From the Journal of Faris Khan — On Fear, Resistance, and the Use of the Hand
People fear vampires because vampires make fear useful.
They do not only drink blood. They drink permission. Permission to look away. Permission to obey without belief. Permission to survive by shrinking. A vampire does not need to kill you to own you—only to convince you that resistance is irrational, that endurance is wisdom, that submission is the price of being allowed to continue breathing.
Fear works because it is efficient.
Many submit not because they are wicked, but because hunger is louder than conscience. A stale loaf of bread weighs more than abstract justice when your child is coughing beside you. The Night understands this. It rewards those who accept humiliation quietly and punishes those who refuse to make peace with it. This is how evil becomes ordinary.
But this is not what we were taught.
The Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said:
“Whoever among you sees an evil, let him change it with his hand. If he cannot, then with his tongue. And if he cannot, then with his heart—and that is the weakest of faith.”
People quote this as hierarchy. I read it as sequence.
Words matter. They clarify. They warn. They expose. But words fail when evil stops pretending. When its face is no longer hidden behind law, ritual, or necessity—when it stands openly and demands obedience—then speech becomes decoration.
At that moment, the hand is not violence.
It is correction.
Fighting back is not about destroying people. It is about killing what has overtaken them when they no longer recognize themselves. When cruelty is no longer accidental. When power feeds on silence. When obedience is mistaken for survival.
The Qur’an says, “Fight them until there is no oppression and religion is for God.” This is not a command to endless war. It is a refusal to normalize domination. Oppression is not only chains. It is the slow training of the soul to accept chains as reasonable.
Those who fear vampires often mistake restraint for wisdom. They say, “This is the world now.” They say, “At least we are alive.” They say, “God will judge them later.” They forget that judgment does not absolve responsibility.
Evil thrives when it is tolerated for comfort.
To strike when necessary is not to become monstrous. It is to refuse transformation. The hand that defends the innocent does not stain the soul; the hand that clings to bread bought with submission already has.
I do not believe everyone must fight. Not all are positioned for it. Not all should carry that burden. But I do believe everyone must recognize the moment when evil reveals itself plainly—and decide whether they will still call it order.
The Prophet ﷺ also said:
“The best jihad is a word of truth spoken to a tyrant.”
And sometimes, when the tyrant stops listening, the word must be embodied.
Fear is natural. Submission is learned.
The Night wants us to confuse the two.
I write this so that when words fail—and they will—someone remembers that their hands were not given to them only to beg or receive.
They were given to act.