I live in a paper box.

Paper walls have surrounded me all my life and I am obliged to see them as my home.

Many activists and thinkers drove the creation of my box, rallying many to flock to it, reaching out to their sense of religious devotion to do so.

You see my box was designed to serve a purpose beyond a mere abode. It was meant to connect me back to my identity and purpose in life, as exemplified by a movement that transformed the world 1,400 years ago. For this reason I and others like me train hard and dedicate our lives for the defence of our box, willing to take to the battlefield and face the enemy on the cry of Iman, Taqwa, Jihad fi Sabilillah.

But at times various issues trouble me. 

Much turmoil have I witnessed, with poverty, exploitation and injustice rampaging the masses across decades, enslaving them to the diktats of powerful families and mafias of the land, as the laws that are followed stand contrary to my deen. A much championed label, however, slapped loudly across my box – ‘no law contrary to Quran and Sunnah’ – seeks to lay my mind at rest.

A people who I saw as my own have been occupied and brutally oppressed. All my life I was determined to defend them, free them from oppression. But a paper wall merely shifted to leave those people on the outside of my box. No longer am I expected by my great ones to worry about clenching my hands and beating my chest, ready for action. Instead I’m told to merely raise these hands, make some dua, and look the other way.

Equally there are another people I feel for, in their own but ever shrinking paper box, sitting on a land which I see as blessed and on whose soil countless prophets have set foot on. They are subjugated to relentless onslaughts year after year, with particularly harsh and symbolic treatment meted out in the holy month of Ramadhan, including within the sanctity of the third most holiest mosque itself. But my tanks, fighter jets and missiles will not see the light of day for this cause, as the colours draped across their box conform not to mine.

I hear sincere and intelligent discussion amongst some though that enough is enough, that the All Mighty is ever observing and noting, awaiting to account, and so how long can we afford to watch our Ummah suffer, in our box or outside our box? That there is a remedy, to do away with our paper walls that give sovereignty to man and instead unify under the one true banner of La ilaha illa-Allah, making our Lord sovereign and uniting our strengths as we did of old. 

But who will be bold enough to make the first move? Who will be the next Saad Ibn Muadh (ra)? Should I forfeit this immense reward to another?

As I decide and as my window of opportunity gradually diminishes, it’s time for another ‘independence’ day celebration, whilst I carry on living in my paper box.