The name of victory is the Al-Aqsa Flood

January 15, too, after October 7, has been recorded as one of the days of God that we will mention with great pride, confidence and faith. The aftershocks of the Al-Aqsa Flood that began on October 7 opened the way, at the beginning of last month on December 8, to the magnificent revolution awaited for 61 years in Syria. From there the turning of the world moved on and brought to victory the resistance that continued in Gaza for 466 days against the world's most powerful armies with very little material strength but with great determination, faith and perseverance.

A victory as real as the sun, clear, limpid, a source of pride and hope. A victory that took place at the point where all hope had been exhausted against the domination of bandits who have made themselves sovereigns of the world. We saw thus that the good who have been left weak in the world can win only through their determination and the power of their faith. We saw fulfilled the promise of our Lord, who announces that how many a small company has triumphed over a large company.

We read this in the Book and we believe it, but we never know how much we really believe. Most of the time we think that this faith is a very distant, even impossible possibility in the realm of facts. This time, in front of us there are no comparable asymmetric forces as there were in the past. There is an incomparable, astronomical-level asymmetric imbalance of power. Against the Zionist war machine, unlimitedly supported by the world's superpower, the United States, and by some European countries, against a force the size of its legendary intelligence, to what degree can a "small company" prevail? No mathematics, no logic, no statistics would even approach comparing Hamas's military power with Israel's super-technological and equipped force. But it is precisely this superpower that Hamas brought to its knees. This small company, this small and simply armed company, prevailed over the large company, over the world's superpower. Thus the promise that God recounts in His Book, which to many today seems so historical, so mythological, so irrational, was lived once more as a plain reality.

Yes: by dying, by being wounded, by having their homes destroyed, by going hungry, by being subjected to massacres that fell upon children, women and elderly, journalists and health workers, students and teachers, from humanitarian aid volunteers to men of religion. Fifty to sixty thousand people were martyred. Gaza was turned upside down, and every part of it was ruined.

Those who look at this scene and say "was it worth it?" should try to look from the Gazans' point of view. They are the ones fighting the war. They are also the ones who can give the truly correct answer as to whether it was worth fighting it. For them, waging jihad in the way of God to defend their homeland is a way of life. Martyrdom is included in this life; indeed, martyrdom is the greatest reward. Are they looking from the narrow window of this world that you look from?

The victory won is not a victory they won for their own persons, but a victory won for God, who created life and death and who owns both this life and their Hereafter, and in the way of God. The believer struggles against injustice in this world and fights for a more just and more honorable life, but does not wage this struggle in the name of living paradise on earth. The ultimate reward of the struggle waged on this path is with God, in the Hereafter.

So let no one try to do a profit-and-loss calculation by looking at the price the Gazan has paid. Let them just look at this result: they won a victory of a clarity, an honor and a grandeur that will not easily be granted to anyone, even in this world. They made a superpower kneel with their simple weapons and their small numbers. When they entered this extremely asymmetric war trusting in God's promise, they reached the goal they had set. They disgraced Zionism. They brought down its legends of strength and invincibility. They rendered useless the propaganda that it is the only democracy in the Middle East and the most modern and humane government. They made ridiculous the despotic Arab regimes that had entered a race to normalize with Israel.

Even had it not obtained the result of January 15, the Qassam Brigades had already obtained all this with October 7 alone. But for some people the result matters. For them too, the victory that on January 15 broke the arrogance of the Zionist regime and made it sit down to an agreement closed the story with a magnificent beauty.

Israel did not reach any of the goals it set in the savage, genocidal aggression it launched right after October 7. One of the two goals was to finish Hamas and sweep it out of Gaza, and the second was to rescue the hostages in Hamas's hands. Far from sweeping Hamas away, at the end of the day it had to wait for Hamas to sign the peace agreement. It assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas's leaders, treacherously in Iran, in a manner befitting a terrorist organization and not a state. And in killing its other leader, Yahya Sinwar, it gave the resistance a greater power, such as would resurrect him a thousand times.

Anthony Blinken, who since October 7 has given Israeli aggression every kind of support not as a US Secretary of State but "as a Jew," had to admit three days ago that Israel had not been able to deal Hamas a serious blow. He also added that at the end of 466 days he had begun to assess that "Hamas has recruited as many new militants as it has lost."

For 466 days the Hamas mujahideen, with the operation footage they published every day, quite literally went on mocking the world's superpowers. While the Zionist force used the latest-model technological weapons it received from the United States against the mujahideen, the mujahideen took the wreckage of these munitions and used it as material to make their own weapons. How could this not drive mad both Israel, which has kept Gaza under blockade for years, and the powers behind it? Let them impose as much embargo as they want, let them try to destroy as much as they want. By using the wreckage of the bombs the enemy dropped as raw material for its own weapons, Hamas also gave an instructive lesson, both to the enemy and to the Islamic countries that withhold their aid out of fear of Israel.

It is a clear victory, and there are great lessons in it for all people and especially for Muslims. Against those who say realpolitik, who say realism, who count coins and stamps under the name of gains, this victory granted to Hamas invites everyone to a new reckoning that requires reviewing the view of life, of the world, of everything. A different reckoning, as it were, that our minds, kneaded with modernity, realism and rationalism, cannot grasp.

For 466 days, as Israel defied the world, trampling in plain view all of humanity's values, honor and dignity, no one uttered a peep against it, no one would even agree to help the people of Gaza. Abu Ubaida said openly: "We are not asking you, 'God forbid,' for weapons or military aid or anything; at least deliver the aid sent to our people who are being tested with hunger."

But this rampant enemy, against which no one could utter a peep, Hamas brought to its knees alone, without receiving (or being able to receive) military aid from anyone, only with its own faith, patience and perseverance. It made all of humanity witness the fulfillment of God's promise. May God make it blessed.