In the summer, your mother throws open the windows of your little house, the breeze playing with the thin curtains, creating flowery ghosts. The tinkling music of the ice cream truck floats in, making you perk up like the housecat seeing a bird.

     You run outside, your sister following suit, her small legs never letting her catch up unless you slow down—but you don’t, not until you are behind the truck and the dry dust burns your eyes, not until it stops and the man inside leans out to greet the gaggle of children now gathering around the truck.

     While you wait in line, an airplane flies by. You flinch, but she waves at it. She hasn’t learned what you had to, and you hope, stupidly, that she never does. 

     You hand her the ice cream before grabbing your own. You want to savour yours for as long as possible, until it’s dripping down your arm in sticky rivulets that your mother will get annoyed at, but you know your sister will devour hers and ask for yours.

     She’s learning to draw. 

     She wants your crayons, and your mother makes you share. You whine, but nothing changes, so you hand her some paper and tell her to keep quiet. For a few minutes, it stays so, her stubby fingers gripping the wax as she drags it across the page, fascinated by the transfer. 

     When you’re engrossed in drawing your own landscape— your grandparents’ olive trees, in the village you visit every few weeks— she hits your arm hard enough to send a stray crayon streak across the paper. When you look up to yell, she shows you a paper— two stick figures sharing ice cream. She tells you that you’re the taller one. You laugh. My skin isn’t orange.

     You keep the drawing in your closet.

     You have a sister. 

     She plays with the neighbourhood girls on the roof every evening, till the Maghreb adhan calls them back inside. She wraps a headscarf halfway across her head and stands behind you and your dad as you pray. Your mother tries to fix it. It doesn’t stay. 

     When you’re praying for everything you want— safety, for yourself and your parents and the olive trees and those that care for them— she says, ya Allah, please let me own an ice cream truck when I’m old. 

     You laugh, but an Ameen still follows. 

     You have a sister. 

     Someone picks on her for her pigtails—someone from your grade. Your dad tells you nothing except that you are her brother. It’s your job to protect her. 

     The principal calls your dad the next day— Bruised knuckles and a bloody nose. Your dad says, he was protecting her. Should he not?

     He buys you both ice cream on the way home. 

     You have a sister. 

     She cries when the first bomb hits, and the second, and the third. 

     She throws up when you pull the cat out of the rubble, a bright red gash across its abdomen. It mewls pathetically, barely skin and bones, and you have to fight the urge to cry— boys don’t cry, especially not in front of their little sisters. You hold the cat close to your chest, caressing what’s left of her spotted fur, for which you’d named her Cow. 

     You have a sister.

     She stopped crying an hour ago, fast asleep now. Your mother drapes a white sheet on her, trying to hide her hiccups. She always hiccups when she cries. Your sister does the same. 

     The night air bites your skin, but you just climbed out of what used to be your room, and your blanket is still somewhere under all of it. You want to share your sister’s sheet, but she is much colder, and she’s hogging it up. 

     She hit her head under all the rubble, you’re sure of it. You tell your dad that he should wake her up. Shouldn’t we take her to the doctor?

     The tinkling music of the ice cream truck pierces the silence. You startle, mouth watering— an ingrained response. Baba, are we getting ice cream? Usually, your mother would not let you eat sweets before dinner, but you haven’t had dinner in days.

     The truck stops, and the ice cream man steps out, face grim and dusted with gray. Your dad gets up, wrapping the sheet tighter around your sister. They begin moving her. 

     You had a sister. 

     In the summers, you’d run after the ice cream truck, her far behind you, and you’d call the man inside by his name. You’d hand her the first cone so she wouldn’t complain, and you’d finish yours off first so she wouldn’t ask for it. She would pray with her scarf halfway off her head, and she’d pray to own an ice cream truck someday. 

     You had a sister.
     She will wake up on top of soft grass, a blanket of sunlight over her skin. She will wake to tinkling laughter and the sound of a flowing river. She will find the friends she cried over, and the cat she fed every day, feeding him even when her stomach rumbled. She won’t remember the smell of blood, the cold of nights spent under open skies, waiting for the next bomb, or pain that blossomed in a body not strong enough for it. But she will remember you. 

     And she’ll wait to share ice cream with you again.

Related:

– A Prayer On Wings: A Poem Of Palestinian Return

– If You Could Speak: A Poem

The post Ice Cream: A Poem On The Loss Of Childhood In Gaza appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

They built it with marble and calligraphy, arched domes echoing the names of God. But somewhere between the minbar and the boardroom, the sacred was traded for the familiar.

The masjid, once a refuge for the broken, now feels like a lounge for the well-connected. Decisions made behind closed doors, while the women outside whisper their needs into the wind.

They say it’s about tradition. But tradition never silenced Maryam when she cried out in labor beneath the palm. It never turned away Khadijah’s wisdom, or Ali’s courage to speak truth to power.

