|
If you had seen him and had come to know about his
accomplishments, you would definitely have realized the meaning of what
Almighty Allah says in this hadith qudsi,
"When I love (my servant), I become the hearing
with which he hears and the sight with which he sees." (Al-Bukhari)
Hardship From the Beginning
Born in the village of Al-Joura south of the Gaza Strip in
1938, Sheikh Ahmed Isma`il Yassin led a life of hardship from his early
childhood. His father died when Yassin was 5 years old. In the wake of the
1948 defeat, when he was no more than 10 years old, Yassin and his family
had to flee to the Gaza Strip where they would eat from the remnants left
by the Egyptian army, which was stationed in the region. The third tragedy
in his life happened in 1952, when the then 14-year-old Yassin had an
accident while playing sports with other boys. He had a fracture in his
neck, resulting in the total paralyzation of all his limbs. He realized
then that he would remain shut indoors for the rest of his life.
Determination
The calamity that befell Sheikh Yassin at this early age
would have been enough to destroy the life of any person. However, the
sheikh was not the sort of man to give in to despair; it was not long
until he finished his high school education in 1958. He managed to get a
job in spite of objections made by some because of his paralysis. He
taught Arabic and Islam and then worked as an imam in the mosques of Gaza.
His strong arguments and his bravery in declaring the truth won him an
unprecedented reputation in the Gaza Strip.
Following the 1967 defeat, and in spite of the occupation,
Sheikh Yassin kept on stirring up the feelings of Muslims in his sermons
at Al-`Abbasi Mosque. Moreover, he was active in collecting donations and
helping the families of martyrs and detainees. In 1973, he founded the
Islamic Complex in Gaza, which he remained president of until 1984.
In 1983, the occupation forces detained Sheikh Yassin on
charges of possessing weapons, establishing a military organization, and
instigating people against Israel. The sheikh was prosecuted before a
Zionist military court, which sentenced him to 13 years in prison. Yet he
was released in 1985, after only 11 months in prison, as part of a
prisoner exchange between the Israelis and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Then, along with some Muslim activists who adopted the
Muslim Brotherhood's ideology, Sheikh Yassin established an Islamic
resistance movement called Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 1987. The objective
of the movement was to resist the Israeli occupation and to liberate all
Palestinian lands. It played a significant role in the Palestinian
Intifada, which broke out in December of the same year and came to be
known as "the Mosques' Intifada." From then onwards, Sheikh
Yassin was regarded as the spiritual leader of the Hamas movement.
As Palestinian resistance activities increased, Israel
took after Sheikh Yassin more persistently. In 1988, the Israelis searched
his house and threatened him with exile in Lebanon. Then, in 1989, they
detained him together with hundreds of Hamas members. In 1991, an Israeli
court sentenced him to lifetime imprisonment, plus 15 years. He remained
in jail until 1997 when, on the basis of an agreement between Jordan and
Israel, he was released in return for two Zionist agents who had been
detained in Jordan in the wake of a failed assassination attempt on Khaled
Mash`al, the chairman of the Hamas Political Office.
Israel continued to pursue its attempts to assassinate
Sheikh Yassin. In 2003, Sheikh Yassin survived such an attempt by Israeli
helicopters that bombed the flat in Gaza where the sheikh and Isma`il
Haniyyah were staying.
Dialogue
Sheikh Yassin persistently called for national unity.
Throughout his lifetime, he adopted a flexible attitude towards the
Palestinian Authority, and was always respected by its head as well as its
senior leaders.
Moreover, Sheikh Yassin was known for his readiness to
enter into dialogue with everybody. He once stated, "We, in the
Islamic Resistance Movement, have never closed the channels of dialogue
with any state of the world, not even the United States of America.
Dialogue is open to everyone."
Faith
Dr. `Abdul-`Aziz Ar-Rantisi once said, "I have never
in my life seen anyone who committed his affairs to Allah the way Sheikh
Ahmad Yassin did."
Throughout the hard life that he suffered, the paralysis
that deprived him of the flower of his youth, and the detainments and
assassination attempts to which he was subjected, Sheikh Yassin was full
of trust in Almighty Allah, as illustrated by his words:
The secret (of success) lies in willpower,
determination, and faith. The one who pursues this world will lose
everything if he loses it. Yet a faithful person who believes that he is
heading for Paradise as wide as the heavens and the earth, will be eager
to move from mortal life to a life of rest, tranquility, and stability
with the Lord of the Worlds. He is waiting for this day, fighting and
striving to be one of the winners when it comes. That is why he stands
firmly in the battlefield until his last breath.
Martyrdom
On Monday, March 22, 2004 / Safar 1, AH 1425, at dawn, the
dream that Sheikh Yassin had entertained for so long came true. Shortly
after he left the mosque where he had performed Fajr Prayer, three Israeli
rockets were shot at him and those around him. In addition to the sheikh,
eight Palestinians were martyred. With this raid the story of Yassin's
life came to an end, but another story began: the story of the generation
that the sheikh had established by raising them with his blood, heart,
mind, and faith.
This is the "crippled" man who made and is still
making the world stand up. This is Sheikh Ahmad Yassin. May Allah have
mercy upon him.
|
