ISIS was never a project of faith; it was a project of death. It did not build a homeland, did not liberate a human being, and did not protect a religion. It left behind graves, ruin, bereaved mothers, and destroyed cities in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and elsewhere, attempting to sell its crime to the world as a heavenly message. Between what it did in Mosul, Raqqa, and Sinjar, and the crimes it committed against Muslims, Christians, Yazidis, and others, the same truth repeats itself: when extremism turns into an armed political ideology, the human being, with all that they are, becomes its first victim.
The painful thing is that terrorism does not always need to occupy land to defeat a society; it is enough for it to sow fear among neighbors, to make the Christian fear the Muslim and the Muslim doubt the Christian, and to sow division—for this is the foundation of their being and the basis of their existence—to convince people that a difference in faith is more dangerous than the crime itself. To sow chaos and sectarianism, and then the terrorist has achieved part of their goal even before firing their last bullet.
But Jordan is not a collection of adjacent sects, nor churches separated from their mosques, nor groups waiting for someone to decide if they have a right to life. Jordan is one homeland, and the blood of its children is not of varying degrees of humanity. The tragedy in Hamoud is not the tragedy of one family alone; it is the tragedy of every Jordanian home, regardless of the religion of its people, the name of their tribe, or their place on the map of this country.
We will not allow the killer to choose for us the form of our relationship with one another. We will not grant them the right to define religion, nor the right to represent Muslims and Christians, nor the right to turn Islam into a banner of fear. Whoever kills a safe person because of their identity is not defending religion; they are attacking religion, humanity, and the homeland all at once.
Oh homeland, we want justice that reveals the truth, determines responsibilities, and holds accountable everyone who participated in the crime, planned it, incited it, or funded it, and [identifies] the responsible party, why, and what is intended to be done—are they lone wolves or part of a misguided pack—all according to the law and evidence. We want a serious confrontation with the ideology that legitimizes killing, not campaigns of emotion or accusations. Fighting terrorism is not done by producing new injustice, but by revealing the truth, protecting people, drying up the sources of extremism, and preserving the unity of society.
As for those who delude themselves that their bullets can erase the history of coexistence in Jordan, let them know that the homeland in which the Jordanian, of every background, origin, and religion, has lived side by side, will not surrender its identity to a group of killers. Terrorism may hurt us, and it may snatch loved ones from us, but it will not make us abandon our humanity, and it will not make us treat our neighbors as enemies.
May God have mercy on the victims of the Hamoud crime, grant patience to their families, bestow healing upon the injured, and protect Jordan and its people from the evil of extremism and terrorism.
Retribution for the killers, and shame upon every ideology that makes human blood a sacrifice for its delusion.