No—this is not tradition. This is dunya dressed in thawbs and titles, where family ties outweigh community cries, and silence is the currency of comfort.

I wrote to them. Not to accuse, but to ask: Is there room for me here? They answered with nothing. And that nothing said everything.

Still, I believe in the masjid. Not the building, but the promise. The one etched in every sajdah, in every tear that falls unseen.

So I will keep knocking. Not because I need their permission— but because I refuse to let them turn God’s house into a gated estate.

They speak of unity from the pulpit, but practice division in the shadows. Their circles are tight, their ears closed to unfamiliar names, their hearts armored in comfort.

I’ve seen the way they greet their own— smiles wide, hands extended, as if Jannah were passed through bloodlines. And I’ve seen the way they glance past others, like we are footnotes in a story they’ve already written.

But I am not a footnote. I am the daughter of Hajar, the sister of Sumayyah, the echo of every woman who stood when the world told her to sit.

You may not answer my email. You may not open your doors. But I will not unwrite my truth to make you more comfortable.

Because the masjid does not belong to you. It belongs to the One who hears the whispers of the unseen, who counts every tear that falls when no one else is watching.

So I will keep walking— not toward your approval, but toward the light that never needed your permission to shine.

They say sabr, but only to the silenced. They say adab, but only to the unheard. They weaponize patience like a leash, hoping we’ll stay quiet, grateful just to be near the door. But I was not made to shrink for the comfort of men who confuse control with leadership.

They build platforms, but only for those who echo their comfort. They host panels on justice, while ignoring the injustice in their own prayer halls. They speak of the Prophet ﷺ, but forget how he stood for the orphan, the widow, the stranger— not just the familiar faces in the front row.

And still, they wonder why the hearts of women grow quiet, why the youth slip out the back door, why the call to prayer no longer feels like a call home.

And Still, I Believe

Because faith was never theirs to gatekeep. It lives in the breath of the unseen, in the footsteps of the overlooked, in the hands of those who build even when no one thanks them.

I will not wait for their invitation. I will write my own welcome, etch it in the sky with every prayer, and walk boldly into the sacred as if I belong— because I always did.

Related:

– Podcast: Revisiting Women-Only Tarawih | Ustadha Umm Sara

– Friday Sermon: Including Women in the Masjid

The post When The Masjid Mirrors The Marketplace: An Ode To Inclusion In Faith appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

“Those who have believed and whose hearts are assured by the remembrance of Allah. Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured.” [Surah Ar-Ra’d: 13;28]

My piercing gaze of blood-burst boiling eyes

Has rent the seven curtains of the sky;

My burning chest is fanned by anguished sighs,

But lips are sealed from ever asking why;

   For one who’s spent a life in racing grief,

   Your name is where he’s fled to seek relief

Your name’s the rain that gentle drips on earth –

That gasps like desert traveler gripped by thirst;

Like the desperate pleas of a mother giving birth,

When child comes, will turn to sudden mirth!

   Your name’s the flame that pulses in the cold,

   The only place to place the weight I hold

O, friend who’s walked with me on every road!

Friend when I’ve been forced from all abodes!

Friend who’s held me when the grief that snowed

Has melted into gushing tears that flowed!

   You’re this journey’s only constant friend –

   You’re the beginning, you’re the only end

Your name is heard in whispers of the breeze,

In songs of larks, in buzz of busy bees,

In conversations between the rustling leaves

That dance upon the gentle sway of trees;

   Your name is heard on hearts in steady beat –

   That accept their loss but won’t accept defeat

Your name’s proclaimed like thunderous battle cry,

Or secret love that’s whispered in a sigh;

It sweetens grief like sugar mixed with chai,

Gives life its color like a vibrant dye!

   Your name is life that flourishes in spring

   As winter melts with all the warmth it brings

Your name is echoes heard in silent halls;

Your name is drops that rage as waterfalls;

Your name is mortar turning bricks to walls;

Your name is storm-struck mountain standing tall;

   Your name is balm upon my cracking lips,

   The taste of home that comes in frequent sips

Come, hold me as my mind’s in trembling shake,

Grasp me in this world in constant quake;

Come, be my cool as I’m burning at the stake,

Or gather shards of heart in constant break;

   Come press your hand against this restless chest

   And bring my bursting heart to long-awaited rest

Related:

– Looking To Allah To Save Me: A Ramadan Poem

– The Definition of Fasting – A Ramadan Poem

The post When Calm Descends As Dhikr Ends – A Ramadan Poem appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

The concept of Palestinian return encompasses not only refugees displaced by conflict but also millions in the diaspora who have preserved their cultural identity and connection to their homeland despite generations of exile. For them, return goes beyond a physical journey; it signifies a restoration of rights, history, and a sense of belonging.

