Faisal Husseini wrote this prayer on the day of the first massacre at Al-Aqsa on October 8, 1990. Faisal was walking with his usual demeanor and pride, when something inside him made him stop. He felt a bullet whizzing his head, and so he evaded certain death.

New Birth

When that bullet whizzed by my head I knew it was not an accident. It was supposed, or expected to lodge in my head. It was an involuntary movement that I made to evade death, to face a new beginning. I continued to wonder if that bullet did not really strike me in the head. Has that bullet and the ones following it, really not killed me? I mean has it not killed the human being that lived in this body up till that moment. Has that human being died and I am now another one? That place was full of hatred and anger, of fears and doubts of the spirit of revenge thirsting for blood, of hurricanes that wreck human values. I was forced to breathe in all that with the tear gas that the police had fired in the holy place.

No, that human being that lied in my body for years did not die, but was born again, with a new will a new strength and a profound faith. It was a new birth, where things were more refined, clearer and more illuminated, with a light that guides and almost builds the pathway. All around me, moans were gunpowder congested noses and eyes. In the midst of this shifting atmosphere, gloomy with death and catastrophe, I began to prepare my plea and my prayer:         

Oh God, the chest is replete with bitterness… do not turn that into spite.
Oh God, the heart is replete with pain… do not turn that into vengeance.
Oh God, the spirit is replete with fear… do not turn that into hatred.
Oh God, my body is weak… do not turn my weakness into despair.
Oh God, I your servant am holding the embers… so help me maintain my steadfastness.
Oh God, faith is love… Oh God faith is forgiveness… Oh God, faith is conviction…
Oh God, do not put of the flame of faith from my chest.
Oh God, we wanted for the Intifada a white one, so please protect it.
Oh God, we wanted freedom for our people, we did not want slavery to others.
Oh God, we wanted a homeland for our people to gather them, we did not want to destroy states of others, nor to demolish their homes.
Oh God, our people are stripped of all things, except their belief in their right.
Oh God, our people are weak except in their faith and in their victory.
Oh God, grant us conviction, mercy and tolerance in our ranks, and not make us war against ourselves
Oh God, turn the blood that was shed into light that will guide us and strengthen our arms, do not let it turn into fuel of hatred and vengeance.
Oh God, help us over our enemy so that we can help him deal with himself.
Oh God, this is my prayer to you… my invocation, so listen to it and grant us our supplication and guide us to the right path.