– Rimsha Maheen
Hamza was only sixteen when he picked up his first camera. Not a fancy one, just his uncle’s old phone with a cracked screen that barely held charge. His uncle, a journalist named Mahmoud, had been killed three months earlier while filming families trapped under rubble. They found him still clutching his camera, the last video showing him running toward screams instead of away from them.
“Why did Uncle Mahmoud go there?” Hamza asked his mother that night, anger mixing with confusion. “He knew it was dangerous. He had us. Why?”
His mother was quiet for a long time. Then she opened Mahmoud’s notebook, the one the hospital had returned with his belongings. On the first page, Mahmoud had written a verse: “O you who believe, stand firmly for justice, as witnesses for Allah, even if it be against yourselves or your parents or your relatives.” (Qur’an 4:135)
Below it, in his handwriting, were the words: “Because silence is betrayal. Because if we don’t tell their stories, who will?” That was when Hamza understood. His uncle hadn’t just died. He had chosen to live fully, even if briefly, as a witness!
Hamza started small. He filmed his neighbour Abu Ahmad, a fisherman who hadn’t been allowed to fish beyond six nautical miles for seventeen years. “The sea is right there,” Abu Ahmad said, pointing, his weathered hands trembling. “But we’re prisoners even in the water.”
He filmed Umm Youssef baking bread in a makeshift oven built from rubble and old metal sheets. “We make life from destruction,” she said, smiling despite everything. “This is our resistance, staying alive, staying human.”
He filmed children playing football in bombed-out buildings, their laughter echoing in spaces where families once slept. One boy, no older than eight, told him, “When I grow up, I want to be a journalist like your uncle, so people know we’re not just numbers.”
Each video carried a verse or reminder.
When he filmed the fisherman, he added: “And whoever saves a life, it is as though he has saved all of mankind.” (Qur’an 5:32)
When he filmed destruction: “Indeed, with hardship comes ease.” (Qur’an 94:6)
When he captured funerals: “Do not say about those who are killed in the way of Allah, ‘They are dead.’ Rather, they are alive, but you perceive it not.” (Qur’an 2:154)
The views began to rise, hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands. People from Malaysia, Turkey, Indonesia, Morocco and all over the world were commenting: “We see you. We hear you. You’re not alone.”
But with visibility came danger.
One night, his mother grabbed his arm, fear in her eyes. “Hamza, please. They’re targeting journalists. You’re just a boy. Stop this.”
“Mama,” Hamza said gently, showing her his phone, “look at these messages. A sister in Egypt says she makes dua for us every night. A brother in London organised a protest because of our videos. A teacher in Malaysia is showing our clips to her students so they understand. How can I stop when Allah says, ‘Speak the truth even if it is bitter’?”
His mother wept. Not because she disagreed, but because she knew he was right. And she knew what being right might cost.
Hamza continued. He filmed doctors working 72-hour shifts in bombed hospitals with no anaesthesia, performing surgeries by phone flashlight. He filmed fathers carrying their children’s bodies, praying janazah in the streets because graveyards were full. He filmed journalists’ funerals. Colleagues of his uncle, boys barely older than him, all killed while holding cameras instead of weapons.
“They kill us because we show the truth,” his friend Ahmed said one day, another young journalist who had lost his father the same way. “But isn’t that exactly why we have to keep going? Allah says, ‘And do not mix truth with falsehood or conceal the truth while you know it.’” (Qur’an 2:42)
The night Hamza filmed the aftermath of the marketplace bombing twelve families gone in seconds. His hands shook so badly he could barely hold the phone. A little girl’s shoe. A man’s prayer beads. A woman’s scarf still tied, waiting for its owner who would never return.
He sat among the rubble and cried. Not just for them, but for everyone watching who would scroll past, feel sad for a moment, and then forget. How many times could he show death before people became numb?
Then he remembered something his uncle had written: “We don’t film to make people cry. We film so they can’t claim they didn’t know. We film because whoever remains silent about the truth is a silent devil.”
Hamza uploaded the video with a simple message:
“This is what resistance looks like. Not weapons. Just people refusing to disappear. Just journalists refusing to be silenced. Just kids like me refusing to let the world forget we exist. We’re not asking you to save us. We’re asking you to witness. To stand for justice as Allah commands. To use your voice when ours are being silenced. ‘Help one another in righteousness and piety, but do not help one another in sin and transgression.’” (Qur’an 5:2)
The video reached three million people.
Six months later, Hamza’s school was bombed. He survived, but three of his classmates didn’t. At their funeral, he stood with his camera, not filming, just holding it. A reminder. A promise.
An old man approached him. “You’re Mahmoud’s nephew, aren’t you? The one who films?”
Hamza nodded.
“Your uncle used to say something,” the old man continued, his eyes wet. “He said we’re not just fighting for land. We’re fighting to be remembered as human beings. You’re doing that, son. Every video, every story, you’re making sure we’re not erased.”
Hamza looked at his camera, then at his friends being lowered into the earth. “I’m scared,” he admitted.
“Good,” the old man said softly. “Only the brave know fear and choose truth anyway.”
Reflections for Us All
Hamza’s story isn’t powerful because he is extraordinary. It moves us because he is ordinary. A teenager with a broken phone and an unshakable faith that truth matters. Hamza’s story is not just of one boy with a camera; it is a reminder of how noble and accountable the profession of journalism truly is.
In a world where truth is often twisted, and silence becomes a safer choice, the courage to document, speak, and share is an act of conscience, even worship when done with sincerity. The lesson isn’t complicated: stand for justice, even when it’s terrifying. Especially when it’s terrifying. Allah did not promise that standing for truth would be easy. He promised it would be worth it.
Hamza’s lens was not for fame, but for shahadah, to testify to the truth. When the world looks away, it becomes the duty of every witness, every viewer, every heart that feels to share, to amplify, and to stand beside truth.
For in times like these, silence too becomes a choice and Hamza reminds us which one the believers make. Every share, every post, every dua, every protest you are part of the resistance. Not with weapons, but with witness. The Prophet ﷺ said: “Whoever among you sees an evil action, let him change it with his hand; if he cannot, then with his tongue; if he cannot, then with his heart and that is the weakest of faith.”
Even your heart’s rejection of injustice matters.
Palestine teaches us this: oppression survives on silence; justice lives on witness. The journalists who die with cameras in their hands understood what too many of us forget that bearing witness is an act of worship, that speaking truth is jihad, and that refusing to let people become statistics is how we stay human.
Hamza still films every day through fear, through grief, through exhaustion.
Because some stories are too important to die with the people who lived them.
Because Allah is watching how we respond to the cry of the oppressed.
Because one day, we will all be asked: What did you do when you saw injustice?
And “I didn’t know” will not be an acceptable answer when the evidence was on every screen.
