The Burial That Wears New Clothes

🪦 The Old Crime, the New Face

Modern female infanticide is a reality that cannot be overlooked.

In the days before Islam — the days of ignorance, Jahiliyyah — it was treated as normal for proud, hot-headed aristocratic men to bury their own daughters alive. Many people were appalled. They found it outrageous, preposterous. Perhaps a rival's daughter, they could imagine. But your own child? Can humanity sink so far that it learns to justify this?

The sad truth is that Jahiliyyah was never confined to the seventh-century Arabian Peninsula before the coming of Islam and the Ahlulbayt. The world today has normalized the killing of children all over again. The crime has simply changed clothes. You no longer need to pick up a shovel and bury a girl in the sand. Today she is killed before she is even born — or her femininity is killed while she still breathes.

The Qur'an gives this crime a precise word. From the root 'adda — adda, ya'uddu — meaning to bury alive. Al-maw'ud is the male buried alive; al-maw'uda is the female buried alive.

⚖️ The Verse That Built a Champion

When this verse was revealed, it changed lives. One of the great champions of early Islam, Ammar ibn Yasir, entered the faith because of it.

Ammar tells the story himself. As a boy, he brushed against one of the idols in his house, and the little statue fell and broke. His father, Yasir, came rushing in: "You've killed our god." Ammar said, "Baba, listen to what you just said. I killed who?" Yasir said, "You killed god." Ammar replied, "Baba — this is the backwards thinking I've left behind. What god? Can a god die?"

Yasir asked where he had learned to speak this way. Ammar said a new man had come and blessed his life with openness, reality, and common sense — and you would think common sense is common, but it isn't so common anymore. He told his father a verse had been revealed that very day:

وَإِذَا الْمَوْؤُودَةُ سُئِلَتْ ۝ بِأَيِّ ذَنبٍ قُتِلَتْ
Wa idhal-maw'udatu su'ilat · bi ayyi dhanbin qutilat
And when the girl buried alive is asked, for what sin she was killed. (Sūrat al-Takwīr 81:8–9)

Yasir said, "Wait — let me bring your mother, Sumayya." He brought her, and asked Ammar to repeat it: that on the Day of Reckoning the little buried baby will cry out, "For what crime was I killed? Why was I buried alive?"

Sumayya began to weep. She said, "Do you know that your grandfather had ten daughters? I was the youngest — the tenth. He buried all nine. When my turn came, as he tried to shovel me into the ground, I grabbed him with my little hand. The hadith says I grabbed his beard. And that gave him an epiphany — what am I doing? After nine, he came to his senses and let me, the tenth, live. Your grandfather would have buried me alive."

In that moment the whole family embraced Islam — out of common sense. They saw a Prophet preaching against the very thing that should have ended their mother's life, and they said: today we become Muslims, because this is the only reason any of us are alive.

🕯 "It Was Before Islam"

This crime worked on many levels. Abu Jahl and Abu Lahab normalized the whole industry of it. Some figures championed today made a career of burying babies alive — yet when you ask about their crimes, the answer is always, "This is before Islam."

And the principle holds: al-Islam yajubbu ma qablahu — Islam wipes away what came before it. Whoever enters Islam is forgiven the sins of his past. Is that true? Yes — the Prophet said it, so we accept it. Allah forgives the sins committed in ignorance. But notice that He did not simply forget this one. He placed it in the Qur'an, swearing in Sūrat al-Takwīr: wa idhal-maw'udatu su'ilat bi ayyi dhanbin qutilat. It takes a staggering amount of shame, of audacity — jur'a — to take your own child, place them in a hole, and bury them. The forgiveness is real, but the record remains.

🩸 Killing Her Without a Shovel

So how does a 21st-century society reach the point of justifying the slaughter of women? Because it was never truly the champion of women to begin with. When you disrespect women for so long, when you mock anyone who says a woman has a hurma — a sanctity that is not for sale, a worth that is not reduced to how much of her can be seen — then killing her becomes easy.

The world swung hard one way, then the modern geopolitical ethos swung the total opposite way. Its proponents will tell you plainly: to be liberated you must be as independent as possible. But the truth is the reverse. Your independence is measured by how much you limit what others can see. To control what people are allowed to take from you — that is independence. The sisters likely already understand this. For the brothers it is a wake-up call: give a little, and many men will take a lot.

