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Tag Archives: Toronto 18

Zakaria Amara: A Little Muslim from Palestine

10 Nov

I’ll always be a contender

Yes, I know
my bones are very tender

And by Allah,
you won’t see me surrender

Look at my eyes?
You’ll see no butterflies

My home is filled with cries…
due to all the lost lives

But I swear by Allah,
I’ll never compromise

I’ll still throw the stones
even with my broken bones

Why can’t I hear from you,
don’t you have any phones?

Yeah I forgot,
your’e not on the chase,

Try it out and
put your self in my place

Soon I’ll return to my Lord,
the One that deserves every grace

Oh, you don’t have to worry
’cause of me you’ll find no trace

It really is too late,
why did you wait?

You could have sent me
at least one dinner plate

I guess it is my fate

And La Ilaha Illa Allah
is my mate.

-Zakaria Amara, Canada

 
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Posted by on November 10, 2012 in Habsiyya, Poems by Zakaria Amara

 

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Dr Tariq Abdelhaleem: The Visit – A Weekly Experience That Never Gets Easier (2007)

18 Dec
Dr. Tariq Abdelhaleem is the father of Shareef Abdelhaleem who is currently serving a life sentence for his alleged participation in a plot to bomb key sites in Canada as part of the ‘Toronto 18′. Dr Abdelhaleem is a civil engineer by training and a lecturer at the Dar Al-Arqam Islamic Centre in Mississauga, Ontario. Until recently, the 67-year-old worked on a contract basis for Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., the Crown corporation that oversees the country’s nuclear reactors. The following was written 12 December of 2007:

Saturday, for most people, is a great day. They sleep in and start the day after a late breakfast, and then plan for the rest of it. They look forward to: shopping, visiting, eating out – all kinds of nice moments to look forward to. Except for me, it isn’t such a great day. It is, in the matter of fact, a day of pain and desperation. It is the day of my scheduled visit to my son, Shareef, in Maplehurst Correctional Center; where he is detained awaiting the trial.

I go to sleep the day before with the sad expectations of the next day. I wake up thinking of the visit. I didn’t see my son for a week. I want to make sure he is still holding himself together, and that he did not collapse or get a nervous breakdown.

I schedule my day around this event. No matter what other matters I have to attend to, it is paramount to break it at exactly 1:15pm and head to Milton.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on December 18, 2011 in Collateral Damage

 

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Fahim Ahmad: ‘Izzah

01 Oct

 
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Posted by on October 1, 2011 in Sketches

 

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Fahim Ahmad: For my daughter, Sumayyah (My Little Butterfly)

30 Sep

 
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Posted by on September 30, 2011 in Sketches

 

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Cheryfa Jamal: Her & Her Family, Victims of Canadian ‘War on Terror’

04 Aug

On the third and second of June, 2006, Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service carried out a series of brutal raids in eastern Canada arresting 17 people, five of whom are teenagers, in what was pitched and swallowed by the media as a Canada’s “home grown” Islamic terrorist cell.  Quickly dubbed the “Toronto Seventeen”, authorities alleged that this group of “Muslim extremists” were planning to blow up Canada’s Parliament, the CSIS’s headquarters, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and even planned to storm the Canadian parliament and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper and that by only a stroke of luck, Canada’s security apparatus was able to foil the so-called plot.

The long and the short of the government’s case against Qayyum Jamal, Steven Chand, Shareef Abdelhaleem, Yasim Mohamed, Jahmaal James, Mohammed Dirie, Fahim Ahmad, Asad Ansari, Ahmad Ghany, Zakaria Amara, Amin Durrani, Saad Khalid and five other young offenders who can not be named was, at the time, said to be based on the allegation that Zakaria Amara, age 20, had allegedly ordered three metric tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to be used to manufacture a bomb capable of carrying out an attack on the scale of the Oklahoma bombing.

