A Year Like None Other

by Deanna Othman

2011 has been one of the most eventful years in recent history.  Scarcely can an end-of-year recap boast a list as packed as that of 2011.  From the toppling of seemingly unmovable dictators to the capture of wanted criminals, it has been a year like none other:

·         January 14: The Tunisian government falls after a month of protests; President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali flees to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in power.

·         February 11: Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigns after widespread protests calling for his departure.

·         March 11: A 9.l magnitude earthquake and subsequent tsunami hit the east of Japan, killing 15,822 and leaving another 3,926 missing.

·         March 15: Syrian uprising against dictator Bashar Al-Assad begins.

·         May 1: President Barack Obama announces that Osama bin Laden has been killed during an American military operation in Pakistan.

·         May 26: Former Bosnian Serb Army commander Ratko Mladi, wanted for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, is arrested in Serbia.

·         June 12: Thousands of Syrians flee to Turkey as Syrian troops lay siege to Jisr ash-Shugur.

·         July 9: South Sudan secedes from Sudan, per the result of the independence referendum held in January.

·         July 20: Goran Hadzi is detained in Serbia, becoming the last of 161 people indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; The United Nations declares a famine in southern Somalia, the first in more than 30 years.

·         August 20-28: In the Battle of Tripoli, Libyan revolutionary fighters took control the nation's capital effectively overthrowing the government of Muammar Gaddafi.

·         September 17: Occupy Wall Street, a series of demonstrations in New York City's Zuccotti Park in the Wall Street financial district, begins.  The series of demonstrations that spread across the nation was initiated by Canadian activist group Adbusters.

·         October 18: Israel and Hamas begin a major prisoner swap, in which the captured Israeli Army soldier Gilad Shalit is released by Hamas in exchange for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

·         October 20: Former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is killed in Sirte, with National Transitional Council forces taking control of the city.

·         October 23: A destructive magnitude 7.2 earthquake jolted eastern Turkey near th city of Van, killing over 582 people, and damaging about 2,200 buildings.

·         October 31: Date selected by the UN as the symbolic date when global population reaches 7 billion.

In reflecting on these monumental events, some celebratory, other catastrophic, one thing becomes entirely apparent: how quickly Allah (SWT) can change a state of affairs.  We often feel as if our current state is a perpetual one; if we are healthy, financially stable or in a good relationship, we become secure and never imagine that situation might change.  Similarly, if we are in a difficult situation, whether financially, mentally, physically or spiritually, we may also feel despondent, as if our condition is permanent.  However, if we can take anything away from the deposing of such ostensibly everlasting figures like Gaddafi or Mubarak, it is that the world, and our own state can change in ways that no human could foresee.  It is all in the ultimate plan of Allah that one incident, whether in the world or in our own lives, can spark a reversal of fortune.

Such a realization should lead us to feel hope in difficult times that Allah will bring us ease, and should also inspire us to be thankful, and pray to Allah for continued blessings in times of comfort and contentment.  In surah 70:19-23, Allah says, "Truly man was created very impatient.  Fretful when evil touches him; and stingy when good reaches him.  Except those devoted to prayer.  Those who remain steadfast to the prayer."

These verses demonstrate that the key to appreciating good times and enduring the bad is prayer.  It is this source of strength that inspires the young man to leave his family to fight for the freedom of his people; for a girl to go out in the streets to voice her beliefs, knowing she might be shot at or killed; for the youth of a nation to rise up against an unjust leader who has stifled their hope for any meaningful future.

The events of 2011 should lead us to imagine what other presumably impossible occurrences could become a reality through the strength of the believers and, more importantly, the will of Allah.  One can only imagine.