Du`a Mahdi (Du‘aa’ Mahdī) (دعاءأحمدمهدي) was a scholar at the beginning of her career who pursued her academic goals with incredible determination, completing and defending her doctoral dissertation during many dark days in the Israeli assault on Gaza.
Dr. Mahdi earned her BA degree in Qur’anic Readings, her MA degree in Qur’anic Interpretation and Islamic Sciences, and her PhD in Qur’anic Interpretation and Islamic Sciences, all from the Islamic University. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled Qur’anic Guidance in Enhancing Psychological Stability – A Descriptive Study, was awarded a mark of distinction on the occasion of her defense on 16 December 2024, and her examiners recommended the study for publication. While working on her doctorate, she held a position at the Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs in Gaza.
In reflecting on this achievement on her Facebook page, a few days after her defense, Dr. Mahdi mused, “I was never interested in titles, but I have always loved this one, because it was my mother and father’s dream since I was little. This degree, which I earned during the hardest days of my life, and this dissertation, which I pulled out from under the rubble of my house, may God grant it a bright future and may it have an impact on my life and after my death. Praise be to God, may His praise be endless.” She also thanked her husband, who had been her “secret soldier,” supporting her goals and being her family after her parents and siblings had been forced south by Israeli attacks and she and her husband remained alone in the north of Gaza.
Her friend, Aya Hassouna, described her as “the patient, pious, and pure woman who remained steadfast in northern Gaza despite hunger, siege, longing for her family, and the possibility of leaving for the south.”
The Israeli military killed Dr. Mahdi, her husband, and their unborn child, by bombing their home in northern Gaza on 4 January 2025. Her death came a year and a day after the death of her first child, a baby girl who she carried to full term only to lose her on 3 January 2024, as in Dr. Mahdi’s own words: “Your little heart had no choice but to choose death over life.”
