This evening at home, having nothing much to do, me and girls watched “Lion of the Desertâ€. For me not first time, I saw it many times before, but emotions were always the same. For girls - first time. And they loved it (off course heh). But, as they came to age where they want to know just everything, questions were just coming one after another: Who is Omar Al Mokhtar, from where he is, why they wanted to kill him, why they wanted to take his land and his people, etc, etc. Asya even start to ask about years: Mom, how many years before us he lived? How old he was when they killed him? So, I, as a good mom,****dont roll your eyes, its not healthy****, settled myself in front of PC, opened google and other fellows and searched. This is what I found:
Sidi Omar Al Mokhtar was born in 1862 in a small town called Zawia Janzour of the tribe of Mnifa, Libya. At that time, Libya was part of Ottoman Empire.
He was well known by his courage and wisdom, even in his young age. Once, he traveled with a caravan to Syria and the lion showed up, stopping people from continuing their way. Whole caravan was terrified. They wanted to give a camel to the lion, so hopefully he would let them go. But Omar carried his shot gun, rode his horse and went after the lion. He came back with lion’s head. This is how he got name “Lion of Cyrenaica.“
In October of 1911, Italian battleships reached Tripoli, Libya. Intentions were occupation and ruling the land, off course with people same. The Italian’s leader demand to the Turks to surrender Tripoli to the Italians or the city would be destroyed. The Ottoman Turks fled and the Italians attacked Tripoli anyway, bombing the city for three days.
That would mark the beginning of a series of battles between the Italian occupiers and the Libyan Mujahedeen.
Libyan resistance begun with less then a thousand of Mujahedeen, but with time number changed to six thousand. Sidi Omar, teacher by profession, was a master strategist in desert guerrilla tactics. He also knew geography of his country well and how to use it against Italians, who were not accustomed to the desert.
With his small, mobile groups, he attacked Italian troops, cut lines of supply and communications and left the huge Italian army embarrassed.
But…they knew the cowardice way to make the Mujahedeen weak. They have imprisoned Libyan men, women and children in concentration camps. They have moved entire tribes miles away from their homes, in a desert. About 120.000 Libyans were forced into these camps, the two thirds are perished. People were constantly tortured. In this way Italians were weakening Mujahedeens in two ways, by cutting off the moral and economic support and stopping more men to join Sidi Omar’s group.
In one of the battles, Sidi Omar Al Mokhtar was wounded and Italian army captured him. He was 70 years old. Lion of the desert. They have paraded with him, showing him to the people like a long time hunted and finally captured animal. They gave him a joke of a trial and he was executed by hanging in a public place, in Sulooq, on 16th of September, 1931. In front of eyes of his beloved people. His last words were the words from Qur’an, the book that was always with him: Inna lillah wa inna ilayhi rajioun.-From God we have come, and to God we must return…..
Subhanallah…What a story….Mom has only one question: Do men like this exist today? But I really doubt…
History is repeating…Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Pakistan….Allah knows where else…Where are the Omars of our time??
p.s.Thank you Moustafa Akkad, for giving chance to my girls to see a REAL hero and take him as a role model, true symbol of faith and someone to look up to. Not some Hollywood made, fake, stupid brain washers.
help this ummah. We desperately need it, yarab….