Related:

– Standing With Palestine: A Poem

– If You Could Speak: A Poem

The post A Prayer On Wings: A Poem Of Palestinian Return appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

China and Arabia are ours, India is ours

We are Muslim – the entire world is our homeland

I wasn’t surprised that my teacher had memorized lines of Iqbāl’s poetry, nor that he was even familiar with his thought. There was once a time, not too long ago, when Iqbāl had animated movements across the Muslim world; when his poetry was translated to several Muslim languages; when philosophers and statesmen crowned themselves champions of Iqbālian thought. 

Then, like a forest fire put out by a sudden deluge, Iqbāl disappeared from the collective Muslim imagination. He disappeared because Iqbāl is hope incarnate, and we are a people in despair. He disappeared because he is life incarnate, and we are a people whose lives are akin to living death. As Ghalib, the court poet of the last Mughal emperor said a generation before Iqbāl:

They say people live on hope

We don’t even have hope to live

The cause of our sorrow, our despair, our living death, is that we are a people twice defeated. Our first defeat began with the incursions into, then conquests, then complete subjugations by European powers of Muslim lands. We were overwhelmed, enslaved, pillaged. Violence of all kinds was meted out without mercy or recourse: physical, social, economic, epistemic, and spiritual. But the Muslim body can be chained; the Muslim society can be ravaged; the Muslim economy can be pillaged; the Muslim episteme can be tarnished; but the Muslim spirit cannot be so easily broken:

We are not ones who can be subjugated by falsehood

O sky! You have tried us a hundred times before

                                                    –  Iqbal, “Tarāna-e-Millī”

Two hundred years of colonial rule led to the independence movements of the 20th century, and, after World War 2, Muslims successively cast off the yoke that had so long suffocated us. Those were decades of hope, when movement turned to triumph, and triumph turned to jubilation. And yet, that jubilation was not to last. Our yoke had not been cast off; rather, it was simply transferred from one hand to another. We had not escaped the colonial system; it had simply changed forms. Jubilation turned to realization, realization turned to desperation, and desperation finally settled into an unending melancholy, an endless depression. Twice conquered; twice defeated.

But Iqbāl was, as is so often the case, entirely correct. This ummah can be defeated; it can be subjugated; but it cannot be so easily broken. We are witnessing a complete revival of radical anti-colonialism amongst our youth. Whether their imaginations were sparked by the protests of the Arab spring; or they were inspired by the solidarity of Black Lives Matter; or their belief in resistance erupted with the global outrage over the genocide Israel has perpetrated on the Palestinian people in general and the people of Gaza in particular; the youth have traded the lethargic depression of their parents for active resistance.

Unlike their previous generations, however, they are divorced from the past projects of Islamization of knowledge or Islamic political dreams. Mawdūdi and al-Banna are distant names to them, if they’ve even heard of them. The education in resistance came from Fanon and Said, not Iqbāl and Shariāti; and older generations of Muslims who are disillusioned by their own projects of resistance offer them nothing but snide remarks and a politics of eschatological quietism – an alternative that the young and hopeful rightfully and profoundly reject.

And that is why, in this moment of a second uprising a hundred years after the first one, we need the foremost thinker of Islamic revolution, Allāmah Muhammad Iqbal, once more. We are again at a crossroads in history. If we are not able to offer an authentic, Islamically founded, and Islamically grounded theory of practical resistance, our youth will gravitate further towards ideologies that have profoundly extra-Islamic foundations; and, in the process, they will fight for the liberation of Muslims in exchange for their own Islam.

If, however, we can reach into the depths of our intellectual heritage and forge a reinvigorated Islamic decoloniality rooted in the love of Allah and His Messenger , we can capture the energy of an excited ethic of resistance, breathe new life into a defeated ummah, and resurface an Atlantis-like drowned Islamic civilization from the seas of darkness.

Iqbal: The Man and the Thought

Iqbāl as a man was the perfect image of his thought: the son of Kashmiri migrants to Sialkot, Punjab, who was educated in India, England, and Germany but wrote in Farsi and Urdu (languages that were, at the time, natively spoken by almost no one in his chosen city of residence, Lahore), Iqbal lived between cultures, between centuries, between traditions, between languages, and somewhere between the freedom he desperately dreamed of and the subjugation he was born into. His father was an illiterate store owner, and Iqbāl was the first in his family to be completely educated – only to become one of the foremost Muslim intellectuals of the last 200 years. When asked why he didn’t write an autobiography, Iqbāl responded that his thought was far more interesting than his life. In general, I agree, and so I will spend little time on his life and much more on a basic sketch of his thought.

Plaque at Portugal Place, Cambridge signifying that Allama Iqbal lived there whilst he was a student at Trinity College, Cambridge [PC: Wikipedia]

The Basics of Iqbālian Thought

His thought, as well, is difficult to trace back to any one figure. The basic question that animated Iqbāl’s inquiry was that of colonialism – specifically, why the Muslim world had become so utterly subjected to colonial empires. Unlike his contemporaries, however, Iqbāl did not resort to easy answers. Instead, he understood the foundations of the colonial system and set his sights on understanding the ways in which it is perpetuated. His inquiry brought him face-to-face with a stark and desperate realization: that Muslims are willing participants in their own subjugation, and that colonial rule would be impossible without the willingness of Muslims to sell the struggle of freedom in exchange for a more comfortable slavery. This led to a final question, one that would absorb him for the entirety of his life: why are Muslims so comfortable being slaves when Allah has called them to embrace their role as the best of nations brought about for mankind?

