Ayyad, Ala
Ayyad, Ala (B. 2003)
(religion, spiritualism, and occult)In December 2003, a grandson was born to Aysha Ayyad. Not in itself an unusual event, thebirth stood out by the presence of a birthmark spelling out an uncle’s name in Arabic. Under normal circumstances, the child would have taken his own father’s name. Because of the birthmark, however, and the fact that the uncle had been killed by Israeli soldiers operating in Palestine the previous March, it was decided to name him after his uncle instead. The uncle was a Hamas operative, and the child, who resides in Bethlehem, has been attracting pilgrims. The family has suggested the birthmark indicates Allah’s favoritism of the Palestinian cause in the struggle with Israel.
According to the Islamic calendar, the child was born on the 27 th of Ramadan, the day celebrated by Muslims as the day the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad. Muslim clerics have deemed the birth a karama, a miracle of a lesser kind, as in Islamic thought true miracles only happen to the prophets. Karama is the term used to describe the many wonders worked by the many Muslim mystics and saints over the centuries. To have received a karama marks the child as very special.
Pilgrimages to the Ayyad home began just as preparation for Christmas celebrations by the Christian community were beginning, and the suggestion of a second miracle birth in Bethlehem was not lost upon them.