not a good look in the 21st century.

But that’s the whole point.

“That which is on earth we have made but as a glittering show, in order that We may test them – as to which of them are best in conduct.” [18.7]

We are the way we are, and the Earth is the way it is, because Allah made it that way.

We fight and struggle and cheat and kill for that which is on the Earth because we want what it contains.

But we have to keep it in perspective.

For Allah is just.

There is no justice without Allah.

“God does not wrong people at all, but it is they who wrong themselves.” [10.44]

You want “a good life” or your “best life” – I get it.

But who will you trample upon to get it?!

There are archetypes made flesh in the 21st century to wake us up to what happens when you have excessive desire for sex, money and power. No need to name names. I am sure that certain names come to mind of human beings who commit gross injustices in pursuit of sex, money, and power.

At best, you have from the age of 10 to the age of 90 or so to get it. Better make those 80 years count, because time is counting down.

As Sayyid states again: “To mankind alone he gave the gift of freedom, but this freedom is limited by time; after this time expires man will return to his limits by force if he has not already returned to them through guidance.” [Laws of Islam, p.19]

What do you do with the freedom that you discover when you are 10, or 15, or 20 years old?

When your sight and your hearing finally lead your intellect to an awareness of your own power?

For far too many, they choose the path of delusion that blocks out the truth of their origin and their ultimate fate.

But we can never ever run away from it.

The Court of the Eternal Jerusalem will hear all cases.

So please forgive me if I have ever done you wrong, and reach out to me to let me know how I might make it right.

And if you read this after I am gone from this world, recite some Qur’an for me and give some ṣadaqa as a gift to me in the beyond, for I know I have not done enough to be thankful for the hearing, sight and intellect that brought me to this day and writing these words.

ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ ٱلَّذِی هَدَىٰنَا لِهَـٰذَا وَمَا كُنَّا لِنَهۡتَدِیَ لَوۡلَاۤ أَنۡ هَدَىٰنَا ٱللَّهُۖ