Where Is the Abraham of the Ummah?

ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلۡعَٰلَمِينَ وَٱلصَّلَاةُ وَٱلسَّلَامُ عَلَىٰ سَيِّدِ ٱلۡأَنۡبِيَآءِ وَٱلۡمُرۡسَلِينَ، مُحَمَّدٍ وَعَلَىٰٓ آلِهِ وَأَصۡحَابِهِ أَجۡمَعِينَ
Praise be to Allah, Lord of all worlds —— and blessings and peace upon the Chief of the Prophets and Messengers, our Master Muḥammad, and upon his noble family and all his illustrious Companions —.

O Muslims,
Today the Ummah stands at a crossroads where the signposts have long since faded, and the guides of the caravan lie dormant. The siege of tyranny, of a new Yazeediyat, tightens around us; clouds have gathered over the direction of our Qiblah; the laughter of our children, the veils of our mothers, the honour of our elders — all stand in the crosshairs of the adversary. We inhabit that solemn hour in history when every heart whispers the same question; and today I place before you a question that should stir the very depths of your souls:
Is there, in this Ummah, any Ibrāhīm left?

Ibrāhīm — who alone shook the very pillars of falsehood; who feared not the rending of his own flesh so long as the flame of faith burned undimmed; who turned the fire into a garden, who shattered the idols of the temple, who raised the call of truth in the marble halls of tyranny.

Ibrāhīm — that solitary man of truth before whom neither the majesty of a monarch nor the searing heat of the blaze could prevail. And the Almighty Himself bears witness:
إِنَّ إِبْرَاهِيمَ كَانَ أُمَّةً
Indeed, Abraham was a nation unto himself.

My brothers and sisters,
Our history bears witness: when darkness has gathered over the Ummah, Allah has raised forth an Ibrāhīm — sometimes in the form of a Ṣalāḥuddīn, sometimes as a Muḥammad bin Qāsim, sometimes in the mould of an ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. But today… our cities burn; our children sleep in their graves; our prayer mats are stained with blood — and we search for an Ibrāhīm.

O sons of the Ummah of Muḥammad ﷺ,
In our courtyards there is no rejoicing, only the wail of lamentation. In the streets of Gaza, toys lie caked in earth and blood, and mothers cradle the lifeless fragments of their own flesh, casting questioning eyes towards the heavens: Is there one who will hear our cry?
Hear this: in Gaza, an eight-year-old boy named Yūsuf clutched in his wounded hand a scrap of paper. Blood had mingled with the dust upon his young face. Upon that paper were written but three words: “أمي سأذهب إلى الجنة” — Mother, I am going to Paradise. But his mother never read this letter; for it was written to her, now lying martyred beside him, drenched in the same crimson earth.

In Kashmir, daughters yearn for the shadow of their fathers; the streams of the valley run not merely with water, but with tears. There, a mother stood beside her son’s bier. There were no tears left to shed, for grief had exhausted its wellspring. She spoke but one sentence: You were the last token of my martyred husband, and now you too have departed to join your father and your three brothers. She sent her message forth: Tell the Pharaohs of this earth that the wombs of our mothers are not yet barren, and our eyes still search the horizon for another Ibrāhīm. And she sent another message, to those leaders who, for the sake of hundreds of billions in trade, have laid their wealth at the feet of the Butcher of Gujarat — the very man whose orders unleashed the massacre of Muslims, the slayer of Kashmir’s faithful.

In Burma and Arakan, the homes of Muslims have been put to the torch. Along Burma’s shores stand destitute refugees, feet scorched upon the burning sands, gazes fixed heavenward — while India closes its borders and lends open support to the very forces that hack them down. In Africa’s famine, the children of the Ummah yearn for but a handful of grain; in Gaza, hunger now walks hand in hand with the bullet to finish them forever. For a crust of bread, Muslim children stand in the sun with outstretched hands, while the powers of this world grow drunk upon their arsenals worth millions.

