Arab Archives - Fitness and Philosophy

A world Gone Cold
By: -Reem Youssef-

In shadows deep where silence reigns,
The cries of many drown in chains,
What once was right now wears a mask,
As apathy becomes our daily task.

Evil walks with a casual grace,
While kindness fades without a trace,
We turn away, our hears grown numb,
As suffering echoes, a distant drum.

Children laugh in sheltered light,
Unaware of the endless night.
Yet guild creeps in like a thief at dawn,
For every joy, a sorrow drawn.

How can we feast while others starve?
Injustice thrives where we should carve
A path of hope, a hand to lend,
But instead, we watch as shadows blend., read more

For as long as I can remember, and back from when I was a young child still living in Lebanon, I would hear the word “Shaheed” and “Martyr”. And though I have not stopped hearing those words throughout my whole life, there have certainly been times where I’ve heard them used a lot more. Specifically, social media outlets in the West have a need to sensationalize the word “Martyr” and how it relates to Arabs, and specifically Muslims.

In this post I want to delve a little bit into both the meaning and the translation of the word “Shaheed”, most commonly used and understood in the West as “Martyr”. My hope is that critical analysis of these terms helps to expose the biases and discriminations that arise from misusing them. read more