It has been said: wallahi, if women truly knew how some men perceive them, they would not cover themselves with hijab — they would cover themselves with armor.

This is not to breed fear of men. It is that Allah built a system where the healthiest function comes from understanding everyone's role. You do not erase the roles and merge everything into one.

🕊 The 180 of Minab

We have reached a point where 180 little girls were killed at a preschool in Minab, Iran — 180 children full of hopes, passions, and dreams. What do you say to 180 mothers who lost their daughters in a single moment?

And those responsible shrug: "Look, war is nasty. You lose people. It's normal."

But I thought you were the champions of the strongest, smartest, most upright, most dignified people in the world. From this moment on, never again say that you represent women's rights. If you represented women's rights, that would first show itself in the lives of women. I thought women and children had the right to live.

Yet you blame us over a simple headscarf placed on a sister — the same modest attire worn by the lady you yourselves call God's mother, Sayyida Maryam (peace be upon her). Nuhajijuhum bima alzamu bihi anfusahum — we constrain them with the very standards they hold themselves to. For the sake of the one you call God's mother, leave alone the sisters who choose modesty.

🌿 The Marketplace of Her Body

Look at the child actresses. Once they were sweet, simple, innocent — the role models on Nickelodeon and Disney, whose image you'd find on a little girl's backpack. Then watch what the industry does as they grow. Today some sell their bodies on online platforms to make a buck — their entire worth recalculated as how much can be paid by lonely, perverted men who have nothing better to do than pay to look at a woman. Reducing her to an object, sold to the highest bidder. That, too, has buried her alive.

Infanticide — infant, child; -cide, from the Latin for murder, cold-blooded killing. Genocide: a whole people killed at once. Suicide: the killing of the self. The same crime now wears the mask of "liberation," and its biggest victims are sisters who have fallen into the trap of perverted, hegemonic men who make a living off it.

The platform that recruits them is one whose name the minbar of Sayyid al-Shuhada prevents me from speaking. A girl goes online and sells a picture of her body to incel, dirty, perverted men who keep the whole machine running.

🌙 The Message Even a Non-Muslim Must Honor

All of this would be solved if more people in the world understood the core principle of Imam al-Husayn (peace be upon him) — and I say it plainly, not as a cliché: if more people truly understood his message. Because this message does not need a Muslim to appreciate it. It is epic. It is legendary. People who are against tattoos would tattoo it on their foreheads.

On the tenth of Muharram, Imam al-Husayn looked at the opposition and addressed them:

يَا شِيعَةَ آلِ أَبِي سُفْيَانَ، إِنْ لَمْ يَكُنْ لَكُمْ دِينٌ وَكُنْتُمْ لَا تَخَافُونَ الْمَعَادَ فَكُونُوا أَحْرَارًا فِي دُنْيَاكُمْ
Ya shi'ata Ali Abi Sufyan, in lam yakun lakum din wa kuntum la takhafuna al-ma'ad, fakunu ahraran fi dunyakum
O followers of the family of Abu Sufyan, if you have no religion and do not fear the Day of Return, then at least be free in your worldly life.

If you have no religion, ya 'ammi — and didn't you yourselves testify Ashhadu anna Muhammadan Rasul Allah five times a day? Have you forgotten I am the son of that very Muhammad you name in your prayers? But set that aside. Don't speak to me of religion. Don't even speak of the Day of Judgment. If you fear neither — then at least be free human beings. Don't be bought. Don't be slaves of an industry, of a platform at the tip of your finger.

📿 The Trap at Your Fingertips

Have you seen how tempting it looks, how it appears? And the youngest are the biggest victims.

There is an app I'll name bluntly: Kalshi. "It's just sports betting." It's more than that now — betting on market predictions, political outcomes, even whether a person will say a particular word in a speech. Win ten thousand dollars, all at the tip of your finger.

