Shajareh Tayyebah School in Minab, Iran

# Mikail’s Story: The Little Boy Who Recited Surah Al-Buruj on the Night Before His Martyrdom

After finishing his prayer, Mikail said:

"Mom, bring me the Quran. Open Surah Al-Buruj. I want to recite it."

A chapter that tells the story of believers who were consumed by the flames of oppression, yet were never defeated.

**According to Fars News Agency — Ahvaz:**

Let me begin with his final words.

At the end of all his sobbing and uncontrollable tears, he composed himself, steadied his voice, and said:

"I accept God's will, and I surrender to His decree."

Those words stand as a testament to our unwavering faith in the truth of God's promises—the very promises that give us the strength to stand against the Yazids of our time. It is the timeless principle summed up in one declaration:

**"One like me can never pledge allegiance to one like Yazid."**

When the father speaks these words, his voice is calm—not the calmness of someone untouched by pain, but the silence that follows a devastating storm.

A storm that swept away an entire school. A storm that lifted 168 children from their classroom seats and sent them straight to the heavens.

Among all those names was a ten-year-old boy: **Mikail Mirdoraghi.**

His father begins his account a few days before the tragedy.

"I had been transferred from Minab to Abadan a few months earlier, but I had left my family in Minab so the children could finish their school year there."

Sometimes life moves forward in the simplest of ways: a father living hundreds of kilometers away from his family, holding on to the hope that in just a few months, they will all be together again.

But war has its own calculations.

Sometimes, in a matter of minutes, war shatters every ordinary plan a family has ever made.

The day before the tragedy, the few days of leave the father had taken to visit his family came to an end. He had to return to Abadan and resume his work.

That very morning, as he prepared to leave, Mikail began to cry and refused to let him go.

Perhaps no father could understand in that moment why his child was so distressed. Perhaps even Mikail himself could not explain it. Yet sometimes, it seems, certain hearts sense what the mind cannot comprehend.

His father left.

He had administrative work to attend to. It seemed like any other ordinary day.

But that day was never meant to remain ordinary.

In the middle of his work, the phone rang. It was Mikail's mother.

His father recalls:

"I answered briefly and said, 'I'm busy right now. I'll call you back later.'"

But the call that came a few minutes later was no ordinary conversation.

A voice on the other end told him:

"A missile has struck the school. Mikail's school. The children have been martyred."

Sometimes words are so unbearably heavy that the human heart struggles even to comprehend them.

A school. A missile. Children. Martyrdom.

His father immediately set off toward Bandar Abbas, stunned and unable to believe what he had just heard.

It would become the longest journey of his life.

When he arrived in Minab, he went straight to the school. But what he saw was no longer a school.

He recalls:

"There was nothing left of the school. All I could see was a mountain of rubble. The walls had collapsed. The classrooms had no roofs. The desks were no longer places where children could sit."

A place that should have been filled with lessons, laughter, and the sound of children playing during recess had been reduced to a crater of destruction.

It was a scene reminiscent of the darkest chapters of history, when tyrants dug trenches of fire for the believers.

The Holy Quran recalls that tragedy in the story of *Ashab al-Ukhdud*—the People of the Trench. They were people who were burned in blazing pits simply because they refused to abandon their faith.

Their story is preserved in Surah Al-Buruj.

It tells of those who cast believers into the fire and sat watching them burn—a horrifying act of oppression witnessed by history itself.

Yet that very chapter promises that the ultimate victory belongs to the believers, while the oppressors face a terrible fate.

And what makes this story even more heartbreaking is that, on the night before his martyrdom, Mikail had asked his mother to open this very chapter of the Quran for him.

That evening, his mother prepared dinner.

Mikail took a few bites and suddenly said:

"Mom, your food tastes like Paradise."

His mother smiled and asked:

"What do you mean? What does Paradise taste like?"

Mikail replied:

"I don't know\... It just tastes like Paradise."

Sometimes children say things whose meaning adults only come to understand much later.

After dinner, Mikail sat down and began to draw.

He drew three missiles. He drew his school. He drew himself and five of his friends, wearing clothes in the colors of the Iranian flag.

Above the drawing, he wrote:

**"All the children died."**

No one could have imagined that this drawing would become a haunting reflection of what would happen to that very school the following day.

After finishing his drawing, he began playing with his brother.

He said:

"Let's play a game. I'll be Iran, and you be America."

An innocent childhood game about war.

Yet in the middle of that game, he turned to his mother and said:

"Mom, I swear, Iran will win. Iran has won! Do you see? Iran has won!"

After the game, his mood suddenly changed.

He went to perform ablution and said:

"I want to pray."

His mother began recording him.

After finishing his prayer, Mikail said:

"Mom, bring me the Quran. Open Surah Al-Buruj. I want to recite it."

The very chapter that speaks of believers who were consumed by the flames of oppression, yet were never defeated.

In this chapter, the oppressors are warned of divine punishment for torturing the believers, while those who remain faithful are promised **"Fawz al-Azim" — the Greatest Triumph.**

Perhaps Mikail did not understand the meaning of every verse that night. Yet somehow, it seemed that his heart already knew those words.

The next morning, as he was getting ready for school, he said to his mother:

"Take a farewell picture of me."

He walked down the stairs, then turned back and asked:

"Mom, will you let me go?"

His mother's heart trembled at his words. But with a gentle smile, she replied:

"Go, my son. May God's protection be with you."

Mikail left.

A few hours later, the missiles came.

Shajareh Tayyebeh School in Minab was no longer a school.

That day, **168 students** ascended to the heavens, leaving behind their notebooks, textbooks, and schoolbags.

As Mikail's father stood before the ruins of the school, perhaps he could see the memories of that final evening all over again: his son beside the dinner table, beside his drawing, beside the Quran.

At the end of his account, he says something that comes from the deepest place of faith:

"I say this for those whose faith has grown weak: America and Israel did not attack a school. They attacked the future of this nation."

But history has taught us one thing:

**You cannot kill the future with missiles.**

A child who recited Surah Al-Buruj on the night before his martyrdom becomes a symbol in his own right—a living testament to innocence, injustice, and a story of oppression that will ultimately be remembered as a story of victory.

Mikail's father continues, holding on to that same faith:

"I ask the people to remain patient and hold on to their faith. We will emerge from this crisis victorious."

Perhaps he understands better than anyone what it truly means to endure a crisis.

When a father can stand before the lifeless body of his ten-year-old son and say, "I accept whatever God has decreed," it means that faith is still alive.

And as long as faith remains alive, no missile can destroy the future.

Shajareh Tayyebeh School may have been reduced to rubble.

But that day, **168 stars rose from beneath its ruins and ascended into the heavens.**

Stars that now shine in the skies above this very land.

The same sky upon which the Quran has sworn:

**وَالسَّمَاءِ ذَاتِ الْبُرُوجِ**

*"By the sky adorned with constellations."*

A sky of magnificent constellations. Constellations made of light.

And perhaps one of those constellations now bears the name **Mikail**.

We are servants of the same God whose promises never fail. Before His promises, we bow in faith and surrender.

**إِنَّ بَطْشَ رَبِّكَ لَشَدِيدٌ**

*"Indeed, the grip of your Lord is severe."*

**Some buildings can be destroyed. Some lives can be taken. But faith, memory, and the hope of a nation cannot be buried beneath rubble.**

**Mikail will be remembered.**

\#MikailMirdoraghi\
\#ShajarehTayyebehSchool\
\#MinabSchool

Soon that accursed criminal will face justice 🫂

For what sin?
#Minab_168

Not sure how to interpret the smiles on the faces of the survivors 🤔