Who owns your heart?

If you step back and look at your whole life, you’ll notice your heart is constantly tugged in so many directions - careers, reputation, comfort, social acceptance, fear…

We conform ourselves to fit into the system, to lead a life the way we are taught we should by societal expectations. And we’ve come to normalise the quest for money, status and the desire to belong, even if it means the cost is our dignity.. our humanity. 

The best part? We don’t even realise we’re doing it; because the cage is comfortable - it feels safe.

Perhaps that's why we mistake it for freedom.

But when all of that is stripped away, what remains? That is the question. Do you ask it to yourself enough?

And perhaps that is why Palestine continues to be a part of what humanity needs. Not just because they display strength and resilience.

But because we are now witnessing a people who have been forced, again and again, to answer that question - and whose answer keeps returning to same consistent undeniable truth.

Just only, and always… Allah.

There is a thought that humbles me every time it appears - that could have been us.

Now, this isn’t a guilt trip, nor is it a "woke" slogan. It’s not even at attempt at poetic symbolism.

It’s a reality; a harrowing & gut-wrenchingly real realisation that had Allah decided it, we could have been born there. 

The only literal difference between us and them is where Allah chose to place us here instead. They, like us, have families, hopes and dreams. They strived for careers, had dreams of travelling the world and for a happy peaceful safe stable life; a life that we are privileged to be gifted with.

There is no true special merit in being born elsewhere. No true eternal "privilege" in being dunya-privileged.

Because there is no exemption - no guarantee. Death, and the afterlife will come for us all, indiscriminately.

And yet how often do we subconsciously think:

But they ARE us and we are them.

The same sun warms both our faces, the same moon hangs over both our homes, the same blood flows through our veins.

So circling back to concept of “freedom” - how can a people under occupation be free? How can a people under siege be free? How can a people facing immense and inescapable hardship be free? 

And yet, whenever I think of Palestine, I find myself returning to that very word.

Free.

Not because they are politically free. Not because they are physically free.

But because there is something about them that seems untouched by the forces that govern the rest of us.

Their Palestinian spirit is one of the ultimate warrior - with their gentle hearts, with words so poetic and profound, with love so tender and indiscriminate and with trust and faith so unwavering of its submission and surrender only to Allah; no matter how heavy or deadly the boot of oppresion is pressing upon their necks. No matter how it threatens with every painful & excruciating second to obliterate it mercillesly. 

When I first learned about Palestine (my full awakening to their plight began in 2021), I was heartbroken.

I cried for days and I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t think or talk about anything else. The humanity in me felt so torn apart by the atrocities I had studied and witnessed. It's unfathomable - how can this be real? 

I felt helpless and overwhelmed by the sheer weight of it - and what’s worse is I’m not even the one living it, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how it would feel for them if my witnessed-from-countries-away pain was already this debilitating.

My therapist told me something simple, especially in the part of feeling like I can’t do anything about it, "channel your feelings into something you can actually do."

So I did - I poured all of that into my craft and from it, raised funds. I carried what little I could.

I had also begun asking a question - a question that the answer of which keeps my soul nourished.

And with every new layer of answers I uncovered, there was more yet to be discovered; about myself, about humanity, about faith, about life.. about so many elements of our entirety.

Because what captivates me most isn't the resistance.

Because when the world has abandoned them, while merciless oppressors incessantly destroy them - from which they cannot escape, it’s not just their strength, resilience and courage that holds firms within them - not just the will to fight.

At the end of the day, history is full of warriors, history is full of people willing to march into battle. 

But it is far rarer to encounter people who endure hardship without allowing it to corrupt their hearts.

It's the humanity, the tenderness, the poetry, the fathers kissing their children, the grandfathers referring to their grandchild as “soul of my soul”, SubhanAllah.

The mothers praising Allah through tears. The gentleness that somehow survives and endures alongside immense suffering.

Perhaps that is the torch Palestine carries.

Not merely awareness, politics or resistance.

But remembrance. Of the self - the soul.

A reminder that there are things worth standing firm for even when the outcome is uncertain;  that faith is not proven just when life is easy. A reminder that dignity and tenderness should lead the heart -  and that the soul belongs entirely to Allah, even when every other part of you is taken away.

And perhaps that is why, after all these years, aspiring over their spirit has become a part of who I am and even imbued into the Dreamers Side brand. Not for “trend” or “aesthetics”.

But because Palestine was more than just a cause I supported.

It became a way of life I keep returning to; a belief system, a reminder of the responsibility of privilege, and a reminder of what raw incorruptible faith is.