First the Saturday People, Then the Sunday PeopleA Phrase That Sounds Like History Until You Realize It’s a CountdownBy Luis Gonzalez for The Last Wire.You hear it whispered in the back alleys of Mogadishu and the ruins of Gaza.
"Awalan ahl as-sabt, thumma ahl al-ahad."It echoes in the neighborhoods and slums in Minnesota.
“First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.”Spoken softly, the phrase can pass as theology. Spoken among Islamist fanatics, it is not reflection. It is rehearsal.
This is not a poetic line drifting through religious history. In its modern extremist usage, it is a compressed threat — aimed squarely at Jews first, Christians next — a way of declaring that their presence is temporary and their future already written.
The power of the phrase lies in how little it says.
In Islamic religious tradition, days matter. Jews are associated with Saturday, the Sabbath. Christians with Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Classical Islamic commentary used this sequence to explain sacred chronology: revelation unfolding through different communities across time. In that scholarly setting, the idea was descriptive. It explained difference. It did not prescribe destruction.
That context matters — but it is no longer the context in which the phrase is deployed.
Islamist extremism does not quote theology to understand it. It quotes theology to close the argument.
How Islamists say it — and why that matters
In Arabic, the idea is usually rendered not as a fixed proverb but as a blunt construction, often appearing in sermons, rhetoric, or propaganda language such as:
أولًا أهل السبت، ثم أهل الأحد
Awalan ahl as-sabt, thumma ahl al-ahad
(“First the people of Saturday, then the people of Sunday”)
Or more explicitly, and more ominously:
اليهود أهل السبت، والنصارى أهل الأحد
Al-yahūd ahl as-sabt, wa-n-naṣārā ahl al-ahad
(“The Jews are the people of Saturday, and the Christians are the people of Sunday.”)
The sentence is often left there. No conclusion. No follow-up.
That omission is the weapon.
The implied step is the point
Islamist rhetoric thrives on implication. By stopping short, the phrase allows the speaker to signal supremacy without naming it. The listener is expected to fill in the rest. The sequence is understood. The ending is assumed.
This is how the phrase functions in extremist circles:
not as history, but as sequence;
not as theology, but as expiration.
Jews are framed as past.
Christians are framed as next to pass.
Coexistence becomes illogical. Permanence becomes defiance.
When a people are described as having “had their day,” their continued existence can be cast as theft — of time, of legitimacy, of destiny.
Violence, then, is reframed as correction.
Why this matters more than slogans that shout
Islamist extremism does not always announce itself with chants or threats. Often it prefers calm language that sounds ancient and orderly. The phrase works precisely because it sounds reasonable — even scholarly — to outsiders.
But to insiders, the meaning is unmistakable.
It says: history is finished.
It says: some people are living past their expiration date.
It says: what comes next is not negotiation, but enforcement.
This is how ideology anesthetizes conscience. The language drains urgency from cruelty. It turns murder into administration.
Not disagreement — erasure
This is not about theological disagreement. Disagreement is normal. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have disagreed for centuries without needing countdown clocks.
What makes this phrase dangerous in Islamist usage is that it denies Jews and Christians a future. It does not argue against their beliefs; it argues against their continued presence.
Once a group is framed as temporary by divine design, law becomes irrelevant. Rights become conditional. Protection becomes optional.
That is the line extremism always crosses.
The familiar extremist pattern
There is nothing uniquely Islamic about this rhetorical move. Every extremist ideology does it. History is flattened. Complexity is discarded. Narrative becomes destiny.
What makes this version especially effective is that it borrows real religious language and strips out restraint. It sounds inherited. It feels inevitable. And it allows the speaker to say everything while claiming to have said nothing.
The phrase is not a command. It is worse.
It is permission.
The silence that tells you everything
The most important part of the phrase is what it does not include.
By leaving the final step implied, Islamist rhetoric avoids accountability while delivering menace. It allows violence to appear organic — as if it simply follows from history rather than being chosen.
That is the lie at the center of all fanaticism: that no one is responsible because time itself demanded it.
A final clarity
This analysis is not an indictment of Islam. It is an indictment of Islamism, which weaponizes fragments of tradition and turns them into instruments of erasure.
Words matter. Phrases matter. Especially the ones that sound harmless.
“First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people” is not a neutral observation when spoken by fanatics. It is a flare shot into the future — one that Jews and Christians are meant to see, understand, and fear.
History does not move on conveyor belts. People push it.
And whenever someone tells you that certain people have “had their day,” you should hear what they are really saying:
Someone else has decided they should not have a tomorrow. — Gonzo
