These seven letters mark the beginning of Dearest Gaza, written during a time when the suffering of the Gaza Strip unfolded in full view of the world and many of us found ourselves watching from afar, unsure what witnessing truly demanded of us. They are not reports, arguments, or attempts to explain events, but reflections on faith, distance, responsibility, and what it means to belong to an ummah that feels both connected and powerless in the face of injustice. These letters form the first stones of this archive. They are an opening act of remembrance and witness, from which other voices may one day emerge to write, reflect, and carry forward the act of remembering.
Dearest Gaza,
Distance often gives people the illusion that events happening elsewhere belong to another world. A person may live his entire life without seeing the conditions under which others struggle. The Qur’an reminds believers that the world is wider than the place where they stand, and that justice and injustice are not confined to one land alone. The people of the Gaza Strip live under conditions that many Muslims elsewhere will never experience directly.
This distance is not new in the history of the ummah. During the time of the Prophet ﷺ, there were Muslims who lived far from Madinah and only heard of events through travellers or letters. Some of the companions of the Prophet lived in lands that were separated from one another by long journeys and difficult roads. Yet the sense of belonging to a single community remained strong because their faith bound them together.
The companions understood that distance did not remove concern for one another. When news reached Madinah that Muslims elsewhere were facing hardship, it was not treated as someone else’s problem. It was understood as a matter that concerned the whole community. The Prophet ﷺ reminded the believers that the Muslim community is like a single body. When one part suffers, the rest of the body feels its pain.
This teaching carries an important lesson. Physical distance may separate lands and peoples, but it does not dissolve the bonds created by faith. A Muslim who lives far from hardship still belongs to the same community as the one who endures it. That connection is not created by geography. It is created by belief and by the responsibilities that belief carries.
Your condition therefore reminds the rest of the ummah of something the early Muslims already knew. A community is not defined by how close its members live to one another, but by whether they remember each other when hardship appears. Distance may exist between lands, but it should never exist between hearts.
– Ever your sister of the ummah you dignify.
