Al-Qalam 
By Dr Haseena Majid
South Africa has shown the world what solidarity looks like. Our people — especially in Indian Muslim communities — have given generously to Gaza, cried with her people, and taken to the streets to protest Israel’s violence. We have condemned the U.S. and Israeli occupation, called out apartheid, and reminded the world that we know what injustice feels like. We are, in so many ways, on the right side of history.
But there’s something rotten at home!
Behind closed doors, too many Muslim homes are burning. And it’s not bombs falling from planes — it’s patriarchy, abuse, control, and silence that are turning these spaces into war zones. Women are burning out. Children are watching, learning, and breaking.
You call yourself a man, but you are Netanyahu. And your army? It’s your mother, your sisters, your silence. You drop bombs of emotional, psychological, and spiritual violence every day, and because your house isn’t turned to dust, you think it doesn’t count.
You believe your wife must have a pot of food ready, yet you don’t put a single coin on the table you eat from.
Your pregnant wife is hand-washing clothes while your mother disconnects the washing machine to prove a point.
Your friends, cousins, and sisters bond with you by tearing down your wife, then cry for justice when their own husbands hurt them.
You appear on demand for neighbours and parents, but call your wife “lazy” when she struggles to cope without help.
You’ve let your mother steal every family tradition meant for your wife and children, and when she passes, you curse the same days you never made space for.
You raise your voice, puff your chest — but haven’t fulfilled even one of your wife’s basic rights. Who are you, little boy?
You use your wife for sexual release but can’t offer her conversation, comfort, or care.
You pay the bond, the school fees — but she and your children pay with their mental health and their bodies every time you roar or raise a hand.
She falls asleep alone while you serve everyone else, and when she finally speaks, she’s called ungrateful.
You threaten to leave her, but can’t wash your own underwear. Your life is built on unpaid female labour.
You believe your mother’s tears, but ignore the rivers your wives and children cry.
You pay maintenance, but your ex-wives pay in invisible currency — with their time, dreams, and sanity.
You offer your mother emotional intimacy because your father never did — and now you’re repeating that failure in your own home. Who are you, little boy?
You praise other women online, subscribe to porn, and ignore the woman who once glowed — now wilted under disease, exhaustion, and neglect. What you water grows, and you’ve let her die of thirst. Who are you, little boy?
You are not innocent.
You are not neutral.
You are not religious — you are in violation of everything Islam commands about kindness, protection, and justice.
You are the illegal settler.
You are the occupation.
You are the Zionist in your own home.
You want to speak for Gaza? Start by liberating your wife.
You want to support Palestine? Dismantle the oppression within your own walls.
Because if your solidarity doesn’t start at home, it’s not solidarity. Its performance.
*Dr Haseena Majid is the Operations Director at USAWA, an SA-based charity and social advocacy group that addresses disparity in healthcare and education. Their website is www.usawa.org
