The king's wife and civil peace

By the field coordinator of the Coalition of Civil Forces, Fayez Zaqout:

It is related that one of the kings of the Arabs in the age before Islam went to ask for a young woman's hand, and after she and her family agreed he wished to consummate the marriage at her family's house. She refused and said to him: is that fitting, and you a king? They then set out, and on the way he proposed to consummate the marriage, and she refused and said to him: does that befit you, and you a king? They went on until they reached their home, and he said to her: now we are in our house. She said to him: how can you consummate our marriage while Arab blood has been spilled every day for forty years? By this she meant the war of Dahis and Al-Ghabra between the tribes of Abs and Dhubyan, which claimed many lives, among them the poet Antarah ibn Shaddad and many others. Once the king was persuaded by his wife's words, he went and made peace between the two tribes and put an end to the shedding of blood, so that peace and harmony prevailed between them.

Here we must stress that what the king's wife did shows nothing but great wisdom, and that what drove the king to take this position was nothing but the chivalry and nobility of the Arabs of that time. If we compare our role today as Muslims and Arabs with that of the Arabs before Islam, we find it incumbent on us to give the language of reason precedence over self-interest, and the people's interest precedence over the interest of the faction.

Unfortunately, today we find that whenever we board the ship of salvation together to reach safe shores, we find ourselves before two great branches like the branches of Rosetta and Damietta, and we drift further apart. As a people oppressed for decades who have struggled for their just causes, it does not befit us today that what is happening between us should happen: a political, geographical and social division that the occupation exploits, pursuing daily systematic policies against our people.

We must therefore strengthen noble cultures in our society, such as civil peace, tolerance and the acceptance of others, and rise above our wounds. Will civil peace become a song the young repeat, or a tune the grown sing, or a saying the old and the wise draw on, or will it remain a hope that people of reason dream of?