Amarji The Website of Syrian Author Ammar Abdulhamid

An Oriental Tapestry

The Massacre
“May the diggers of the trench be destroyed for what they did!”

1.     The trenches were dug all through the main streets.

² In droves of ten, Jewish men were lead

       to be slaughtered.

³ Their corpses and severed heads were

       buried together in the trenches.

⁴ All was done in cold blood.

⁵ Eight hundreds men in all had to suffer

       this fate.

⁶ The women and children were all

       made slaves.

⁷ The property was confiscated.

⁸ There was no shame involved in this,

       no sense of guilt.

⁹ After all, this had been God’s

       judgment from the Highest

          Heaven.

¹⁰ After all, the killers bore in mind the

       fate of the people of Jericho.

2.     Muhammad,

       you are the truest embodiment of

             moral perfection,

                      or so you claim.

² In you, a Muslim has a good example

       to follow and imitate.

³ But the stench of blood, o

       Muhammad.

⁴ That merciless methodical killing that

       went on all day.

⁵ That massacre,

           that divinely sanctioned massacre

           that makes a holy and moral act

out of the cold-blooded

                  shedding

                      of human blood.

⁶ That Islamic justification, no matter

      how unintended,

         of Deir Yassin,

           of Sabra and Shatila,

             of the Killing Fields,

                of the ethnic cleansing

                      in Bosnia and Kosovo,

                                 of the Holocaust.

⁷ All that, o Muhammad,

     make me doubt all your claims.

⁸ They make me reject all your claims,

       and all similar claims

           to prophethood,

      and divinity.

3.     You have made an atheist out of

       me, Muhammad.

² And you continue to repulse me from

       beyond the grave.

³ I don’t want any part of your morality.

⁴ Damn all Judeo-Christian ethics.

⁵ To hell with all forms of religious

       piety.

⁶ Give me back that old-fashioned

       pragmatic humanism.

⁷ Give me back my freedom of

       conscience.

⁸ Give me back my sense of humanity.

Notes

This poem deals with the infamous massacre of the Arab Jewish tribe of Bani Qurayzah, which took place in AD 627. It came in the aftermath of an attempted invasion of Madinah, the headquarters of the Muslims at the time, by the people of Makkah and their allies, and was meant as a punishment and a warning to the neighboring tribes, since Bani Qurayzah had entertained for a while joining the anti-Muslim alliance. Thus, the massacre had more political than religious motivations, and formed a unique event in Islamic history with regards to the way Jewish minorities were treated.

The verse quoted as a subtitle is from the Qur’an (85:4). The irony in this verse lies in the fact that it refers to and condemns a different massacre, one that had occurred in Yemen sometimes  before the Prophet’s own birth. This particular massacre was ordered by the Jewish king Dhu Nuwas  against his Christian subjects.

Deir Yassin. A Palestinian village, where a massacre of Palestinian civilians by the Jewish terrorist groups known as the Irgun and Stern Gangs, took place on April 9, 1948, a month before the declaration of Isareli statehood. The death toll was estimated at 250 victims, which included women and children. Menachim Begin, the leader of the Irgun, hailed the massacre as a “conquest,” and declared: “Continue thus until victory. As in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God, God, thou hast chosen us for conquest.” Ironically, he was later awarded the Nobel Prize, when Prime Minister of Israel.

Sabra and Shatila. The names for Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, where another massacre of Palestinian civilians, took place on September 1982. This time, the perpetrators were  Christian Phalangists, and they did so with Israel’s tacit approval and support. The death toll was estimated at 800 victims, and once again, this included women and children.