For many Muslims this year, celebrating Ramadan has become impossible — the ongoing genocide in Gaza has prevented us from being capable of that. In its place, we need to develop an iron resolve to stand up for the freedom of the Palestinian people.

This month we must reject hopelessness and commit ourselves to raising hell in the heart of the American empire that is enabling Israel’s war. Muslims, and people of all faiths who stand in solidarity with Palestine, must replace our prayer mats with the concrete of the streets across our country to ensure that no one in our ruling class knows peace until the genocide has been ended.

We should reject the apolitical spirituality that often permeates our communities, which encourages people to focus on prayer and cloistered ritual instead of taking action in the streets and in the halls of power. Here we can remind ourselves of the words of Martin Luther King Jr, who rejected a form of textual commitment separate from the realities faced by humanity in the here and now: