❤I Am the Voice of a Child: This War Is Not Ours, and This Is Not Islam❤

I could be any child. I could be your son, your nephew, your neighbor. I had a backpack filled with dreams and crayons. I wanted to become a teacher. I loved mangoes in the summer and stories before bedtime.

But that was before the explosion.

That was before someone convinced a young boy—not much older than me—that pressing a button could lead him to paradise.

That boy never came home.

And neither did I.

You see, I was just standing in line with my schoolmates when the ground shook. There was no warning. No siren. No time to run.

Only silence after the blast.

People say I was lucky because I didn’t suffer long. But how lucky is a child who never gets to finish his drawing? How lucky is a mother who now hugs a picture frame instead of a warm body?

They told me the man who sent that boy believed he was doing it in the name of Islam.

But the Islam I learned at home—on carpets soft with prayer, through stories whispered by my grandmother—was not about death. It was about life.

My father once told me:

"Islam means peace, my son. It’s the smile you give your neighbor. The bread you share with a stranger. The mercy you show when you have the power not to."

What kind of Islam puts bombs in backpacks and tells children they are soldiers?

What kind of God would reward those who destroy the innocent?

When I think about the boy who carried the bomb, I don’t feel hate.

I feel sadness.

I wonder who lied to him. Who promised him that heaven was just one detonation away. Who convinced him that by stealing lives, he would gain eternal reward.

Maybe he was afraid.

Maybe he had no one left to tell him he mattered.

Maybe he thought the only way to be remembered… was to make the world shake.

But I want to tell him something, even if it's too late:

You were already enough.

You didn’t need to die.

You didn’t need to take us with you.

To those who send these boys into crowds, into markets, into schools:

You are not warriors.

You are thieves.

You steal childhoods, mothers, mornings, and prayers. You steal futures.

And you dare to do it while holding the Qur’an in one hand and a remote in the other?

Do you not know that the Prophet cried when a bird was harmed?

Do you not know that he stopped a war because a mother deer was separated from her fawn?

Where in that legacy is there room for exploding children?

I am not a martyr.

I am not a symbol.

I am simply a boy who wanted to live.

I wanted to memorize the names of stars, not become one.

And to those who still live:

Please, don’t let my death be just another number in the news.

Don’t scroll past my story like it doesn’t matter.

Speak up when you see hatred hiding behind holy words.

Remind your sons and daughters that faith is not fire—it is light.

Teach them that the real jihad is not taking lives, but saving them.

I hear the world now more clearly than I ever did.

I hear the whispered tears of a father who thought his son was safe.

I hear the silent prayers of a mother who hopes her child is just late—not gone.

And I hear the voices of thousands like me, echoing through the rubble:

"This is not Islam. This is not peace. This is not what God wants from us."

If you truly love your faith, protect its image.

Don’t let criminals drape themselves in its banner while burying children beneath it.

Speak. Write. Resist—not with hate, but with mercy.

Not with bullets, but with books.

Not with bombs, but with the boldness to say: "Enough."

Extremism isn’t just an enemy of peace. It’s a betrayal of the very faith it pretends to defend. Through the voice of one child, silenced too soon, may we find the courage to reclaim the true essence of Islam: compassion, wisdom, and mercy.