And when these children were being lulled into eternal slumber not by lullabies, but by gunfire, the Pharaoh of the White House was pledging billions, in the name of investment, to swell his nation’s coffers — thus setting once more into furious motion the wheels of those war factories whose products will, in due course, rend asunder the lands of the Muslims themselves.
(Pause; voice lowered)

And we…? We quarrel over the price of oil; we fritter away our time in disputes over borders; we delight our enemy by entangling ourselves in sectarian strife. Yet the Qur’ān calls to us:
وَٱعۡتَصِمُواْ بِحَبۡلِ ٱللَّهِ جَمِيعٗا وَلَا تَفَرَّقُواْ
And hold fast, all together, to the rope of Allah, and do not be divided.

And yet we… pose for photographs in conference halls, applaud the resolutions we recite, and forget them the very next day.

O Muslims, the enemy stands united — whether Israel or India, America or Europe — all are in one rank. From Tel Aviv to Delhi, from NATO to the Pacific alliances, there moves a design both hidden and declared, with but a single aim: to scatter the cohesion of the Ummah. They seek to seize our resources, redraw our borders, and assail even the foundations of our faith; to plant their ideology into our syllabi; to ensnare our youth in the thickets of desire, until the valiant heat in their blood runs cold.

Upon the frontiers of technology, they rain bombs from their drones, re-fashion minds through artificial intelligence, and wield the media to cast our heroes as villains and our enemies as saviours. Mark my words: this century will not be fought solely with swords; it is the age of communication, of economics, of technological dominion. Our foes strike with drones, slay with the mind through propaganda, and enslave the Ummah by the chains of debt and economic dependency.

Remember this: if we do not guard the minds of our children and the soil beneath our feet, the day will come — and it is not far — when our history will be imprisoned within museum glass. Should the Ummah awaken, these weapons will prove but paper tigers. Yet… this is no hour for weeping alone; it is the hour to rise. We must rouse ourselves from slumber, tear away the veils of sect, race, and tongue, and stand as one Ummah.
For this, there is an imperative — a comprehensive, potent, decisive Islamic Summit Conference. Not a pageant of photographs, nor a gallery of speeches, but a convocation from which emerges a plan to marshal the resources of the Ummah; a declaration of joint defensive capability — with our own drones, our own satellites, our own cyber-defence systems. Believe me: within this Ummah are minds of such calibre, scientists of such genius, that they could fashion a shield far stronger than any Iron Dome.

Economic unity must be forged through self-reliance in oil, gas, agriculture, and technology. A strategy for the media war must be drawn — our own films, our own channels, our own narrative to keep alive the dignity and memory of the Ummah. For every oppressed land — Palestine, Kashmir, Burma, Arakan, Africa — there must be practical measures for relief and diplomacy. Such a summit must be one where leaders resolve, and the Ummah witnesses action — not the empty theatre of speeches followed by the humiliation into which we have sunk.

My brethren,
Today we require insight more than the sword, unity more than mere fervour. Our enemy has stolen our dreams — but he cannot steal our faith, so long as we strengthen the hands that hold it. This is no season for mourning alone; it is the time for counsel and for action. It is the time to rend the banners of sectarianism and nationalism and stand as one people.

This summit must not be an exercise in rhetoric, but a forge for practical strategy; not an exhibition of portraits, but an echo-chamber of resolve; not a mere conclave, but a rallying ground where the Ummah gathers beneath a single banner, in a single rank.

My friends,
This conference is not a luxury; it is a necessity. The ramparts of al-Quds call out to us; the soil of Gaza, drenched in blood, cries, “Where is the Ummah?” The valleys of Kashmir scream, the charred villages of Burma bear witness, the famine-stricken Muslims of Africa shake the conscience of our souls.

