All posts tagged: islam

Occupied Alphabet

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I.I use google translate to convey English phrases in Arabic sometimesA client tells me she is depressedAnd her father has been having tremors since the war startedBut usually when he is doing typically stressful things like dealing with an angry customer orFixing that damn light in the bathroom that won’t stop flickering even though the bulb is for sure new I type in the word “somatic” to try and figure out how to explain the correlation between the brain and the bodyAnd my insides laugh mockinglyUsing english to explain the destruction that the they third person pronoun have caused I think we got the order wrong in grad schoolThe disease cannot also be the medicine My people do not understand healing as a clinical hourThis lexicon of pain is not a researched and deliberately punctuated abstract,it is a slangAnd its letters are clear on the back of my grandma’s hands who birthed nine babies and buried some tooand knew to sweep the floors when it got too much and knew to pet the cat when …

Masnavi of Rumi

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Wealth has no permanence: it comes in the morning,and at night it is scattered to the winds.Physical beauty too has no importance,for a rosy face is made pale by the scratch of a single thorn.Noble birth also is of small account,for many become fools of money and horses. Reference: Mathnawi VI: 255-260 in Camille and Kabir Helminski“Rumi: Jewels of Remembrance”Threshold Books, 1996

Azza mocks me for praying in onesies

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Azza exchanges the robes of freedomfor the silky toabs of comfort, swearsgossip travels farther than hadeethever could. no matter how many timesthey burn down cities to ashes tofuel islamophobia, the bond does not break.no matter how many times we offer ourchildren to the fire, the flames remain insatiable.our love letter to god never has any return address. deep in sujood, I am one with the earthalways returning to Allah, but never arrivingAzza swears customs are stronger thanbeliefs, no matter how many times I triedto split the two, the bond remained covalent.I am but a subatomic particlealways splitting, always dividing When fire broke out in Mecca, the Mutawaatraded his whip for a pair of binocularsthe school girls of 31 had no names, justlike all women the Arab boy donates twoRiyals for kiswa and feel entitled toclothe all women I wear Azza’s umbilical cord aroundmy waist, belt in all the dreams I lost in the firesometimes I am a small apartment city girlother times I fall from my island hammockto the countryside’s bungalow. Azza continues to burn …

Tawakkul (Trust in God)

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What will it do to swallow the night when the heart of a bird will carry you? Fluttering, leaning against the sky, drumming against your chest and reaching for a rope. Searching for an oasis like Hajar. These eyes are weary. But the water always flows. Hands calloused-breaking and breaking is a rough enterprise. All you have been through-I see you. Gazelle eyes, blinking under the shade of a Lote tree, the same wisdom you seek to fall upon you is within you. Next time hold back before you curse the dust, the future lies in the rubble – this is how God works. Silence ensues in the stillness of the amphitheater, the curtains part, this is your act. Spotlights blink on against a Saharan night. This time uproot the antennae coiling longer than your body, tissue skin is reaching to refract the light, words which knew their decree before you tumble from your mouth. All the while inside you, the heart is migrating skyward. Soukeyna Osei-Bonsu is a poet and writer based in London. She …

O To Live! To Build a Quiet Life: Deep Time, Eschatology and the Anthropocene

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ANTONIO. I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; A stage, where every man must play a part, And mine a sad one. GRATIANO. Let me play the fool! ~The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare The centre, for many, seems not to be holding. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, it appears that we homosapiens have lost our way. The darkness has dropped a thousand times over and still we ignore the tensions between our profound purpose and the brevity of life… On a blue-skied afternoon in London, against the backdrop of a chorus of birdsong and the murmuring happenings of a leafy suburb, I embrace the concept that despite the socially constructed stratification of what is and what isn’t considered the ideal life, there is no real hegemony or hierarchy in one’s approach to and experience of it. To me, to live means to cultivate a quiet life. To engage with the world around us, to build meaningful relationships and to practise the avocations that make us feel most like ourselves. How …

In Conversation With Ahmad Ikhlas: On Dub Poetry, Faith and Travel

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“The first step is intention. Once that foundation is established then the balance will naturally follow.“ Read on as we catch up with Ahmad Ikhlas, an international dub poet, reggae and garage musician who draws on his Jamaican heritage and his British upbringing to form a unique style of music and poetry, used in praise of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). We are curious to know more about what led you to being a dub poet, reggae and garage artist? Could you tell us more about your developmental experience and the influences that shaped you to do what you do today?I grew up listening to reggae in it’s various forms Rock steady, ska, dancehall, lovers rock revival etc. I guess it’s part and parcel of growing up in a Caribbean household. This genre had a strong influence on my style and delivery as a Garage MC which came as second nature and something I unconsciously perceived. I’d perform weekly on Pirate Radio stations and in clubs. When I became serious about practising my faith I gradually …