إِنَّمَا الْخَمْرُ وَالْمَيْسِرُ ... رِجْسٌ مِّنْ عَمَلِ الشَّيْطَانِ فَاجْتَنِبُوهُ
Innamal-khamru wal-maysiru ... rijsun min 'amali ash-shaytani fajtanibuh
Wine and gambling ... are a defilement from the work of Satan, so avoid it. (Sūrat al-Mā'idah 5:90)

Look at what Allah lumps together: alcohol and gambling, the works of Shaitan. And the Qur'an is precise, because the hadith tells us the first to gamble was Iblis — he invented it. The first to create and drink alcohol was Iblis. The first to bet was Iblis. To take that path is to follow the sunnah of Iblis. It is a trap he set, a defilement — so stay away.

🩸 Child Mode for the Adults

The other platform — whose name the minbar forbids — works the same way. A brother came to me for consultation, a victim of it, and said: "Sayyid, without using my name, I want my story to be a lesson, because I fell victim." How? "There was a YouTuber I loved to follow growing up. They were nice." That, akhi, is exactly how it starts. At first it's innocent. It's always excuses.

So to all the mothers and fathers: if you don't have child mode on, turn it on. And sometimes I look at the teenager, then at the adult, and say — habibi, turn on child mode for you too. You need restrictions applied. (Someone is pulling out his phone right now to switch it on.)

It is not that we don't trust you. Wallahi, we trust you. But it is not about you — it is the algorithm. It is a system built, designed, and engineered to push you in a direction, and it begins innocently. That is the greatest way to kill a soul: a dead person walking, whose value is now measured by how many people will purchase an image.

It is a snowball that becomes an avalanche. I remember the Rocky Mountains in Colorado — after a fresh snowfall, our friends would stand on the slope and simply scream, some even calling the adhan loud, just to watch the whole mountainside come crashing down. It only takes a push. One look. One purchase. One opening of the page. Trust yourself enough not to fall into Shaitan's trap.

⚖️ Dehumanize First, Then Kill

We will never forget the twenty-eighth of February, at the Shajara Tayyiba preschool — children who went as angels to school, expecting to learn science, math, Arabic, Qur'an, and Islam, just like your own daughters and nieces. You don't send her off in the morning expecting news that she was killed by a Tomahawk missile. And those responsible say, "We don't know," and later, "In war these things happen." But you keep telling us you are the summit of human rights, of women's rights, of ethics and morality. You knew exactly what you were doing.

How do you reach the point of justifying it? By dehumanizing women in your own backyard first. Before you spill blood, you must dehumanize. That is what Hitler did. That is what Yazid ibn Mu'awiya did, what Mu'awiya did. Before convincing you they deserve to die, they first prove to you that they are cheap. And how do you make a person cheap? Objectify them. "Sell your body. Purchase the image." Look how many millions she made, how many incels bought the subscription. Once you've normalized that, it becomes easy to one day say: kill 180 little girls at once.

This is femicide — the killing of women, normalized far below the threshold we'd ever tolerate for men. As Tolkien wrote: not all that glitters is gold; not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither; deep roots are not reached by the frost. Not all that glitters is gold.

And the bitter irony: you kept blaming us for being backwards, restrictive, conservative, traditional, too family-oriented. And one of the greatest ways you brainwashed half the population was by convincing women that their success is only valid if they can be like men. But a man cannot even be like another man; two men are not alike. So what is shameful about being a woman? About motherhood?

🌿 What a Mother Is Worth

To the young men and women who still have their mothers — alhamdulillah — do you know what your mother would cost if you had to pay her?

She is your personal chef who never takes a day off, who has no vacation. She is a nurse, a counselor, a tutor, a spiritual guide, a life coach, your Qur'an teacher — and she does it all not because she is paid, but because she loves you. You make one mistake and she will never fire you, yet we are so quick to fire her.

A study calculated the full-time stay-at-home mother's role: chef, nurse, tutor, counselor, spiritual guide — seven days a week, 365 days a year. To match those services, her paycheck would need to be roughly 450,000 dollars a year. Try, right now, to hire a full-time chef who will never leave, a counselor, a Qur'an tutor, a life coach. Isn't this the most epic role there is? Napoleon said it: give me great mothers, and I'll give you a great nation. A nation is raised at home.

Yet the plot has been flipped: no — become a man, and then you'll be valuable. So many reach their forties and fifties and say, "I was duped." None of this is to discourage the professional sister — that is awesome, I encourage it, I'm proud of it. Maintaining your principles while you accomplish whatever you want proves you can't be held back. Just don't be duped, my sister and my brother, into believing your purpose is only fulfilled by taking the Western, post-modern, objectifying example of womanhood — that you have to be like men.

