🌿 The Last Muslims Were Lebanese
The last Muslims were Lebanese.
Not because they prayed more,
but because they prayed quietly.
Because they wore gold crosses
and recited Qur’an
without explaining it to cameras.
Because they fasted
without posting dates.
Because their God
was older than doctrine
and too tired for war.
The last Christians were Lebanese too.
Not cathedral Christians.
Not conquest Christians.
But mountain Christians,
who buried their saints
in caves
and named their griefs
after prophets.
They knew both books
by heart,
and never confused
the power of scripture
with the price of oil.
And the Middle East —
it turned Muslim,
it turned Christian —
because it had nothing left.
Because the temples were dust,
the stars had gone silent,
the old names had no saviors.
So the people reached
for what was near.
For fire.
For structure.
For the clean sharpness of a new God
that came with promises
and punishments.
It was not always violence.
Sometimes it was just grief
searching for a name.
And the people took those names
— Jesus, Muhammad —
not out of fear,
but out of a need
to be spoken to.
Still, the Lebanese
remembered something else.
Something that didn't need scripture.
Something older than the crescent,
older than the cross.
They lit candles
and watched empires burn
without lifting a sword.
And when the rest of the world
turned religion
into choreography,
into business,
into war—
The Lebanese
simply
remained.