Iqbāl’s answer was that colonial subjugation affects the Muslim at such a deeply emotional level that it profoundly alters the very way Muslims imagine themselves. The shock of such overwhelming defeat and the methods of control inherent in colonial orders broke the Muslim self-imagination, and the ummah had fallen into intense depression and despair. This psychological state had metaphysical implications. A desperate, depressed person has no hope in Allah , and despairing in the Mercy of Allah is tantamount to disbelief. And so, when this hopeless Muslim was asked to exchange his love for Allah and His Messenger for a more comfortable slavery, hopelessness allowed him to acquiesce.

Colonial rule led to a fundamental reimagination of what it means to be Muslim, and that broken spirit eventually led to an individual and communal loss of love for Allah .

Khudi

It was from this point of departure that Iqbāl crafted his most important philosophical concept that animated his entire work – the concept of khudi (selfhood). In classical Sufi thought, where the chief good was dissolving the self in the love of Allah , khudi was the chief antagonist. For Iqbal, however, khudi was both the beginning of the spiritual path and its end. 

At the beginning of the path, the heedless, unreformed person is self-important, selfish, and driven by his base desires (a state the Sufis of old called khudi in Farsi and Ananiyyah in Arabic). He is unrefined in character and capable only of looking out for himself and his whims. Then, the person begins to grow his love for Allah and His Messenger until it reaches such a point that everything loved by Allah is loved by him and everything hated by Allah is hated by him. His love for the divine consumes him like the love of a lover for his beloved.

When a person reaches this state, he recognizes the heavy burden and incomparable honor that Allah has given His truest servants: that of khilāfah (vicegerency) on this earth. The Muslim is not only the worshiper and lover of Allah ; he is also His representative on earth. When he recognizes that, a Muslim reaches the true beginning of the spiritual path – one that takes him right back to his khudi. This time, however, this khudi is neither self-obsessed nor selfish. Instead, selfishness is replaced with a deep sense of sovereignty of self.

This is manifested not only in complete obedience to Allah and His Messenger but also in a complete refusal to bow one’s head to subjugation. A Muslim is too self-sovereign to be a slave. He is too proud of his role in the world as a representative of Allah to sell himself for comfortable slavery. A Muslim is meant for the vicegerency of Allah on this earth, and that can only be achieved when he is entirely free.

Why We Need Iqbāl Today

In many ways, Iqbāl’s thought was much ahead of his time. He may have written his most important works in the 1930s, but they wouldn’t be entirely understood till 2030. Core to his understanding of colonialism is that colonial regimes are sustained by an international socio-economic order, and that force of arms is secondary to force of thought and force of wealth. The Muslim elite is purposefully brainwashed by a Western education system that embeds everything good and moral and reasonable within Western thought and divorces the Muslim from his own intellectual heritage and legacy. The Muslim is educated in Western thought and illiterate in his own. Then, this spiritually unrefined and illiterate person is offered lucrative careers and contracts in systems that perpetuate the subjugation of his own people.

For Iqbal, if Muslims refused to participate in the intellectual and economic foundations that underpin the colonial order, colonialism would eventually collapse. In order to do so, however, a true Muslim civilizational revolution would have to create its own economic, political, and cultural order – one that had the technological and industrial know-how, personal ingenuity, and communal commitment to goodness and justice to sustain itself. It would also need the depth of understanding of its own intellectual and spiritual heritage and marry it with brilliance in analysis and critique of European modernity to avoid benign a crude, off-brand knock-off for Western civilization – to be a real alternate Muslim modernity and not a European one with a sticker of a Quran slapped on top of it.

As I’ve written before, Muslims have been fooled by the international liberal order for more than half a century. Muslim movements believed that force – not culture and economics – was the primary means of maintaining the colonial order in the world. We have come to realize – perhaps most powerfully demonstrated by the genocide in Gaza – exactly what Iqbāl had almost a hundred years ago: that the boots on the ground are secondary and purchasing Muslim acquiescence to subjugation is the primary mode of colonialism.

This is a moment of history, one in which Muslims will either lose themselves forever or realize that freedom is our birthright, the prerequisite to fulfilling our spiritual purpose as khulafāʾ (vicegerents) of Allah on this earth. We are not like other nations. We are the heirs of prophets, the carriers of tawḥīd, the representatives of Allah on this earth. And the moment of our uprising is upon us – if only we recognize and accept who we are. 

