لكنه لا يصدق ان البشر سواسية كالهواء كالماء خارج مملكة الخارطة

Najah Jaroudi

On March 13, 1941 Mahmoud Darwish was born in Al Birweh, Palestine, into a land-owning Sunni Muslim family. During the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, his village was destroyed and his family fled to Lebanon. They returned the following year, secretly re-entering Israel.

As a young man, Darwish faced house arrest and imprisonment for his political activism and for publicly reading his poetry. He joined the official Communist Party of Israel, the Rakah, in the 1960s. In 1970, he left for Russia, where he attended the University of Moscow for one year, and then moved to Cairo. He lived in exile for twenty-six years, between Beirut and Paris, until his return to Israel in 1996, after which he settled in Ramallah in the West Bank.

Mahmoud Darwish is from a Palestinian Muslim family.in my opinion; I never got the impression that he is religious. He didn't see himself different from Palestinian or Arab Christians, but he did value his heritage. He also emphasized that as a Palestinian with Palestinian history, he was a Canaanite, a Greek, a Hebrew, a Turk, and an Arab. He was against Christian and Islamic extremism and the extremism of the Zionism that leads to ethnic cleansing. His heritage is Islamic as the last name Darwish indicates, but he was open to other traditions and cultures and a Leftist, socialist.

Getting inspired by Mahmoud Darwich’s poems, he has a poem which is calledخطبة “الهندي الأحمر. In this poem Mahmoud Darwich illustrates the American’s perspective toward the Redskins and their notability and arrogance towards others. As we know that the white Americans colonist took the land from the Redskins and killed millions of them. Not to forget that they treated them as slaves. Knowing that everyone has the right to live freely, a person has the right to work in their land, live freely, and be provided with a secured life. All the international organizations still protect these rights. In Islam all kinds of human are equal no matter what their skin color or their race. Based on that, Mahmoud stated a quote which I loved to use is that “ولكنه لا يصدق ان البشر سواسية كالهواء كالماء خارج مملكة الخارطة “which mean that “But he does not believe that human beings are equal as the air like water outside the Kingdom map”.

 One of the Prophet’s hadith explores these equalities “يقول رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم: «لا فضل لعربي على عجمي، ولا لأبيض على أسود إلا بالتقوى» and    وقال رسول الله صلى الله عليه وسلم" الناس سواسية كأسنان المشط لا فرق بين أسود ولا أبيض ولا بين غني لا فقير إلا بالتقوى" . The above hadiths state that there is no difference between any person. All the people are the same, we can't differentiate between the skin color, poor nor rich. God only can differentiate between the people by the amount of pity towards God.

Emphasizing that God states that people must be treated equally and not be dominate on each other, God stated that also in the Qur’an {يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ إِنَّا خَلَقْنَاكُمْ مِنْ ذَكَرٍ وَأُنْثَى وَجَعَلْنَاكُمْ شُعُوباً وَقَبَائِلَ لِتَعَارَفُوا إِنَّ أَكْرَمَكُمْ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ أَتْقَاكُمْ}[الحجرات: 13] . In the above verse God wants us to understand that he created many kinds of people so that we can be introduced and know each one. God created us into many different types of people men, women, rich, poor, black skin color, white skin color, different families from different countries and having different languages to be introduced to them and get familiar with them. As Mahmoud Darwich mentioned in his poetry that people of all kinds are supposed to live equally, breath from the same air, and drink from the same spring water. God only can differentiate between the people due to their amount of pity towards God.                             

Another verse mentioned in the Qur’an "ان الله يعذب الذين يعذبون الناس في الدنيا"  strongly states that what goes around comes back around. Because the White Americans treated the Redskins as slaves, one day the White Americans will taste what the Redskins tasted.  God will never forget any person. One must treat all the other people well and equally because none of us are better from each other. Whoever treats others well in al dunia will be treated well in al akhera, and whoever treats others bad in al dunia will be treated bad in al akhera.

Mahmoud Darwich was born on March 13, 1941, Al-Birwa and died on August 9, 2008, Houston, Texas, United States. May his soul rest in peace.

ولكنه لا يصدق ان البشر سواسية كالهواء كالماء خارج مملكة الخارطة

I chose to write the above quote using the Thuluth font. Thuluth is a script variety of Islamic calligraphy invented by the Persian Ibn Muqlah Shirazi, which made its first appearance in the 11th century CE. The straight angular forms of Kufic were replaced in the new script by curved and oblique lines. In Thuluth, one-third of each letter slopes, from which the name comes. It is a large and elegant, cursive script, used in medieval times on mosque decorations. Various calligraphic styles evolved from Thuluth through slight changes of form.