the 'martyrs'

Once, I introduced myself to an Arab friend, "Call me Shu,"I said. She was like, "Pardon?". Confused, later I learnt that in some dialects, 'shu' means 'what' and putting 'shu-ha-da' altogether means 'what-is-it'. OK that's not a good sign. Luckily there's still some Arabs who stick to the Quranic language, when I introduced my other name to an an Irish girl (I usually go for 'Wan', unless they're really gonna be spending more time with me I'll say 'Shu/Shuhada' instead), Maryam my Kuwaiti friend said to that girl, "Shuhada has a really beautiful meaning, it means 'the martyrs', do you know what that is?" And of course she didn't know what 'martyr' means when she gave me 'the look' (and dare they to say that we're ignorance).

I am a big fan of my own name when people spell it correctly, it just doesn't seem right to see people use 'y' instead of 'h' in it, I just love the letters being on the line all the way. That sounds so self-centred ya? Anyway, just adding the fact that I'm the only one in Wan's family whose name doesn't have the letter 'i' in it, that made me rather unique I guess (and yes I do have that one-of-a-kind behaviour which no other siblings have, difficult child I was). When I was a kid, friends from school used to address me a full 'Shuhada' and it had always been like that, which I loved most. That was because we had a boy with a name 'Syuhairi' and people called him 'Syu' so I always thot 'shu/syu' is a guy's name. It was till I entered high school when the seniors started calling me by just 'Shu' coz everyone in the school by the name of 'Syuhada/Syuhaida' being called 'Shu', but I remembered I was the only one with that different spelling until the juniors arrived and we had another N Shuhada, who is actually my current junior in Dublin (small world eh). At this point u must've been feeling a bit dizzy from my over-expression of my own name. Haha.

Anyway it was an old habit of google-ing your own name, and I'd always go for (of course) 'Shuhada'. And I just love reading every inspiring thing they use my name on; came about on this one.

Shuhada Organization is a non-governmental and non-profit organization committed to the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan with special emphasis on the empowerment of women and children.

And how bout this.

Risalat-us-Shuhada a treatise written in Persian by Pir Muhammad Shattari in 1633 AD. It deals with the life and martyrdom of Shah Ismail Ghazi (r) along with some of his companions in Bengal...

And the one that I keep coming back to and read again and again and again is this.

It is called the "Shuhada Massacre"

In the morning of Friday Oct. 30 of 1948 a massacre was committed by the Jewish Zionist. The battle started on Thursday 29/10/1945 and ended next day in the morning. The battle lasted almost 10 hours. The massacre started without any mercy. This savage and unbelievable massacre is described as very painful. It is impossible to describe it in brief lines.

The Brave Defenders of the village People with Arab Freedom Liberation Army, against attacking Jewish Army of the Out-Lawed Gangs of Hagana, Stern & Irguns, under the leadership of Manno Bin Murdakhay, originally from Ja'unah village near Safad.

During the battle a complete Regiment was killed on the East side of the village. So the Jewish Enemy Army Shifted South as they were not able to take over the village from The East, and its people who were defending its Land, people and their Presence to live a decent free life. Finding a fierce resistance and Heavy shelling in the East, they shifted the battle south to Miron Village, took it over then to the West side from Beit Jun. And from there, sent their commandos North to the village of Jish and took it Over. Now Safsaf was surrounded from all sides and under the siege, and unfortunately they took it over after all and this was the first Part. After the Jewish Zionists Gangs saw how many soldiers of their army were lost started raping and killing.

I may be a bit superstitious, but this really runs in my blood. I have this low-treshold in tolerating injustice, especially pertinent to the Palestinian issues. I had long cried for them, and still crying now. Every ticking clock, their land has just gotten smaller and smaller, u'll be surprised to see the current map of Palestine, how the cruel (bastard is more suitable) Israelis molested their rights to live a free man. I dunno, it sends shivers to my spine mentioning this, reading every breaking news, and yet what more could I do as a Muslim who's been granted a wealthy life in a peaceful homeland? Just pray, pray and pray.

Fellow Muslims, wake up and face the call for justice of the ummah. Let's fight by all means, mind, body and soul. For in every Muslim's battlefield, there's only winning or martyrdom, never a loss!

Allahumma inna naj'aluka fi nuhuri a'daina wa nauzubika min shururihim..