🕯 Banning the Headscarf of Maryam

Step one is to demoralize — and it works exactly like Islamophobic law. Before they issue a hijab ban, they first build the fear.

The hijab — the "Muslim attire." Excuse me: the Christian attire. Was it not Lady Maryam who wore it? Excuse me again: the Jewish attire. I studied biblical studies — two hard years of my master's. In Deuteronomy, the dying will of Nabi Musa, women are to be sanctified and to shield their beauty. And in Corinthians, chapter 11, verse 6, in the writing of Paul: if a woman will not cover her hair and observe modesty, she should have her head shaved bald. Do we go that far in Islam? No — we do not shave a woman's hair for not wearing hijab. Yet I don't see bald Christian women walking around. And they'll say this only applies to nuns — so morality stays inside the church? No. Morality is not switched on only when you enter the Husayniyya, the masjid, the church, or the synagogue. Morality is you — everywhere you walk, staying on top.

France claims to be the greatest example of human rights and independence. Then why does it bother you if a woman chooses to carry herself a certain way? It starts by banning Sharia law — banned in several countries, and in a few American states like Tennessee. A representative in Michigan pushed for a Sharia ban "because we don't want stoning and beheading." As if that's the problem in Dearborn — too many Yemeni coffee shops. The real purpose of the ban is to lay the groundwork for a genuine ban later: in Quebec, Canada — supposedly so liberal — they banned the hijab. I thought you stood for immigration and pluralism, that you were "stronger because of our differences." First you ban Sharia to plant fear, then you spin off the law that bans the hijab. Not on our watch. We will be a voice and we will speak up — so I encourage brothers and sisters to get into law. Banning Sharia is like banning Ramadan: we will still fast, still pray, still give charity. What are you really afraid of? You are afraid of the identity of God-centric people who still carry a sliver of morality in a godless world.

🕊 The Man Who Bought 360 Lives

When the verse bi ayyi dhanbin qutilat was revealed, Sa'sa'a ibn al-Najiya came to the Messenger of Allah and said, "Ya Nabiyyullah, I saved 360 babies from death because of this." The Prophet said, "How? Tell me more."

He said: "The days of Jahiliyyah got to me. I couldn't bear to watch little babies buried for the crime of being born the wrong gender. So I went to each man and said, if you're expecting a child and it's a girl, do not bury her — I will give you two red camels." A red camel was like a red Ferrari today — expensive, luxurious. Just don't bury that child alive. "Ever since this verse was revealed, I kept bribing the fathers, and I saved 360 children. It was hard, ya Nabiyyullah, but I couldn't stop."

Sometimes humanity simply needs common sense to be reminded. And today, today, today — we need it again. How dare anyone justify killing innocent children — unless those children were seen as threats? Unless you cannot bear the thought of a future generation of God-fearing women, because that scares you to your core? Get rid of them now. And don't give the preposterous excuse that "we didn't know any better." You can read a name tag from space, but you couldn't see a pink backpack walking into the building? You couldn't see children laughing and running — or do you only notice them after they're blown to pieces?

🌙 The Two Forms of Goodness

Do you think this will stop us, make us give up? Wallahi, that will never happen.

قُلْ هَلْ تَرَبَّصُونَ بِنَا إِلَّا إِحْدَى الْحُسْنَيَيْنِ
Qul hal tarabbasuna bina illa ihdal-husnayayn
Say: do you await for us anything but one of the two best things? (Sūrat al-Tawba 9:52)

The two forms of goodness: either you die a shaheed, or you live victorious in the way of God. So we are grateful. We do not even ask you to believe in God. We only ask: please, at least don't call yourselves God — don't claim to be the champions of the rights of women and men while you bury them.

To the 180 mothers, I don't know what to say. This happened in the middle of Ramadan. How did they face Eid al-Fitr? I have no idea, and I haven't slept well since. These are Shia girls — half of them were probably named Zainab, Zahra, Kawthar, Ruqayya. These are like your own daughters. It should hurt you. It should pain you.