This ummah will not be liberated as a hobby to take a break from our 9 – 5 jobs and to enrich our American dreams. It is a social, cultural, economic, political, intellectual, and spiritual project. Our task is the reconstruction of an entire civilization, not remodeling a deck. It all begins with remembering and believing in who we truly are – and the one who reminds us most of who we are is ʿAllamah Muhammad Iqbāl.

We Are Unicorns in a Herd of Horses

What’s the difference between a unicorn and a horse wearing a party hat? There are two: reality and belief. Imagine a unicorn that grew up in a herd of horses that wear party hats on their head. To an onlooker, there is no difference between the unicorn and the horses: they all look like horses, and they all have a cone on their head. The unicorn itself might even be excused in thinking that it is, in fact, just another horse – that its horn is nothing more than a decoration.

What separates that unicorn from all the other horses is its unicorn-ness  – that its essence is different, its capabilities are different, its responsibilities are different. But that inherent difference does not mean that the unicorn will necessarily practice and achieve the potential of its unicorn-ness. First, it must believe that it is, in fact, a unicorn. Every moment that the unicorn spends doubting itself is a moment that it fails to live up to its potential. Every moment that a unicorn behaves like just another horse is another day the unicorn has wasted its life.

We are the ummah of Muhammad , the heirs of prophets, the protectors of the banner of tawḥīd. We are the unicorn in a herd of horses:

“You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are defiantly disobedient.” [Surah ‘Ali ‘Imran: 3;110]

We have lived surrounded by horses wearing party hats, been ridiculed for our horn, until we ourselves have begun to believe that we are just another horse wearing another party hat. We have become embodiments, manifestations of the powerful couplet by al-Mutanabbi:

I have not seen anything from the faults of men

Like the capable failing to reach their potential

We are not like the strong failing to be strong, or the intelligent failing to be intelligent, or the humorous failing to be amusing; we are the best nation brought about for people failing in our God-given responsibility to act as His vicegerents on this endarkened world. We fail to be the unicorns we are, not just because we have stopped acting like them – but because we have even lost our belief in them.

We have to choose to bet on ourselves – to not simply run the race made for everyone else, but to create the race that we were always made for. As Iqbāl says in one of his most famous poems, Jawāb-i-Shikwa:

The mind’s your armor, and love’s your blade!

My dervish! Your reign holds the world in gaze!

Your call sets all but Allah ablaze!

Be Muslim, and fate is what you have made!

Be true to Muḥammad, and We are yours;

Not just this world: the pen and slate are yours!

[This article was first published here]

Related:

– Seeking Out The Spiritual Underpinnings Of Our Ritual Acts of Worship

– Podcast: Is Harry Potter Haram? Islamic Perspectives Of Poetry And Literature With Sh. Shahin-Ur Rahman

The post The Tolling Bell Of Revolution – Why The World Needs Allamah Muhammad Iqbal Now More Than Ever appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

If you could speak

From your midget-coffin, 

If your sweet voice could carry through

Your little mouth-

Cavernous and hollowed out by death,

Encrusted with old blood, 

Stopped in its tracks between pearly new teeth

That once shone when your face blossomed into smiles;

Or enlivened with laughter

Over some little silliness, some little surprise-

Those little things, before scary big things took over-

Big feuds between little people

Unable to see the faces in the rubble-

Blinded, insensate… 

 If you could speak

From beneath the settling dust of oblivion

Falling, falling quietly over hearts-

You’d speak of

When the sky flared up with fires-

Malevolent and blind- as they rained Death,

Leaving a trail of bloodied corpses

And shell-shocked mourners.

And often, battered little bodies-

Timorous and traumatized-

Confounded by unanswered questions.

You’d speak of

The desperate, endless waiting

For a healing hand-

Perhaps your mother’s keffiyeh to cling on to;

Her warm breath to reassure

“It’ll be all right”…

But the breath was cold,

The hand lifeless and brittle.

You’d speak of

The stinging, deep pain

Of a disconsolate helplessness,

And the terrifying abyss of cruel questions

Hulking all around you,

Pressing upon your battered self,

Confounding your infantile senses.

You’d speak of

How Death took so long to reach

As you writhed in your own blood… 

Yet when She reached, Her touch strangely familiar

In its maternal, Messianic embrace, 

As it spread its gentle wing

Soaring above and beyond

Where pain cannot reach-

Onward and upward, 

To ‘The Home of Peace’ 

That you were promised… 

If you could speak-

Your voice would resound… 

“If only my people knew…” [The Noble Quran; Surah Yasin – 36:26] 

If you could speak-

The Verdict would ring loud-

An eternal, scathing indictment

Writ large into the very heart

Of the eternal universe… 

“Yaa hasrat an al all ibaad” (Alas for mankind!) [The Noble Quran; Surah Yasin – 36:30] 

If you could speak-

The layered silences

Over the tiny mound of earth

That shrouds you

Would be ripped through

By the still, small voice…

Piercing, shattering, tearing, shuddering…

To ask of us

An overwhelming question-

‘For what crime was I slain? [The Noble Quran; Surah At-Takwir – 81:9]