From the start, it read like a page out of RCMP Special Forces handbook presented by Canada’s leak-dripping Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).  But soon after, the story quickly changed when it was learned that the RCMP used an informant to carry out a “sting” operation and had replaced the real ammonium nitrate fertilizer with “a harmless substance”  No ammonium nitrate, no crime right?  Not so. Regardless of the brutality of the raids, the discrimination and racism, the guilty-before-trial press made hay, the Canadian government is proceeding with the case and for the most part, Canadians breathed easier knowing that the authorities had thwarted an “Al-Qaeda styled” attack just in the nick of time. Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on August 4, 2011 in Collateral Damage

 

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Tariq Mahenna: January 26, 2010 (To my brother Zakariyyah)

26 Jan

Tuesday 10th of Safar 1431 / 26th of January 2010

Bismillah, was-Salamu’alaykum wa Rahmatullah wa Barakatahu.

Praise be to Allah, and may peace & blessings be upon His Messenger, who said: “There are three things that I swear to, and will mention to you, so memorize them… (and on of them is) and no servant of Allah is oppressed in any way and is patient with it except that Allah increases him in honor…”

  • To my brother Zakariyyah:

While I write these words from behind bars, you have been there much longer than I, my brother, and are therefore more fit to be advising me in regards to dealing with incarceration. We have never met or conversed, yet when I was informed of your sentences at the hands of taghut who was under the false impression that he signed away your life, I could not eat, drink, smile or even leave my cell for my hour of rec. It was not out of pity for you, but rather was out of worry that you would not react correctly and Islamically. I am here, writing to tell you that you will be out of prison one day, when you least expect it. The sentence officially handed down is meaningless, because Prophet Ibrahim was sentenced to be burned alive, and was actually thrown into the fire – just as you were sentenced and are actually in prison – and eventually he walked out to an unexpected ending, Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life, entered prison, and eventually walked out to rejoin his family when he least expected to do so. Assata Shakur (of the Black Panthers) was falsely convicted & sentenced for murder, and managed to find an exit from her prison and now lives in safety in Cuba. The point is, you have no idea what is coming your way, but your hopes and true inner expection from Allah will determine just what that is!

Until then, keep your fist clenched, your hand up high, and continue to take this like a man as you have from Day One. You are no better than Imam Ahmad bin Hambal, whose torturer said: “I whipped Ahmad so violently and hard that if I had struck an elephant that hard, it would’ve been killed” so hang in there, my dear brother. We are in this together. This is not over yet, despite what you see now.

  • To Zakariyyah’s family:

A woman was sitting at the grave of a son she had lost, overtaken by so much grief that when the Prophet came by came by to console & advise her, she told him: “Go away. You don’t know what I am going through,” not knowing who he was. Do not let the shock and natural sadness shake your minds and warp your lives, such that you are so overtaken that you will push away what will benefit you without realizing it. Take control of the situation in the capacity you can, stay sharp & focused and don’t give these tawaghit the satisfaction of having broken you – this is exactly what they want and smile at. This is the time to prove yourselves to your Lord, Always look upwards and be positive!

  • To the murtaddin who prostituted themselves and helped deprive parents of their son, a wife of her husband, and children of their father: I make you three promises.

1)  You are in the lowest level of Jahannam. That means you will be fueling the Fire that will burn everyone else. Your bodies will be used to keep Jahannam lit up for eternity.

2) The Prophet said: “For every treacherous person, a flag will be raised on the Day of Resurection, and it will be publicly announced: “This is the treachery of so and so.” Embarassing.

3) You are in my sincere du’a’, which as an oppressed person myself, is answered. I am not praying for pretty things for you, so await what comes your way, you wastes of a nutfah.

Was-Salam.

طارق مهنا

Original Handwritten Letter – To My Brother Zakariyyah
 
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Posted by on January 26, 2010 in Letters from Tariq Mehanna, Risala

 

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Zakaria Amara: January 18, 2010 (Open Letter to Fellow Canadians)

18 Jan

I hope my words reach you while you are in good health and fine spirits.

I am certain that many, if not all of you, will never forgive me for my actions.

I have no excuses or explanations. I deserve nothing than your complete and absolute contempt.

I only wrote these words to simply let you know of how regretful and sorry I feel. All I can hope for is that you are all alive and well when perhaps that day comes when I demonstrate my regret in actions rather than words.

