It was a sunny spring day in May, when Italian Andre Cazola woke up excited and happy.
Today is the day of the match that had been booked months prior.
The European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus!
The first thing he glanced at when he opened his eyes, was the uniform of his team hung neatly behind his room door.
He had bought the uniform months ago and wanted to wear it on an important occasion… like today.
He reached under his bed to feel the floor. Then a smile appeared on his face, as his hand touched the new shoes, which he had bought only yesterday, along with a long pair of socks that reached his knees.
Everything is ready… It will be a great day!
I forgot to tell you two things though
Number 1- Andre was only 11 years old.
Number 2- he was killed inside the stadium that day.
On the tenth of January, 630 AD, the Islamic army, led by the Prophet Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (Peace and Blessings be upon him) entered Makkah, conquering the city and destroying its idols… It was the day of their greatest victory… And as a sign of this victory, a man ascended to the top of the Kaaba and raised the call to prayer!
Before I reveal to you two astonishing points about this moment, it is important to mention that Islam was revealed to the Arabs in a place called ‘the Arabian Peninsula’, and the language of the Quran is Arabic. Also, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him.. and most of the Muslims “at that time”, were pure Arabs…. and most importantly, their pride in their Arabism was and still is a huge part of their identity.
Now for the first surprise:
The one who raised the call to prayer in that historic moment, was not an Arab… but an Abyssinian!
Abyssinians are not Arabs…
That man’s name was Bilal Ibn Rabah.
I’ll tell you the second amazing piece of information in a moment, but first let me give you a fictitious scenario.
A person goes to the doctor and discovers that he has – may Allah protect us all – a brain tumor. One of the symptoms of brain tumors is high fever. The doctor gives him some aspirin and sends him home.
If that scenario was real, the patient would die, and the doctor would be guilty of killing him. He would be charged with medical manslaughter as a result of gross negligence.
Treating an isolated symptom, while neglecting the root disease, inevitably kills the patient.
Football Hooliganism is not a disease in itself, but a symptom of a disease that is worse and more deeply rooted in history and human nature than we can imagine.
The Disease is called “tribalism”
It is the tendency of man to favor those who resemble him in form or principle, and to fight the rest.
Do you remember the football war, which started after El Salvador beat Honduras in the World Cup qualifying match? There were riots that literally evolved into a war with fighter jets and tanks!
Wait… absurdity is everywhere…but, to this degree?
Yes, remember what I just said… Football Hooliganism is just a symptom of the disease of tribalism.. And in this situation,, the disease was in its late stages and so was its manifestation, as the two countries hated each other for political reasons.. Each of them had been waiting for an opportunity to tear the other apart.
The question now is: Do you think that a citizen of either of those two countries would stand up against his own country’s army in this madness? Perhaps. But what I know for sure is that the Prophet Muhammad, peace and be upon him, said:
” Help your brother whether he was the oppressed or the oppressor, and the way you do the latter.. Is by stopping him from his oppression.”
The same theory applies, be it a tribe that wears feathers and fights with spears in the forests…or one that wears a uniform-colored shirt and fights with flares in the stands.
That’s why the Prophet, peace be upon him, said: “He who calls to tribalism (asabiyyah) or fights for tribalism, or dies for tribalism, is NOT- FROM – US.”
The islamic nation is not based on the exclusion of others, as is the case in various human groups, whether political, national, or even fan clubs. Rather, Islam is based on the exclusion of those who call for exclusion… as it is understood – literally – from the hadith.. Tribalism has no place in Islam. Whether its pride in one’s family, lineage, or anything else.
The prophet Muhammad peace be upon him said:
” Allah has removed from you the burden of ignorance, and its pride in the ancestors, you’re either pious believers or an immoral wretched. Verily, every human is a child of Adam, and Adam was (created) from dirt “.
Now, let me tell you the second point about Bilal Ibn Rabah, the man who raised the call to prayer on the day of the great victory! Many Muslims, rather most of them, do not know that his origin was not Arab.
That is because Islam had already cleansed the ignorance of tribalism from the hearts of those who transmitted these events to us. Caring about a person’s genealogical roots- whether he was an Arab, an Abyssinian, an Asian, a European or an Indian- was insignificant.
He was a Muslim, and that was it..
There is always something that distinguishes you from the person sitting next to you… be it color, language, race, family, appearance, age, intelligence, education, wealth, occupation, political opinion, artistic flair, or sports team. That is, you will never lack a way to exclude the other in some way.
This is why the Noble Qur’an set a common principle for all human beings, and then established- not the most important, but- the ONLY … criterion, to differentiate between human beings.
Listen to this:
{O people! Verily we created you from a male and a female, and we have made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another….}
And any criterion other than the Qur’anic criterion will guarantee endless tragedies.
Because that person you hate on the other side.. is not the other team embodied.. He is just.. another person.
And maybe this person, came to enjoy a match with his son…..
Maybe his name was.. Giovanni Cazola… who was forty-five years old, who travelled with his son Andre.. -that we mentioned at the beginning of this video – to Hazel Stadium in Belgium to watch the European Final, and — neither- of them- ever – returned..
Or maybe he was just a young boy who wrote a letter saying that, if he dies for any reason, his eye corneas should be donated to those who need them.
His name was Anas Mohie, an Egyptian who also died in riots in 2012 when he was only 15 years old.
or maybe his name was Santos Abreu, the Brazilian who was himself a football player, and was killed on the field – and he was only thirty-one years old? Or… Giuseppini Conte – Italian – 17 years old.. Or Christopher Loftus – English – 37 years old Claudie Robert – French – 26 years old.
