When the Child of Gaza Is Asked: For What Sin Was It Killed?

The pre-Islamic Arabs practiced a heinous tradition: the burial of female infants alive, driven by fears of economic burden and the perceived shame of raising daughters. This act of cruelty reflected a society steeped in ignorance and moral distortion.

Islam, as the divine call to human dignity, justice, and the sanctity of life, waged an uncompromising war against this practice. It did not merely condemn it, it eradicated it, replacing barbarity with mercy, and humiliation with honor.

Among the most piercing elements of this remedial strategy were the words of Allah, which appealed not only to primordial conscience but also to emotional intelligence and moral imagination: "And when the girl (who was) buried alive is asked: For what sin was she killed?" (al-Takwir 8-9)

The message of these verses is clear and intense: one of the defining moments of the Day of Judgment will be the restoration of justice where it was most needed in this world but never given. That Day is not simply a reckoning-it is the culmination of accountability, the unveiling of truth, and the vindication of the innocent. It is what humanity craves most, yet what is most often denied in this world of compromised courts and corrupted consciences. On that Day, the gravest violations-and their perpetrators-will be brought into the divine spotlight.

The above verses are framed within an apocalyptic tableau: the sun darkened, the stars extinguished, the mountains dissolved, the seas boiling over, the heavens torn apart, Hell ignited, and Paradise unveiled (al-Takwir 1-13). This cosmic upheaval is not sheer spectacle. Rather, it is a moral backdrop for the scrutiny of innocence. Amid this celestial unraveling, the buried girl is asked: "For what sin was she killed?" (al-Takwir 8-9). The question is not for information-it is for indictment.

Why such a dramatic setting? Because the crime of burying a child alive-infanticide-is not just a social aberration. It is a transgression against creation itself, defying logic, culture, and every norm of human decency. Just as the end of the world defies existential standards, so too did this act defy the very essence of civilization.

With Allah - lest we forget - the killing of a single innocent soul is tantamount to the extermination of all humanity (al-Ma'idah 32). Such a crime is not measured by its scale, but by its moral magnitude, for it violates the sanctity of life, the covenant of justice, and the very essence of what it means to be human.

The linguistic structure intensifies the horror. The verbs are passive: "is asked", "was killed". The focus is not on the criminal, but on the victim's purity, which is a rhetorical strategy that magnifies the moral depravity of the perpetrator. If the victim is so blameless, how monstrous must be the one who committed the crime? No justification is offered-none is possible. The question "why?" is not a request for explanation, but a divine assertion, a moral avowal, a cosmic astonishment at a crime that defies language itself.

Two verses later, Allah declares that Hellfire will blaze and Paradise will be brought near (al-Takwir 12-13). The implication-and Allah knows best-is that the former awaits the murderer, and the latter welcomes the martyred child. This is part of the eschatological unveiling, where each soul will witness what it has prepared for that Day.

The tragedy of Gaza: 20,000 children lost in a sea of 70,000 innocent lives

Just as the pre-Islamic Arabs buried their daughters out of fear and shame, today's genociders bury Gaza's children under rubble and fire out of political calculation, racial hatred, and imperial ambition. The crime is the same: extinguishing innocent life to preserve a corrupt order.

Today, the trench for burying and killing children is no longer carved in sand; it is forged from missiles, blockades, and silence.

Gaza's children are not buried by tribal shame, but by sophisticated axes of evil, engineered through military precision and masked by diplomatic deceit. They are buried beneath the rubble of homes, the collapse of hospitals, and the indifference of a world that watches without weeping.

This is not the ignorance of a bygone tribe; it is the syndrome of global complicity, where modernity cloaks barbarism in the language of security, and genocide is rationalized through policy briefs and press releases. The trench is back, not as a relic of history, but as a living indictment of our age.

In Surah al-Buruj (4-8), the People of the Trench watched believers burn without remorse. Likewise, today's powers watch Gaza burn, rationalizing the slaughter, funding the weapons, and silencing the truth. The trench has returned. And the world sits around it, watching, justifying, forgetting.

The Qur'anic question - "For what sin was she killed?" (al-Takwir 9) -is now addressed to every complicit nation, every silent institution, every moral bystander. The question is no longer rhetorical. It is divine. And it will be asked again, of every hand that fired, every tongue that lied, and every heart that turned away.

And let it not be forgotten: while Paradise is drawn near-wide open to embrace the innocent souls of Gaza and the rest of the martyrs-Hellfire too is fiercely ignited, awaiting the filthy and morally bankrupt souls of the genociders.

It is beyond the reach of human imagination to fathom how Hell will revel in its chastisement, groaning in fury, almost rupturing with rage. It will not whisper-it will roar. And it will call out, again and again: "Is there any more?" (Qaf 30).

The genocidal criminals will be cast into eternal suffering-unspeakable pain, relentless distress, and unimaginable torment.

They will be humiliated, abandoned, and forgotten, buried not in honor but in disgrace, their names erased from mercy and their souls severed from redemption. Their fate will not be mourned; it will be remembered only as a warning.

So therefore-Bibi, and the allies from East and West-brace yourselves.

Time is almost up.