Related:

– Standing With Palestine: A Poem

– 6 Quranic Reflections On The Current Situation In Palestine

The post If You Could Speak : A Poem appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

All out for Blue and Yellow, 

fully behind Blue and White 

Jingoes bolster every war, 

reinforce every fight

With hollow words and status quo, 

reassures President Joe

Futile thoughts and worthless prayers, 

from Canada, sends Trudeau

Pardon France, it’s under attack 

from hijabs and bedbugs

Spineless, most of EU 

sends virtual hugs

Rushing to his side

for a prompt morale boost

Rishi stands with BiBi, 

to calm an ego freshly bruised

Modi’s RSS makes light 

of brutal subjugation

Already forgot British aggressions

against their own population?

Turkey flexes some muscle, 

Iran shows some exasperation 

Hezbollah, pundits claim, 

adds to the growing detestation

Ireland and Colombia, 

South Africa and Maldives

possess the moral compass, 

the audacity to say, Stop! Please!

If Egypt, Jordan, UAE, 

Morocco and Bahrain

Recognize Israel, 

they can’t all be insane

The Arabs are not impotent, 

their hands are just tied

Understand their predicament, 

committed to truth they are, deep inside

Investments at home, 

pressures from outside

Tourism is booming, 

why have a dog in someone else’s fight

They are trying their best, 

it’s not courage they lack

Sensitive issues involved, 

please cut them some slack

Saudis were weighing in 

to join the big game

When all hell broke loose, 

what a shame

PC: Huzaifah Patel (unsplash)

Rulers don’t care

if masses protest and resist

Knowing full well, 

IDF’s transgressions they dismiss

It takes so much effort, 

manufacturing this consent

On destroying their narrative, 

why are you so hell-bent?

Don’t shift the paradigm, 

try to disturb the zeitgeist

‘Tis no way to fix Bilad ash-Shaam, 

they nonchalantly sliced and diced 

Patience Palestinians, 

America wants a just solution

It’s no easy task, 

vetoing every UN resolution 

Missiles and torpedoes

and warplanes for Israel

It’s war crimes they hide, 

it’s injustices they conceal

Few are fortunate to experience 

Levant’s only ‘democracy’

Supported and abetted 

by Western hypocrisy 

But a free Jewish homeland 

just had to be built

To outsource the ‘problem’ 

to soothe European guilt

Hey shamed witnesses 

of the appalling Holocaust,

You promised “Never again!”, 

Boy! That didn’t last 

Those who denied the Jews 

dignity and equal rights

In their hatred of Palestine

have reached newer heights

Those who once claimed 

that Blacks had no souls,

Are fabricating new stories 

riddled with holes 

Amazing how brazenly 

they all let it slide

To all objective minds, 

what is clearly apartheid

While Gaza is annihilated 

through a calculated plot,

Analysts still debate 

if it’s Genocide or not

Restrict their movement, bomb them, 

lock them up in a cage,

Guess Israel is still the only victim, 

if the oppressed display any rage

They don’t spare anyone, 

the Hawks at ADL

Dare speak truth to power, 

and they’ll raise up serious hell

But Neturei Karta, 

those Guardians of the Gates 

Cry out against injustice, 

God’s covenant as their base

Institutions of critical thought, 

these bastions of free speech

When confronted by students, 

they don’t practice what they preach

Sham podiums 

of de-colonialism

What compels you to sustain 

Israeli exceptionalism?

How are some heinous acts 

above all criticism?

What makes you conflate 

BDS with anti-semitism 

Reporters with legacy media 

engage in fake news

Ignore journalistic integrity, 

just care about more views

What security council?

What international laws?

All completely ineffectual 

for the Palestinian cause

PC: Ahmed Abu Hameeda (unsplash)

You rise up for freedom,

Oh, dear Filasteen!

They crush you each time, 

these wretched shayateen 

They rain on you bombs 

and bring down white phosphorus

Your cries travel far, 

tears fill up the Bosphorus 

Too many terrorists,

amongst the civilians you hide

Use your own as shields,

claims the pro-Israeli side

You behead their babies, 

humiliate their women

Net and Joe have evidence 

you are animals, not men

Why can’t you just live 

in your camps in peace?

Quit missing your groves 

crying for your olive trees

Is it really that bad, 

this settler colonialism? 

My ancestors suffered fine 

through British imperialism 

Slow down. Why the great rush

to escape your occupation?

Help them refine Red Wolf, 

put to good use their ammunition 

You threaten their innocents, 

they have the ‘right to defend’

In white supremacy, 

they have a confidant and friend 

Your fate is decided 

in the halls of Pentagon

Noncompliance punished well 

by Lockheed and Raytheon

You fail to recognize 

your enemy’s illegal existence 

whine about land theft, ethnic cleansing, 

enough of this persistence 

Is breaking free from oppression 

worth all this trouble?