When, before the unblinking eyes of the world, the fragile bodies of innocent children gasp their final breath beneath the rubble; when the mothers’ shawls are steeped in crimson and the sanctuaries of worship are reduced to cinders—one cannot but ask: has humanity been relegated to the pages of books alone? Pakistan—endowed with faith, history, and the formidable shield of nuclear capability—can it remain a mere spectator? Or shall it transmute its voice into such a clarion call that it rends the tyrant’s ear and rekindles a glimmer of hope in the oppressed heart? This is no hour for silence; it is the hour for conscience to awaken—for the blood flowing upon the streets of Gaza is not solely a testament to Palestinian suffering, but a summons to our own honour.

It is now an oft-repeated charge that, in the recent conflict between Pakistan and India, Mr Netanyahu and Mr Modi acted in concert against us. It is no secret—indeed the Prime Minister of Israel has himself, more than once, proclaimed upon the world’s airwaves—that he would see Pakistan’s nuclear programme dismantled or destroyed. Nor is it concealed that Israel, beyond supplying India with its Harop “suicide drones” and other armaments, dispatched operators to Indian soil, from where they directed strikes against Pakistan. Why then, one must ask, if we responded to India’s assault with the vigour it deserved, have we not met Israel’s actions in like manner?

I am, by profession, an analyst; it is for others in the seats of authority to answer such questions to the nation they serve. Yet my own political reading is thus: not directly, but indirectly—through the concerted deployment of diplomatic and legal instruments—Pakistan may exert a measure of influence. But decisive effect demands the harmony of great powers and regional coalitions alike. The reasons for our restraint are not obscure. Pakistan and Israel have neither diplomatic intercourse nor trade; the levers of unilateral economic or bilateral pressure are meagre. The lodestar of Israel’s military posture lies chiefly in the firmament of greater powers, particularly the United States; it is there that persuasion or access falters at the first hurdle.

Under international law, unless Israel was engaged in an immediate and ongoing attack upon Pakistan, we may not wield force—be it nuclear or conventional. To retaliate militarily in the Gaza theatre in answer to an assault elsewhere would invite the charge of “cross-theatre reprisal”: an unlawful act of aggression, regardless of the nobility of intent. Any such move would furnish Israel and India with the mantle of victimhood, however spurious. The use of force is sanctioned only in self-defence or with the mandate of the United Nations.

Nor may we disregard the geographical fact: we share no frontier with Israel, no direct economic nexus. The arsenal of conventional pressure is thus limited, and nuclear weapons serve—above all—as instruments of deterrence, not as the tools of operational warfare, least of all in humanitarian crises. Were it otherwise, the Soviet Union might have deployed atomic arms to forestall its defeat and dissolution in Afghanistan; yet it did not. The United States, for all its unchallenged puissance, likewise refrained in Afghanistan from repeating the grim precedent of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, though under President Trump it did unleash the “Mother of All Bombs”.

What then remains for Pakistan to do? With the Saudi Foreign Minister’s unequivocal declaration that recognition of Israel shall not precede a two-state solution, the moment calls for prompt and purposeful action. Pakistan should summon the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, lay bare Israel’s role in the Indo-Pakistani conflict, and, with Riyadh’s good offices, lay the foundations of a defensive pact alongside Turkey, Iran, and Malaysia, to which other states might later accede. In parallel, the United Nations Security Council—having in 2024 passed Resolution 2728 for a Ramadan ceasefire and subsequent resolutions thereafter—affords us a rostrum from which to insist, without pause, upon enforcement.

We may table resolutions, marshal pressure within the Security Council, intervene in or supply evidence to the ongoing proceedings before the International Court of Justice, and employ the levers of collective economic and political sanction through the OIC and other blocs. The ICJ’s provisional orders—issued on 26 January, 28 March, and again in May 2024, including injunctions to halt operations in Rafah—offer a legal fulcrum upon which to lever global opinion. Several European states have already extended diplomatic recognition to Palestine; Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Malaysia could, through analogous legal engagement, augment the political and moral weight of the case.