As for the Muslims amongst you, I have an additional comment to make. I can not imagine the type of embarrassment or anxiety you must have gone through in the days following my arrest. I am sure many of you received unwelcome attention and felt hopeless in trying to explain that the actions of a few were not endorsed by the community. I am sure many of you probably cursed at me in your heads.

To you I say the gravity of the damage I caused to you makes any excuse or apology inappropriate.

I can only hope that when all of you, Muslim and none Muslim, witness the type of man I will one day make out of myself and the type of activities I’ll be involved in, than you will perhaps contemplate accepting me once more into the fold.

 
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Posted by on January 18, 2010 in Letters from Zakaria Amara, Risala

 

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Zakaria Amara: January 18, 2010 (Plea to the Judge)

18 Jan

In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

God, the Exalted revealed in the Qur’an:

‘Oh you who believe, stand our firmly for justice as witnesses to God, even against your own selves.’ 4:135

Your Honour, I can stand before you today and honestly say that I have spent my entire life struggling to discover the truth and the reality of life. But looking back retrospectively, I can also say that it is this same righteous struggle that led me down the road of extremism, struggling to discover the reality of things and trying to conduct oneself accordingly is no doubt a virtuous characteristic, but being naïve and gullible enough to think that it is a simple task is dangerous. After I was ideologically locked in a position I subconsciously feared any challenge to my ideology so I began to isolate myself from the real world by restricting my social circle.

We all know what happened next. For the next three years I was segregated in a cell by myself. Aside from its psychological and physical effects, isolation in my case was the antithesis of rehabilitation since it directly served the demands of my ideology. I had no one to discuss with and no one to help me shed light on the shadows and blind spots that my ideology thrived in. After three long years, I was finally released into the general population. It was there out of all places where the first steps towards rehabilitation were taken.

Everyone found it difficult to reconcile between my charges and my humble and kind personality thus leading the way to many discussions about the justification of terrorist acts. At first I vigorously defended my positions but every time I walked away, I walked away with doubt in my heart. Despite their lack of education and ‘expertise’, their moral and logical arguments were lick pick axes that chiselled away at my ideological walls. In addition to these discussions, the general population exposed me to a different reality than the selective snapshot I have tucked away. I was exposed to types of people that I never had a real interaction with when I was free.

I became friends with a Jewish inmate who was the first to greet me when I entered the range. He once told me that had we been living in Palestine we would have probably killed each other and died failing to realize what good friends we would have made if only we had talked.

At one point, I shared a cell with a Shia Muslim. The ‘Evil Plotting Shia’ turned out to be a harmless good-hearted man. The ideological barriers that were raised between us turned out to be nothing but imaginary fairy tales constructed to divide us.

Out of the many people that I met, the person that had the most influence on my manner of thinking was an inmate who worked on Bay Street and whose brothers worked in the Exchange Tower. Despite these facts, he looked after me the most. He was always there for me when I felt down. He always counselled me about my situation and how to turn it around.

Your Honour, I spent days upon days trying to summon words appropriate, meaningful and deep enough to express my regret and seek forgiveness for my actions. At the end, I realized that only promises and actions could suffice. Therefore, I would like to promise you and my fellow Canadians that I will use my sentence to build myself from a man of destruction to a man of construction. I promise that no matter how long it takes and how much it costs to produce actions that will hopefully outweigh the actions that I once took towards hurting others.

Your Honour, I will embrace whatever sentence you give since in reality I deserve much more than a mere sentence, but at the same time I hope that you do not deprive me of a chance to pay the moral debt that I still owe.

Thank you for allowing me to speak my mind.

