Their Legacy

Amina, thought to be about three, was pulled from the rubble in Mosul after being 

trapped for days. The little girl is believed to be the daughter of ISIL fighters from Chechnya 

who died in battle.© Carol Guzy via ZUMA Wire

Their Legacy

The child, only moments before 
buried deep in the debris of a bombed
building has been schooled beyond her
three years of life. Asked where her 
parents are, she responds "shaheeds"
her eyes blank of fully understanding
the tiny orphan layered in the dust of
an explosion, wistful and lost but
saved from death, her confused mind
steeped in a memory that will visit
and revisit her consciousness as years
pass. And what of her future, hers and
that of the countless other abandoned-
to-martyrdom castoffs of warriors of
Islam jubilant in their release from life
in the process of slaughtering infidels
who cannot and will not join them in
paradise since they are forbidden entry
as kuffars. This child may remember
her parents' lessons as will others
older than her, but the weeks-old
infants not yet ripe for paradisaical
ambition will know little of their ardent
antecedents who joyfully subscribed to
the sacred injunction to go forth and
perform jihad, the fruit of their labours
seen in the atrocities they commit and
the forlorn offspring left to carry on.