Accept the master 

and embrace your refugee bubble

All the destruction and death 

each resistance brings,

Is still not enough 

to pull at our heartstrings 

How much longer will you endure 

this terrible pain?

What if this sacrifice and suffering 

is all in vain?

The Zionists enjoy 

unwavering supports

Not the least bit affected 

by human rights reports

It’s you alone, 

against God’s chosen ones

Just your brave daughters 

and your valiant sons

Stop rebuking Sykes-Picot,

quit blaming Balfour

How could they possibly predict

the calamity in store 

Or was it their intention 

to pillage and devour all along?

To sow the seed of contention 

between Salam and Shalom 

The design to keep Ottoman lands 

under British mandate,

Did not overtly mention 

birth of a Jewish-only State

Intended to be a safe haven 

for victims of Nazi hate

In a land without people, 

for a people without a state

The Zionist agenda

overlooked the indigenous, 

Conjecturing they would give up 

and leave without a fuss 

The fact that many still 

believe lies so fabulous,

Speaks to their gullible minds, 

it’s simply incredulous

If you are one of those 

who go along with this nonsense

It’s time you brushed up 

on your history, no offense 

All those supporters 

waiting merely for Armageddon 

There is blood on your hands, 

for all the fables you have spun

You don’t mind if they imprison, 

kill, maim, and burn

If it helps hasten the day 

Jesus Christ shall return 

This is not what Eesa,

in his name, would accept 

You are doing God no favor, 

you people inept

If you don’t raise your voice even now, 

you are complicit

If you do, there could be serious repercussions, that’s explicit 

There is no time to waste,

no need to mince words

No excuse to stay neutral, 

no reason to follow the herds

PC: Cole Keister (unsplash)

Persevere! Don’t despair, 

Oh, guardians of Al Aqsa

Don’t ask for God’s wrath, 

Oh followers of Musa

For those who suggest 

peace is improbable in this land

The harmony of Muslim Spain, 

they don’t fully understand

We are all children of God, 

Hindu, Muslim, Christian, and Jew

Sikh, Buddhist, Tao 

and yes Atheists too

Enough cruelties 

for ephemeral gain,

Way too many 

have already been slain 

Stop all the bloodshed, 

put an end to it now

If you really have the will, 

you’ll figure out the how

Let mothers smile and children grow 

Let Gaza breathe, let hope flow

Settlements in the West Bank

against the law, all need to go

Grant full citizenship,

with all liberties upheld 

Allow the Right of Return, 

that has been withheld 

Release all the prisoners,

tear down all the fences 

Fold away all the checkpoints, 

no need for defences

Stop sponsoring wars, 

hold the perpetrator accountable for all her offences

Feeling sorry for Gazans, after arming the other side

You deserve an Oscar for your unparalleled pretenses

Don’t pretend you love peace and equality, 

you find them mere annoyances

Hide all you want behind diplomacy,

We are well aware of your unholy alliances

Lifeless bodies, 

shattered limbs

Collapsed houses, 

broken things

You pretend this is new, 

forget the Nakba of 1948

What of the bottomless graveyard, 

beneath the house you create

Determined Path, Defensive Shield,

Autumn Clouds, Summer Rains

War is war, brutal and violent, 

doesn’t matter the fancy names 

Mr. Biden, your time is nearing, 

grow a backbone 

Surely you have a conscience,

or is your heart merely a stone?

You permit the murder of journalists, 

doctors and aid envoys

Let them shamelessly flatten hospitals, 

and target fleeing convoys 

Don’t brush this as a “conflict”

It’s an asymmetric war

Would David protect the helpless

Or would he side with the ‘Star’?

Palestinians are human too, 

not deserving of this fate

If not even this, 

tell me what would it take!?

For you to stand up, 

point to the Israeli State

be a man of principle, 

call a spade a spade

Related reading:

– Khutbah Notes: Palestine Solidarity

– Palestine: Victory Is Already Here!

The post Standing With Palestine: A Poem appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s stories and columns.

* * *

Looking To Allah To Save Me

I.

Those who fast will enter
through the gate of Ar-Rayyan.
I’ll take any gate I can,
built for woman, child, or man.

A plot of land
the size of a postage stamp.
A firefly for a lamp.
Safety for my daughter.
A sip of Jannah’s water.

An earthly wife
turned to heavenly wife.
No weariness, no strife.
An eternal life!
SubhanAllah.
Allah forgive us on this night.

Ramadan entered softly, like a doe,
and leaves like thunder:
ten nights and Laylat Al-Qadr,
changing everything,
taking men low
and raising them like saints or kings.

II.

Some admire me.
You’re brave, they say.
We look to you to show the way.

I laugh.
That doesn’t even add up in new math.
Brave? Me?
I’m looking to Allah to save me.

I’ve been down and out
with nothing to my name but a shout.
I’ve been stuck in solitary
listening to my own commentary;

Down in prostration;
A pebble in Allah’s creation;
Praying for freedom and light;
For a way forward, for a wife.

