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Saudi ambassador to the UK, Dr Ghazi Al-Gosaibi’s poem in the praise of the martyrs of Palestine caused a stir and led the British foreign office express its displeasure forgetting that the whole Palestinian problem was a creation of Britain.

A former Saudi health minister, Dr Al-Gosaibi is a prominent poet. In fact his earlier poem ‘A pen bought and sold’ (1984) cost him his ministerial berth. The poem was published by the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat on 13 April. Entitled The Martyrs, praises Ayat Akhras, the 18-year-old Palestinian [see right] who blew herself up in a Jerusalem supermarket on 29 March, killing two Israelis and wounding 25 - an act of sheer desperation against the zionazi criminal occupation and onslaught on the remnant of Palestine. 

God is witness, you are martyrs
So do witness prophets and saints
You died to glorify the Word of my Lord
in quarters sanctified by the Prophet’s ascension
Did you commit suicide? No, we’ve committed suicide
preferring a life of the living-dead.
People, we are dead, let’s listen to the elegy
We’ve turned impotent, 
so much that impotence grumbles against us
We wept until weeping divorced us in disdain
We prostrated until prostration sought help against us
We hoped until hope left us in disgust
We complained to the tyrants of a white house 
whose hearts overflow with darkness
We kissed the shoe of Sharon 
until the shoe cried: stop, you have worn me out..!
People, we are dead but earth refuses to embrace us in.
Tell Ayaat, O’ bride of the Heavens!
All beauty stands ransom for your eyes
When paragons, the cream of my people, are castrated
A beautiful [woman] stands up to the criminal
She kisses death with a smile
While leaders flee away from death
Paradise opened its gates for your and greeted
Fatima Al-Zahraa1 was in your welcome
Tell those who pen fatwas: hang on
Many a fatwa fills Heavens with anger
When Jihad calls, ink has to fall silent
And so does pen, books and faqihs2
When Jihad beckons, no fatwa3 is sought
Fatwa on the day of Jihad is blood.

Translated by Zafarul-Islam Khan {view poem in arabic}

1 The Prophet’s daughter. 2 Faqih: jurisprudent 3 Fatwa: legal opinion.

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