The War Within

Another movie over the topic which I believe represents the reawakening of the dormant muslim identity. Muslims all over the world are facing very difficult conditions be it poverty, injustice, dictatorships, discrimination to all out labelled as terrorists. Whether we want it or not, whether we like it or not, our being muslim is asking us to think and react to all this that is happening around us. No day goes by when we don't hear a news that ignites, incites, challenges or simply jolts our conscience and puts us in a situation where we must say something, where we just can't keep quite and wait and be patient and hope for the best. Many of us don't want to do anything bad, we want to act rationally and live in the true spirit of our religion but the environment is charged and overcoming.

This movie 'The War Within' to me depicts the struggle a muslim, any muslim, goes through every day of his life in this present time. It is a war we are fighting within ourselves. The head is telling us that there is clearly a more rational and correct way to respond to this situation and violence and impulsiveness is not the answer. But, we cannot seem to find our way. The heart is too overcome with the pain of helplessness to agree with the head and work with it to come to something more useful. It asks for something to be done to relieve this pain, something practical, something tangible, something noticable. Not just debates, not just roadmaps to success and clearly not rationality. We are confused over what the will of Allah is. We want to live by it but we don't know who to ask. We don't know where to go. During the movie the character Hassan quotes this verse from Quran:

2:216 FIGHTING is ordained for you, even though it be hateful to you; but it may well be that you hate a thing the while it is good for you, and it may well be that you love a thing the while it is bad for you: and God knows, whereas you do not know.

The burden of guilt and the pain is increasing day by day. Somthing has to be done, something must be done and that's what hassan does, in the movie, despite his background. He lived a complacent and carefree life. He was graduate student in paris where it happened. He was arrested in suspicion of involvement in terrorism. That event changed his life and triggered that 'war within' his head and his heart. Each wanted its way and the stronger got it.

Official Movie Website