But there is solace. One mother said in an interview: "I still wait for my daughter to come home. We lived near the school, so I let her walk. Every morning she'd say Khuda Hafiz, Mama-jun, and come back. I still have hope she'll knock one day and run into my arms." To the one with the audacity to strip that from her, and to that mother, I say one thing.

لَا أَدْخُلُ حَتَّى يَدْخُلَ أَبِي وَأُمِّي
La adkhulu hatta yadkhula abi wa ummi
I will not enter until my mother and father enter.

The sahih hadith of the Messenger of Allah tells us that when an innocent child dies, they stand at the gate of Jannah and refuse to enter until their parents are brought in — they become shafa'a, intercessors, for them. A child who is not yet baligh or mukallaf goes straight to Paradise. So those 180 daughters are waiting for their mothers in Jannah.

🪦 The Imam Who Loved His Daughters

And there is one more solace: you now understand a degree of the musiba of Aba Abdillah al-Husayn — especially the moment he bid farewell to his young daughter, Fatima al-'Alila.

History records little of her. Shaykh al-Mufid mentions in his sirah that she was about four or five years old — Imam al-Husayn's special little girl. Every father loves his daughter, but the youngest is the apple of his eye. The Messenger of Allah said: blessed is the father of daughters — one is a blessing, two a great ni'ma, and whoever has three, Allah makes Jannah obligatory for him (when they are raised on the path of Aba Abdillah).

Some men today are angry to be given a girl. We no longer bury daughters — alhamdulillah — but we still pressure: "Another daughter? Have a son." As if a parent could choose. Yet it was the Messenger of Allah himself whose only surviving progeny was a daughter, Fatima al-Zahra (peace be upon her). Would you dare tell him to "have a son"? If Allah blesses you with daughters, say alhamdulillah — ask the 180 mothers of Minab how blessed you are to have a daughter.

Consider Sayyida Hanna, the mother of Maryam. Barren, she made a nadr — a binding vow: "Ya Allah, if You give me a child, I will devote him to the worship of You in Bayt al-Maqdis."

فَلَمَّا وَضَعَتْهَا قَالَتْ رَبِّ إِنِّي وَضَعْتُهَا أُنثَىٰ ... وَلَيْسَ الذَّكَرُ كَالْأُنثَىٰ
Falamma wada'atha qalat rabbi inni wada'tuha untha ... wa laysa adh-dhakaru kal-untha
When she delivered her she said, "My Lord, I have delivered a female ... and the male is not like the female." (Sūrat Āl 'Imrān 3:36)

She vowed a son for the temple, then delivered a girl, and worried: how can a girl serve in Bayt al-Maqdis? And Allah answered, wallahu a'lamu bima wada'at — I know better what she delivered — and the male is not like the female. Do you imagine for a moment that having a boy would have been the advantage? The young boy is not comparable to the girl she was blessed with. She held that vow as binding, took six-year-old Maryam to the temple, and said, "Go in and worship." Look at the bravery of that little girl — the same Maryam who, years later, in the anguish of giving birth to Isa, cried laytani muttu qabla hadha ("would that I had died before this"), because what was on the line was her chastity.

⚖️ Four Fingers Between Truth and Falsehood

The greatest decay of a society is to attack a woman's chastity. Any man who does this is no man at all. And women too must be careful: don't go after another woman's chastity — "I saw her leave the house at that hour, she must be..." — don't speak. On the Day of Resurrection Allah will hold you to account.

مَنْ وَعَظَ أَخَاهُ سِرًّا فَقَدْ زَانَهُ، وَمَنْ وَعَظَهُ عَلَانِيَةً فَقَدْ شَانَهُ
Man wa'aza akhahu sirran faqad zanahu, wa man wa'azahu 'alaniyatan faqad shanahu
Whoever advises his brother in private has adorned him; whoever does so publicly has disgraced him.

And whoever humiliates others for the sake of humiliation, Allah will humiliate him in this world before the next. Don't cast judgment on your fellow Shia, loving sister. You would never accept it for your own wife, daughter, or sister — so why accept it for others? If this were the time of the Messenger of Allah, Imam Ali himself would have taken you and taught you a lesson.