 
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Posted by on January 18, 2010 in Letters from Zakaria Amara, Risala

 

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Fahim Ahmad: August 18, 2009 (The Fable of the Butterfly and the Snail)

18 Aug

Day 1097

All upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.
As, in the sunshine of the morn,
A butterfly (but newly born)
Sat proudly perking on a rose;
With pert conceit his bosom glows;
His wings (all-glorious to behold)
Bedropp’d with azure, jet, and gold,
Wide he displays; the spangled dew
Reflects his eyes, and various hue.
His now forgotten friend, a snail,
Beneath his house, with slimy trail
Crawls o’er the grass; whom when he spies,
In wrath he to the gard’ner cries:
‘What means you peasant’s daily toil,
From chocking weeds to rid the soil?
Why wake you to the morning’s care,
Why with new arts correct the year,
Why glows the peach with crimson hue,
And why the plum’s inviting blue;
Were they to feast his taste design’d,
That vermin of voracious kind?
Crush then the slow, the pilf’ring race:
So purge thy garden from disgrace.’
‘What arrogance!’ the snail replied;
‘How insolent in upstart pride!
Hadst thou not thus with insult vain,
Provoked my patience to complain,
I had concealed thy meaner birth,
Nor traced thee to the scum of the earth.
For scarce nine suns have waked the hours,
To swell the fruit and paint the flow’rs,
Since I thy humble life surveyed,
In base, in sordid guise arrayed;
A hideous insect, vile, unclean,
You dragged a slow and noisome train;
And from your spider-bowels drew
Foul film, and spun the dirty clew.
I own my hunble life, good friend;
Snail I was born and Snail i shall end.
And whats a butterfly? at best,
He’s but a catterpillar, dress’d;
And all thy race (a numerous seed)
Shall prove to be of caterpillar breed.’

- John Gay (1688 – 1732)

I just read this poem from a collection of 18th Century poetry.
I love the end where the snail just rips the human race apart.
what’s a butterfly at best, he’s but a catterpillar, dressed.
aren’t we are all like that…born humble, naked, hungry, and alone…
by the time we die, we are clothed in the most expensive of garments,
fed the most ‘exquisite’ of meals, our life is about impressing everyone but the
one we are returning to, and our ego has gone up to such a degree, everyone of us thinks he’s a king walking the earth with a right to rule given from birth.
No one remembers that we are going back just as we entered, crying, hungry, naked (except for the few hours the white shround will last), and subdued!

Fahim Ahmad

 
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Posted by on August 18, 2009 in Letters from Fahim Ahmad, Risala

 

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Fahim Ahmad: July 9, 2009 (Jum’a)

09 Jul

JUM’A Day 1057

Asalam alaikum wa rahmatullah…

In the Name of Allâh, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

“hey C O, you ever seen anyone have an anxiety attack?”, “yea…why, you stressed?”, “well, its beyond stress, but yea…I feel like one might be coming up right about now.” “no, you don’t like your having one…guys usually go all hyperventilate, sweat heavy, and kinda freak out.” … “well, I’m O for 3 on those…so I guess I’m not having an anxiety attack…but yea, just…feel really uneasy…cant do anything all day, cant concentrate on anything…donno what to tell ya…but yea…ah well.” (step away from the door, CO goes back to his desk).

So I guess I’m not having an anxiety attack, though I thought I was. Its been building up gradually for a while I guess. We’ve been going to court for the past few weeks for some motions. We just finished the ‘religious and ideological’ motion. They basically want to use books/media supposedly seized from our residents against us in trial. We were arguing that selecting parts and cutting and pasting portions of materials is prejudicial and biased, therefore inadmissible. I don’t care much for all of this, my trust is in ALLAH for relief not in any person nor system, as at the end of the day, it is only by the will of ALLAH that all these lawyers and judges and all of us are even breathing. That being said, sitting there for 6hrs a day listening to arguments I can tell you, our lawyers killed it, as far as arguments go. If this was based on fair process, due rights, and justice, the ruling that should be made is apparent, although, like every other motion, I’m sure this will be denied as well. Anyways, I hate going to court, waking up at 5:30, coming back at 8, the whole process of going here to get changed into court clothes, the transport van, sitting in that room from 7:30 – 10, waiting for court to start, sitting in court, looking at this puppet show all around you as if there’s some sort of justice to be expected from all this…then again the transport van, hour and a half ride…changing again into jail clothes, the waits at each section, and then finally back to the cell 14hrs after leaving it. Doing that every day… it takes a real toll on a person. It wasn’t so bad before, but on Monday, things got really bad.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on July 9, 2009 in Letters from Fahim Ahmad, Risala

 

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