Ramadan’s Resilient Light

In the land where prophets once walked,
where olive trees whisper secrets to the wind,
a mother wakes before dawn,
lighting a single flame in the cold darkness.
She moves quietly, careful not to wake her children,
their thin blankets barely shielding them from the chill.
There is little to cook, but she blesses what remains—
a handful of rice, a crust of bread—
enough, she tells herself, for another day.

For eighty years, they have endured:
the walls, the checkpoints, the whispered prayers at midnight
for sons who do not return,
for homes that stand no more.
Yet, as the crescent moon graces the sky,
ushering in the sacred month of Ramadan,
they do what they have always done—
they bow their heads,
lift their hands,
and find light even in the darkest of nights.

When the sun sets, the call to prayer drifts over rooftops,
mingling with the scent of spiced lentils and fresh-baked bread.
Neighbors pass plates across fences,
children chase each other through narrow alleys,
their laughter defying the weight of their history.
A young boy, no older than ten, waits by the door,
watching for his father,
though he knows—deep down—
that the soldiers took him weeks ago.

Beyond the rubble, beyond the narratives spun to erase them,
there is a people who refuse to be defined by grief.
The world may brand them as shadows,
but they are flesh and spirit, kindness and resilience,
offering dates and water even to those who guard their captivity.

These stories—of hunger met with generosity,
of suffering met with faith—
do not make headlines.
It is easier, after all, to flatten them into nameless faces,
to speak of them only in numbers and statistics.
But numbers do not sing lullabies to their children.
Numbers do not knead dough with hands still shaking from fear.
Numbers do not whisper, Alhamdulillah,
as they share their last piece of bread.

And so, as the adhan echoes through the minarets,
as fathers place gentle hands on their children’s heads,
as weary hearts whisper prayers into the night,
there is a lesson here—
for a world so quick to judge,
so slow to understand.

Ramadan is more than fasting.
It is a declaration:
"We are still here. We are still whole."

And no wall, no war, no weight of oppression,
can take that away.