Imam al-Hassan al-Mujtaba (peace be upon him) was asked: what is the distance between truth and falsehood? He answered, "Four fingers" — the distance between the ear and the eye. What you hear with your ear you must verify with your eye. You saw something? It means nothing. You heard something? It means nothing. Have certainty, and spread nothing about anyone.

🩸 The Father Who Wrote Poetry for His Daughters

Imam Aba Abdillah al-Husayn looked at his little daughter as the greatest joy of his life. He loved his daughters so much he wrote poetry about Sukayna and Rabab:

How I love a home that holds within it my beautiful daughter and my dear wife.

Have you ever written poetry for your daughter and your wife? Have you shown them you care — or are you all hardness and anger, empty of compassion? Aba Abdillah teaches: that is not what makes a real man. Spend on your loved ones. Get down to their level. Get on all fours and let them ride on your back, as the Messenger of Allah did for Hassan and Husayn. Too manly for that? Then look to the manliest of men, Amir al-Mu'minin Ali (peace be upon him), who had the tenderest heart for his daughter Zaynab.

He would teach little Zaynab to count. "Say one." She said, "One." "Good. Now say two." She said, "One." Again: "Say two." Again she said, "One." He smiled, "Habibti, why won't you say two? I know you can." Look at her answer: "Father, how could I ever say two with the same tongue that said one?" — how could I name a second after declaring Allah's oneness? Allahu Akbar. He embraced her, kissed her, and said fidaha abiha — may her father be ransomed for her.

This is why you must be the teacher. Don't hand your children to YouTube without child mode — and the sad truth, ya habibi, is that even child mode is no longer safe. Why does a certain Disney cartoon dress provocatively? Why are shows normalizing what they normalize? Even what is labeled "child-appropriate" must be watched closely. Ali ibn Abi Talib was the best teacher; sometimes you must take the teaching into your own hands.

🌙 The Long Journey

They went after our daughters thinking they could make us hurt. They have hurt us — but if they think they can make us give up, that will never happen. Because just as many parents had to bid farewell to their children on the twenty-eighth of February, during Ramadan, our Imam had to bid farewell to his beloved Fatima.

He called her Fatima after his mother, Fatima al-Zahra — for he had pledged: if I had a thousand sons I would name them all Ali, and a thousand daughters I would name them all Fatima, because we live in the time of Banu Umayya who kill anyone named Ali or Fatima, and so I will resist by making every one of my children carry those names.

Fatima al-'Alila watched her father packing for what looked like a very long journey. No one told her to get ready. She saw her uncle Abul Fadl al-Abbas gathering his things to travel. She went to her aunt Zaynab — "Amma Zaynab, why is everyone packing for a long journey?" — but they would not tell her. So she went to her father:

"Baba, tell me where you are going. Will you come back soon, or is this a long trip?"

If you have ever had to leave your daughter behind, you know how hard it is — but how do you tell her when you know there will be no return? Imam al-Husayn said to her, "My beloved Fatima, indeed I am going to travel. But know that your father truly loves you, and you are a little too sick for me to take you." The 'ulama say this was his gentle excuse, so that a young girl, too attached to her father, would have a reason to accept it. He left her — one narration says in the care of Lady Umm al-Banin, another in the care of Umm Salama. As he set off from Medina, she embraced her father one final time:

O wind that carries away the fragrances, take me with you — let me see my beloved ones who have left me.

Then Karbala came. Kufa, then Sham. And the women returned. As the survivors entered Medina, Fatima al-Sughra rushed to her aunt: "Where is my father? Zaynab, I see you here — where did my father go?" No answer. "Where is my brother Ali al-Akbar?" No answer. "Where is my uncle Abul Fadl al-Abbas? Where are my sisters, Ruqayya and the others?"

At last the reply came: "O Fatima — as for your father, we left him in Karbala. As for your uncle, he is by the Furat, left to fight and buried there without his arms. As for your sister Ruqayya, we left her in Sham; she died of her misery in the prison of Yazid."

And Fatima al-Sughra began to cry out:

آهِ وَا إِمَامَاهُ ... وَا شَهِيدَاهُ ... آهِ وَا أَبَتَاهُ ... وَا وَيْلَاهُ
Ah, wa imamah ... wa shahidah ... ah, wa abatah ... wa waylah
Oh, my Imam ... oh, the martyr ... oh, my father ... oh, woe.