References
A disclaimer on the word “after”: It should by no means imply that the genocidal conditions are over. The “ceasefire” announced at the end of 2025 has been broken countless times by Israel, and no justice has been sought for the people of Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestinian inhabitants of the Occupied Territories. Immoral wars and the illegal occupation of Palestine persist; hence, there is no real “after” to the Gaza genocide, yet. The use of the word “after” here is to convey a projected and forward-looking analysis of an ongoing, continuous reality. Books by Christian and Jewish theologians have already been penned and published about Gaza, such as John and Samuel Munayer, The Cross and the Olive Tree: Cultivating Palestinian Theology amid Gaza (Orbis, 2025); Bruce Fisk and Ross Wagner, Being Christian after the Desolation of Gaza (Cascade Books, 2025); and Peter Beinart, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning (Penguin Random House, 2025). As the primary victims of the genocide are Muslim, this article is motivated by an attempt to contribute to the theological debates on Gaza from the vantage point of the faith community most impacted by mass violence.
Ḥātim ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, “Min al-tadāfuʿ ilā al-tamkīn: Kayf nafham al-sunan al-Ilāhiyya?,” Jeser Podcast, YouTube, October 30, 2025, youtube.com.
Sunan Abī Dāwūd, no. 4291.
Indeed, there are Prophetic signs (ishārat) pointing to the validity of such an interpretation in the following hadith, which stresses the lofty station of the end-time virtues of guarding the frontier (ribāṭ) in the face of enemies of Ashkelon (ʿAsqalān), Palestine, largely thought to be the area in and surrounding Gaza today: “The beginning of this matter is prophecy and mercy, then it will be caliphate and mercy, then it will be kingship and mercy, then there will be imāra and mercy, then they will fight over authority like fighting donkeys biting one another. So hold fast to jihad, and the best of your jihad is ribāṭ , and the best and most virtuous of your ribāṭ is ʿAsqalān.” Related by al-Ṭabarānī on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās in al-Muʿjam al-kabīr, no. 11138. Al-Haythamī said “its men [i.e., narrators] are trustworthy.” Majmaʿ al-zawāʾid, 5:193..
No English equivalent to the word ṣumūḍ exists. It connotes a combination of patient, defiant resilience with steadfastness and perseverance.
British sociologist Professor David Miller defines “Pax Judaica” as the expansionist aims of “Greater Israel,” which, according to the founding father of Zionism Theodor Herzl, is the goal of achieving a Jewish state stretching “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” In February 2026, United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee ignited intense international controversy during an interview with podcaster Tucker Carlson by suggesting that Israel has a biblical right to expand its territory across a vast portion of the Middle East. This expansionist policy is corroborated by a document entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,” a 1996 policy prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a US study group led by Richard Perle. “A Clean Break” advocated taking out “seven countries in five years,” shifting from “land for peace” to “peace through strength,” promoting regional regime change, dismantling the Oslo peace process, and aligning closely with the US to reshape the Middle East, which is arguably firmly underway. Darryl Li’s white paper, “Anti-Palestinian at the Core” connects the so-called War on Terror and the ambitions of Greater Israel, and makes a blunt claim: Islamophobia in the US did not begin with 9/11—it was incubated through hostility to Palestine. “Anti-Palestinian at the Core: The Origins and Growing Dangers of U.S. Antiterrorism Law,” Palestine Legal and Center for Constitutional Rights, February 2024, ccrjustice.org.
This architecture of vassalage became increasingly more evident in the response to the March 2026 war on Iran of Arab states such as Jordan, the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait in their direct support for Israel-US military efforts against Iran with security and military coordination as well as the direct presence of US defense bases on these lands. These Arab states view Iran’s influence and proxy networks as existential dangers; therefore, they prioritize national security over Islamic solidarity in this conflict.
