Centering The Children Of The Ummah – Artist Petrit Halilaj’s Work On Kosovo Resonates In The Moment Of Palestine

Prophetic Mercy Towards Children

Once, the Prophet ﷺ kissed Hasan in front of a Qurayshi man, who reacted in dismay. “I have ten children, but I have never kissed any one of them,” the man said, a reflection of a society and age where children were thought of as objects and mere sources of prestige. The response of the Prophet ﷺ was simple: “Whoever is not merciful to others will not be treated mercifully.” In other hadith, the Prophet ﷺ made this point even more explicitly about young people, saying “Whoever does not show mercy to our young ones, or acknowledge the rights of our elders, is not one of us.” The Prophet ﷺ had exceptional moral vision and clarity in many ways, all while existing amid an incredibly harsh and repressive society. His treatment of children and the young is just one example of this; treatment that was full of care and genuine concern for the well-being and humanity of the young in an age which dehumanized them and thought of having children in entirely utilitarian terms. The Prophet ﷺ exemplified this regard for the young in his conduct, a shining model of those who are older not regarding themselves as somehow superior by virtue of age alone. 

Today, more than 13,000 children in Gaza have been killed by Israeli bombardment, and those left behind face conditions of famine and the destruction of educational and medical infrastructure that will impact them for the rest of their lives. And yet, much of the world seems to sit idly by, exhibiting no real sense of compassion or empathy for their plight, let alone doing anything about it: like in the time of the Prophet ﷺ, children are being regarded as having no value and are relegated to being mere casualty numbers and objects for news reports. Understanding the Prophetic practice of caring for the young feels particularly vital today then, as we find ourselves in the face of a genocide that dehumanizes and destroys the lives of children. In these conditions of crisis, the ummah must seriously ask ourselves whether we are, like the Prophet ﷺ, standing against this culture of disregarding children or are we acquiescing to the culture of dehumanization around us? Why are we failing to live up to the example of intense care and valuing of youth given by the Prophet ﷺ? Are we sincerely striving to honor the children of our ummah, to be a mercy to them, and make them feel important and empowered? 

The Ummah’s Children in Contemporary Art 

These questions of how we hear children’s voices in times of crisis have taken on a dramatic, three-dimensional form on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in its most recent Roof Garden Commission. Standing on the roof, looking out over the view of Central Park and the City’s famous skyline, one’s vision is interrupted by large, cartoon-like metal renderings of spiders, birds, flowers, and a wide range of other imagery and symbols. 

These sculptures are, at least on the surface, the work of Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj, but their real authorship becomes more complicated when considering Halilaj’s source material. If Halilaj’s work appears whimsical or childlike, it is because it is: the sculptures on the roof garden are based on children’s drawings and writings on desks from the school in Halilaj’s hometown of Runik, Kosovo, and from across Albania and the former Yugoslavia. In Abetare, the title of the Met exhibit taken from the title of a Kosovar alphabet textbook, and in other works like Very volcanic over this green feather based on his own childhood drawings from his time in a refugee camp, Halilaj draws on the work and imagination of children to ask serious questions about history, trauma, and memory. 

Children As Witnesses and Historians 

Kosovo is perhaps a forgotten chapter in the history of the ummah for many Muslims: the Balkans do not often figure into people’s imagination of what is considered the “Muslim world,” even if over 95% of Kosovo’s population is Muslim. However, what Halilaj’s work makes clear is that the rest of the ummah, the ostensible adults in the room, may fail to remember and mourn the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Muslims, the over one million people displaced by a genocidal Serbian regime, or the entire villages and histories erased. But the children of Kosovo will not forget. The example of the Prophet ﷺ is not just to care for young people, but to actively entrust them with knowledge and responsibility, such as his appointment of the teenager Usama Ibn Zayd as a general to lead other prominent sahaba, and Halilaj’s artwork is evidence of this tradition of the youth of the ummah stepping into roles with great stakes.

An exhibit from Halilaj’s ‘Abetare’ at the MET

These doodles on desks are not, after all, just doodles: they are fragments of history, archives of conflict, genocide, and migration produced through the unique vision and imagination of the young.

As the exhibit’s wall text describes, “In Abetare, culturally specific references to different political ideologies, religions, and local heroes coexist with more universal symbols and playful nods to pop culture, art history, and sports,” meaning there is a deep significance to these drawings as a record of Kosovo’s powerful history.

Far from mere drawings, these cultural productions show the active role of young people in knowledge production, in preserving memory, and in defining the meaning of important moments. Intuitively, one might associate the past with the old, but Halilaj’s elevation of childhood drawings to the prestigious walls of the Met reminds us that the process of bearing witness knows no age limit. When we learn to recognize the young as historical actors, we see the deep consciousness, imagination, and courage that infuses their acts of witnessing, the assertion of a presence “here” that cannot be ignored. 

Witnessing Our Children 

These are not merely speculative thoughts about art though: we are seeing the deeply practical significance of Halilaj’s work before our eyes, as the children of Gaza continue the tradition of the young bearing witness. Every day, so much of the material that alerts the rest of the world to what is happening in Gaza is produced by the young; videos of children testifying to what is happening and showing the world the resilience of the Palestinian people have been a constant online. What Halilaj’s work can make clear for us, as witnesses to these witnesses, is that the young people who take on this work of memory are not idle victims. Rather, they are the active producers of history, of memory and meaning, and the question for us becomes how we will honor their agency and force as historical agents. Writing on the shared etymology of witness and martyr in Arabic, University of Chicago Islamic Studies Professor Alireza Doostdar draws on the work of Islamic philosopher Ali Shariati to point to the responsibility of those left behind to the memory of the martyr:

“For Shariati, every death on the path of God was an act of witnessing with one’s life, whereby one declares one’s commitment to the truth before God and human history. Shariati thought it paramount to include humanity as the audience for a martyr’s act of witness (along with God) because he believed that the martyr’s truth was a message meant to be communicated to others so that they could in turn receive and act upon it. The martyr/witness offers testimony with her or his life not only for the sake of salvation, but also to enable others to receive the truth, and, in turn, bear witness.” 

Halilaj’s work reminds us of this responsibility we have to bear witness to the children of Gaza bearing witness. Their brave acts of witnessing are incomplete unless we have the moral fortitude and insight to recognize the significance of what they are doing. Let us learn from Halilaj’s work on Kosovo so that we might achieve that recognition now, while the situation cannot be more urgent, rather than waiting 30 years for a museum to do it for us. 

[Petri Halilaj: Abetare is on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through October 27th. Admission to the exhibit is included with a Museum ticket.]

Related:

– Oped: The Treachery Of Spreading Bosnia Genocide Denial In The Muslim Community

– Real-Time Scholasticide: The War On Education In Gaza