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Shahadah
I am on Jupiter when the summer rains begin. It is dawn. Raining letters,
Arabic letters. Each drop of pure Arabic script lights the sky with a
stone-skim of silvery black. And so I walk on.
I walk on in the rain for hours. Yet my heart is hard and heavy.
And so I walk on.
Alif
A hundred million spears of golden alif, made of water buckled tight with
the weight of Jupiter's mass, and now each of these spilt my body in two and
in two and in two again and again, each time my body rendered apart like a
lightening struck oak, then reclaimed by Jupiter's enormous belly-mass
yarking me back into a single piece of flesh, walking still through the
torrent of shredding arrows. Yet not one projectile splices my heart, for it
is still too hard even for these angels' bullets.
And so I walk on.
Ba Ta Ha
The three boatmen bring the bucketing rain in breastfulls along the rim of
the blood red storm, some tumbling from the sky like laughing boys rolling
down a shallow mountain beck, others stiff and stern with self-discipline
like a company of soldiers side-stepping down the slopes of a dusty valley.
Yet even this torrent of love cannot raise my roped heart up to the heavens
to be kissed by angels.
And so I walk on.
Jeem
This raindrop is all alone and tells me it has visited Paradise. How can
that be? How can anything visit the home of pure souls and then return? 'Are
you the devil, cast down?' I ask. The raindrop replies, 'The truth is - I
have not truly been inside the lovely gardens, but with my Lord's permission
I peeked through the dense olive groves that surround the lovely gardens. My
friend! How beautiful the light was there in the lovely gardens, more
enchanting than woodland thick with snow. Praise be to Allah. Ever since
that glimpse, every sleeping moment has been filled with dreams of that sky.
You know! It is like a fear on me! O my friend, it is indeed a long journey
from here, but I have travelled that way once, and for love of God - why not
twice? What do you think?" No. Even your dreamy hope cannot lift the shadows
from my grey heart sufficient to turn me onto the road to Paradise - no, not
even if the road were lined with mountains of gold.
And so I walk on.
Ha
Now comes a genus of raindrop that changes the colour of the sky, filling it
with white robes like pilgrims. Rain that dare do no other than fall like
rain. 400 000 white torches that dare do no other than form mercurial
rivulets on the blood red soil. Streams that dare do no other than join like
arcs of lightening to make rivers, and seas like suns, and oceans like
nebulae. Rain shining so bright that the light passes from my occipital bone
through to the back of my eyeball. But not even light this bright can waken
me.
And so I walk on.
Kha
From behind the wall of light brighter than the flash of a nuclear blast, I
hear of voice. A soliloquy lamenting something broken, lost, but for now
the words are not clear. These words were first uttered long ago, and though
I am moved by their pious passion, I strain to hear their sense or meaning.
Then suddenly speech breaks through, whispering not from somewhere beyond my
space, but muttering out of wounds on my chest and abdomen.
It is the words of brother and sister mustad'af, a moment ago believing in
nothing because they have been taught to rely on nothing but themselves.
They are isolate, mad, poor, crippled with kindness; tender feelings have
twisted their limbs into spirals, faces burned bone bright with innocence.
Their words not much more than phonemic screeches, like birds with lips for
beaks.
The voice of those taught to live by the myth of Godless contentment
screaming in rebellion.
Deen
"Oh my Lord!" Cries out brother mustad'af. "Let me worship You beneath this
mantle, a mantle like the mantle of the Prophet (may peace be upon him), a
mantle to protect me from the dark dead figures walking this earth. O Lord!
Let my salah be hidden from all but You and permit not even Your angels to
see me. O my Lord!"
"O my Lord!" The sister cries. "Let me worship You without the law of
religion to tether me, a law grey with the ink of men. Let Your perfect
guidance be not a veil to wear on the street and in polite company, but a
light to guide us in the ways of Love and Truth among all of humankind. O my
Lord!"
"Oh my Lord!" They cry
together. "Your Mercy has overwhelmed even Your own Universe. Your Love is
boundless. May we forever seek You and live beside You, crouching like miners before Your
Perfect Light. O My
Lord!"
And so We walk on. |