Joint resolutions, embargoes on arms exports, and the guarantee of humanitarian corridors—these are the sinews of collective influence. Support for the ongoing mediation by Turkey, Egypt, and Qatar, coupled with advocacy in European and British public discourse, might serve to bridle Israel’s course. At home and abroad, aid for refugees and the wounded, campaigns by the press and civil society, and principled appeals to global corporations—these will not silence the guns directly, but they will raise the political cost of their continued thunder.

The plain truth, as of this hour, is that fighting persists; operations in Gaza City and Rafah stir resistance from across the globe; the United Nations, Europe, and the Muslim world alike voice grave disquiet. Pakistan has spoken its condemnation without equivocation. Yet, whether nuclear or not, we cannot, within the bounds of international law, deliver a military riposte in Gaza—nor can we compel Israel, unaided, to end the war. But we may, by diplomatic, legal, economic, and moral means, shape the tide in concert with neutral powers, with the great powers, and with the OIC—our efforts interlaced with the machinery of the United Nations and the bonds of the Arab and Islamic world. The hour demands that such exertions be united with those of the few nations that still bear real sway over Israel’s hand.

And so the choice lies before us: to drift into the margins of history, our words enfeebled and our will uncertain; or to inscribe, through unity, law, diplomacy, and faith, a chapter that assures our descendants we did not merely witness injustice but rose to oppose it. Nuclear strength is not merely the possession of powder and steel; it is a trust—to uphold the weak and to raise the banner of justice. Should we fail to stir now, tomorrow’s chroniclers may write: “Whilst Gaza burned, Pakistan remained silent.” And that single line may shame an entire century.

To seek an Ibrāhīm for the Ummah is not to long for a solitary man, but for that spirit awakened in every Muslim heart — that together we may take the step which shall lead the community from the shadows of subjugation into the light of dignity.

Let us renew our covenant: that until every man, every hamlet, every nation within the Ummah becomes the support of his brother — we shall not sit, we shall not bow, we shall not sell our honour. Let us pledge before our Lord that we shall be the Ibrāhīms of this age and shatter every idol of Ṭāghūt.

Here, this day, in this assembly… let us resolve that we shall be the Ibrāhīms of the Ummah. We are the people who do not accept defeat, who bequeath to our children both the Qur’ān and the sword, who water their dreams with their own blood. We shall break every idol of tyranny, whether it be of power or of falsehood. We shall challenge every force of evil that seeks to erase the dīn of Allah.

We shall rise beyond the walls of sect, tongue, and race, as one Ummah. We shall be the voice that cannot be silenced, the hands that cannot be bent, the hearts that cannot be bought.

O Allah, turn our heedlessness into wakefulness; fill our frail hands with the steel of Your succour. Grant us the courage of Ibrāhīm (ʿalayhi as-salām), the sacrifice of Ismāʿīl (ʿalayhi as-salām), the defiance and rallying cry of Mūsā (ʿalayhi as-salām), and the mercy and example of Muḥammad ﷺ. Fill our hearts with the light of īmān; bind our ranks as one; bestow upon us the zeal of ʿUmar (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu), the insight of ʿAlī (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu), and the patience of Bilāl (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu). O Allah, make us one Ummah; plant concord in our rows; fashion us as a wall of molten lead against oppression.

O Allah do not let the blood of our martyrs be shed in vain; grant them the highest stations in al-Firdaws; carry the tears of our mothers to Your Throne; make the living among us soldiers in Your cause; and grant this Ummah the leadership that will shake the palaces of tyranny.

O Allah, make us the founders and guardians of an Ummah over which even the angels rejoice.
Āmīn, Yā Rabb al-ʿĀlamīn.
وَآخِرُ دَعْوَانَا أَنِ ٱلۡحَمۡدُ لِلَّهِ رَبِّ ٱلۡعَٰلَمِينَ.
And the end of our prayer is: Praise be to Allah, the Lord of all worlds —