I’m lost. Beaten and tossed,
still trying to figure the cost.
Brave? Me?
I’m looking to Allah to save me,
and looking to the Prophet to guide.
as I walk this rocky path
beneath the sky.

III.

I toe the Beloved’s line:
He, the torch-bearer of humanity’s time.
The Trustworthy one, the Truth-teller,
in this earth a temporary dweller,

a tower of strength, persistent.
Against evil resistant,
never giving in, free of sin.
Suffering, losing loved ones,
losing wife, uncle, daughter, son,

yet still on the path,
the mission fee-sabeel-illah,
mourning, bleeding, preaching.
That which he was given, speaking.

Yes, our Messenger ,
our deliverer and reckoner,
a man from men,
child of a woman,

the seal of Prophethood between his shoulders.
In his determination like a great boulder,
yet tender and kind,
gentlest of humankind,
sometimes afraid and in pain,
praying for relief; praying for rain.

A loving husband and parent
who spoke to angels on their errands;
who saw Paradise
yet sweated in heat and shivered in ice.
He could have been king, anointed and crowned,
yet touched his forehead to the ground.

He left footprints in the dust,
fulfilling his trust,
delivering the word
and passing from this earth
like the passing of an age
now remembered in our following his way,
honoring him as we obey.

And as we speak of him here,
smiling and shedding tears,
we ask Allah to bless him forever:
his family, companions and whoever
follows his way
until the final Day.

IV.

Ramadan entered quietly
like still June air,
and leaves like a million angels in prayer.
Mercy and forgiveness fall like rain.
Here, O worshiper,
there is peace from pain.

As for me, I stumble,
trying not to fumble,
repeating, subhanAllah, alhamdulillah.
For I’m looking to Allah to save me
and looking to the Prophet to guide;
praying for help on the path
that is not wide.

Related Posts:

Please, Be Gentle With God’s Guests In Ramadan I Sh Mohammad Elshinawy

The Definition of Fasting – A Ramadan Poem

* * *

Reader comments and constructive criticism are important to me, so please comment!

See the Story Index for Wael Abdelgawad’s other stories on this website.

Wael Abdelgawad’s novels – including Pieces of a Dream, The Repeaters and Zaid Karim Private Investigator – are available in ebook and print form on his author page at Amazon.com.

The post Looking To Allah To Save Me : A Ramadan Poem appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

Is Harry Potter haram? Muslim parents and kids alike have been asking this question for over two decades, and it’s still hard to find a definitive answer! For avid readers, a larger question looms: what does Islam actually say about literature and poetry? Can Muslims read non-Islamic works of fiction? Doesn’t the Qur’an tell us that poets are cursed?

In this episode of the MuslimMatters podcast, Shaykh Shahin-ur Rahman and Zainab bint Younus discuss Harry Potter, Matilda, how Muslims can benefit from literature, and what Islam really says about poetry!

Shaykh Shahin-ur Rahman graduated in 2014 from a traditional Islamic seminary in the UK. In 2021, he completed a master’s degree at the University of Warwick in 2021 in Islamic Education: Theory and Practice. A thinker, educator and writer, he is the founder of Al-Rahma, a daʿwah platform based in his hometown of Northampton. Professionally, the shaykh works as a curriculum writer for a publishing house in London.

Related: 5 Important Lessons from Harry Potter

The post Podcast: Is Harry Potter Haram? Islamic Perspectives Of Poetry And Literature With Sh. Shahin-Ur Rahman appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.

did you hear the news?
the blood flowed and she was handed a hijab
wash the stains, cover the head, hide the chest
it’s a haemorrhage of her childhood.
listen, there is blood on the streets too.
it’s not hers. bodies lie in plain sight.
how will she wash these stains?
rainwater returns to the beds of roses.
she’s Trending, it’s all over the news
it’s all over
sister, you’re no longer
part of the hood. you took it off
and here i Unfollow you. this vlog
i Dislike.
you think she got the Makki years,
you think it’s easy for her to testify to tawhid
but wasn’t it always: here! wear this, fix that, do it, pray now, question later, answer never.
the mothers of believers, the earliest sisters
got the years needed to adopt a behaviour.
when we’re not Trending on twitter for being dead
or the alleged cause of death,
most of us are working or helping someone else work paycheque to paycheque.
God said the night was made for resting
but the world said there is no rest for the one on the night shift.
angels gather when she speaks of God,
what harm can harm her when she is witnessed?
rainwater evaporates like a textbook lesson. the sun is ablaze and a barren field blossoms. look, it’s a storm of sunflowers.
she picks up a letter she’s written to God.
I’m excited for us to meet, ya Rabb.
the mountains she loves turn to dust.
the sky opens into gates. a trumpet blows, and Israfil exhales.

Related reading:

Again, And Again, And Again, And Again

The post Go Easy On Yourself Habibti: A Spoken Word Poem appeared first on MuslimMatters.org.