Yasir Abbas

As the final embers of 2025 cool and the first breath of 2026 gathers beyond the horizon, I feel compelled to leave something at this threshold. A reckoning, and an invitation. This past year has been a road of misjudgments and awakenings, of effort misplaced and moments that quietly worked. I wanted to offer a warning without bitterness, and motivation without illusion. I searched for words that could hold both regret and resolve. Then I encountered something so precise and unsettlingly clear that it answered every question I had been carrying and pointed toward a path that must be chosen.

Before I name it, step with me out of time.

Imagine yourself transported to a battlefield where distance is measured not in miles, but in reach. Where swords settle arguments, spears define lines, and horses carry courage headlong into dust. Beneath your feet lies a valley without rivers, a land where the sky offers no mercy. Winds move across it bearing stories of battle-cries, not rain. Rain arrives only as rumor.

Cities here do not grow from soil or stone. They rise where paths cross, where caravans pause, where men trade not only goods but intent. Motion gives them life. Hesitation starves them.

Dawn breaks, not gently, but like a sentence being passed. The ground still holds the night’s cold. Bodies lie at rest, breath shallow, weapons silent. Then movement begins.

A rider rises.

Leather creaks. Metal murmurs.

In the half-light, he mounts his steed, an animal carved of muscle and nerve, coiled like a drawn bow. There is no speech between them. No ceremony. Only command.

Now let your attention fall fully toward the horse.

Ahead stand silhouettes. Rows of men. Metal catches the faintest light. Spears, shields, armor stacked upon armor. Still. Waiting.

The horse senses it all. Animals always do.

The smell of iron. The pressure in the air. The deep wrongness of what stands ahead.

Fear is present, but it does not rule.

The signal comes.

From absolute stillness, the horse launches.

Not cautiously. Not gradually. It erupts.

It does not just run, it detonates. In a single heartbeat, silence shatters. Hooves hammer the earth with bone breaking force as the animal throws its entire being forward. Breath is torn out in savage bursts. Lungs burn. Muscles scream. Pain floods the body. Yet the surge does not weaken. It sharpens.

The ground is struck so violently that sparks leap from stone and iron, brief flashes igniting inside choking clouds of dust. Heat swells. Grit fills the air. Breath scrapes raw. This is not motion for survival. This is devotion made visible. Obedience so complete that suffering becomes irrelevant.

The horse does not count the enemy. It does not weigh odds. It does not bargain with consequence. It gives everything, strength, breath, life itself, to the command it has received.

Now you are no longer watching from safety. Imagine you are inside the sound of breathing. Inside the thunder of hooves. Inside the moment where fear is overridden by loyalty, and the body is driven beyond its limits by purpose alone.

The air explodes with noise now. Shouts, steel, chaos fill the space. Still, the horse does not slow. It does not veer. It does not search for openings. It does not ask if survival is guaranteed. It drives straight into the center. Into the heart of the enemy line. Where blades are closest. Where danger is densest. Where retreat has already been erased.

Hold that image. Hold that sound.

This is not merely a charge. It is surrender under fire. It is the laying down of the self while the arrows are already in the air.

God, who does not swear except by what He honors, does not swear here by angels, nor by the heavens, nor by thrones beyond reach. He swears by this breath, this impact, this unquestioning forward motion.

By the chargers, panting,
by those that strike sparks with their hooves,
by those that surge at dawn… (Quran, 100:1-3)

As this year ends, let this image stays with us.

The breath. The sparks. The dust. The irreversible charge.

It leaves behind a question that refuses comfort.

When the call came, did I move like that? Or did I stand back, counting the cost, waiting for safety that was never promised?

God chose to swear by the charging horses, creatures without awareness of reward and without certainty of outcome. They expend themselves fully, with discipline and courage, despite fear and uncertainty. By taking an oath upon them, God elevates the effort itself. Not victory. Not survival. Total expenditure.

God swears by what He honors.

What He honors here is commitment without negotiation.

If creatures with no promise of recompense can empty themselves completely, then humans, given guidance, meaning, and reward, are called to something higher still.

As 2026 opens before us, the standard is already set.

Fully aware. Fully committed.

Not hesitation, but movement.