Scholars such as Mohamed Elshahed argue that this aggressive campaign of repressing Islam began as early as the 1950s and 60s, but saw its zenith in the Arab Spring, with “the Rabaa massacre as being not simply an event; [but] a manifesto. It announced that the state was willing to kill its own citizens on an industrial scale to eliminate Islamic political agency.” Mohamed Elshahed, “The Structural Ignorance Behind Declaring Islam a Death Cult,” The New Arab, December 7, 2025, newarab.com. See also “Paid to Defame: How the UAE Funded Smear Campaigns Against Muslim Communities in Europe,” Alistkilal, January 2026, alestiklal.net; “Egypt: Rab’a Massacre Reverberates 10 Years Later,” Human Rights Watch, April 14, 2023, hrw.org; Tariq Dana, “The Military-Industrial Backbone of Normalization,” Middle East Research and Information Project, October 20, 2025, merip.org; Simon Speakman Cordall, “Will Morocco Stay the Course on Israel Normalisation?,” Al Jazeera, January 12, 2024, aljazeera.com; Liam Adiv, “Morocco Selects Elbit Systems as Main Weapons Supplier,” The Jerusalem Post, February 9, 2025, jpost.com; “Abraham Accords,” Grokipedia, grokipedia.com; David D. Kirkpatrick, “Can an American Hold the United Arab Emirates Responsible for a Smear Campaign?,” The New Yorker, January 24, 2024, newyorker.com; Alisa Odenheimer and Brendan Murray, “Red Sea Attacks Force Firms to Test New Land Routes Via UAE, Saudi,” Bloomberg, February 2, 2024, bloomberg.com; Gavin Blackburn, “Egypt Blocks Activists from March to Gaza to Draw Attention to Humanitarian Crisis,” Euronews, December 6, 2025, euronews.com; Allison Minor, Daniel B. Shapiro, Amir Hayek, Loay Alshareef, Ahmed Khuzaie, and Sarah Zaaimi, “The Abraham Accords at Five,” Atlantic Council, September 15, 2025, atlanticcouncil.org.
The term “Judeo-Christian” is a relatively modern construct, emerging in the aftermath of World War II and during the Cold War. It has been widely adopted by Christian communities and American political leaders to gesture toward a supposed set of shared moral principles between Judaism and Christianity. In practice, however, the term is often weaponized to marginalize those outside this framework—most notably Muslims.
See Sara Braun, “US Troops Were Told War on Iran Was ‘All Part of Allah’s Divine Plan,’ Watchdog Alleges,” The Guardian, March 2, 2026, theguardian.com.
In addition to normalization treaties such as the “Abraham Accords,” Arab states did not cease their trade agreements, land bridges, arms deals, and security and intelligence coordination with Israel during the Gaza genocide. See Tariq Dana, “The Military-Industrial Backbone of Normalization,” Middle East Research and Information Project, October 20, 2025, merip.org; Simon Speakman Cordall, “Will Morocco Stay the Course on Israel Normalisation?,” Al Jazeera, January 12, 2024, aljazeera.com; Liam Adiv, “Morocco Selects Elbit Systems as Main Weapons Supplier,” The Jerusalem Post, February 9, 2025, jpost.com.
Qur’an 26:151–52.
See footnote #4.
See Jacob Williams, “Islamic Traditionalists: ‘Against the Modern World?,’” Muslim World 113 (2023): 333–54, doi.org; Walaa Quisay, Neo-Traditionalism in Islam in the West: Orthodoxy, Spirituality, and Politics (Edinburgh University Press, 2023).
See Mohammad Mansour, “Rats Run Over Our Faces: Gaza’s Displaced Forced to Live on Infested Land,” Al Jazeera, February 16, 2026, aljazeera.com.
See Omar Suleiman, “Husayn ibn Ali (RA): Redefining Victory, The Firsts Series,” Yaqeen Institute, YouTube, July 1, 2025, youtube.com.
Qur’an 9:16.
Qur’an 47:24.
See Muḥammad Saʿīd Ramaḍān al-Būṭī, Min sunan Allāh fī ʿibādih (Dār al-Fikr al-Muʿāṣir, 2011); Arnold J. Toynbee, A Study of History (Arnold Toynbee, 1934).
Qur’an 47:10.
Qur’an 2:251.
Qur’an 24:55.
Qur’an 7:137.
Qur’an 28:5.
Qur’an 58:22.
In describing the end of times, the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ spoke of the civil strife, the dark, blinding plague (fitnat al-duhaymāʾ), “which will leave no one from this umma without being slapped. Within it, a man will be a believer in the morning and a disbeliever by evening, until people are divided into two camps: a camp of faith with no hypocrisy, and a camp of hypocrisy with no faith.” Sunan Abī Dāwūd, no. 4242.