Sunday 10 April 2016
To the Martyred Knight of the Desert- Abu Mus'ab al Ghani (Nazir Alema)
Let's pick up a number.
One so odd that it adds up
And becomes even.
Where's the shark that escaped
The fisherman's net
And beat the rest
To it,
Here's what he claimed he saw;
Men whose thirst for death
Surpassed the desert's thirst for water,
That's what he saw so he yearned to be like them.
And what I saw was men whose
Certainty of Allah's promise
Seemed as if they had
A clear vision of jannah rolling on a screen in front of them.
And then I saw this young man
Drenched in the pits of jahiliyyah
But He walked away
Seeking the pleasure of his Lord
With his name up for a martyrdom op
He patiently waited his turn
But the Lord above the 7 heavens
Had written that he be martyred
By a bullet
They said he fasted
They said he stood up to pray at night
They said he was of the best
And I say so too
But Allah knows best
He hid most of his deeds
But can the lion
Hide for too long?
I remember how he'd smile
Whenever we met
I remember so much
That I wish I'm martyred soon too
It's only a fool who'll wish him alive
When Allah says the martyr is alive
May Allah accept his deeds
It's only a fool who says his departure from this world was untimely!
How stupid is the one who thinks death is only meant for the old...
That's the story of the man who was killed but didn't die
Alive and up above
Receiving provision from his Lord
Flying beneath the throne of Allah
I know what he knew
He knows what I know
But I'm here simply waiting.
For nothing overcomes the decree of Allah.
He was martyred while fasting
And his last words were the testimony of faith,
His blood smelled of musk...
Here's the end of the one who lays down his life to make the word of Allah high
Can't wait till we reunite
In jannah
Can't wait till i flap my wings in jannah too...
Just like the brothers who've preceded me
And Allah knows best their state in the afterlife
Indeed the promise of Allah is true...
Will you then reason up?
Or will you wait until Allah's wrath reaches you?
Thursday 10 December 2015
To the Man That Died
Here's what you left behind
It's all here
The glitter… the clothes… the rides
While the the dust of the earth envelops you.
It’s all here;
The mother you feared leaving,
The wife whose warmth kept you negligent
While what you were unsure of embraces you now
What did you send forth?
You obeyed the ayaat of your parents and disobeyed the ayaat of Allah.
Oh wretched soul!
What does the dust feel like?
Has the earth given you its squeeze?
Tell me what you found…
We are the men we are because of our beliefs
How else can we be anything else
Besides a reflection of our hearts
And its desires
Sometimes I imagine myself being
The person you raised me to be
But everyone that knew me well
Had one fear
That fear became a reality
That fear was what I secretly yearned for,
You saw a pit of fire
And I saw life,
You saw an old broken pot
And I saw a pot of gold.
Here's what I found to be the truth;
I found brothers who fell on the battlefields with their blood smelling of musk,
I found brothers whose corpses smiled like they were alive,
I found a group that stubbornly stick to Quran and sunnah,
I found the terrifying pleasure of the fronts,
I found the smell of death pleasing
And I found the promise of Allah to be true...
You either die a coward
Or die like a man
Whose soul is restless until the shariah of Allah is applied
Or whose soul soars to its Lord while He's pleased.
Here's what I found to be the truth
You won't understand
But I am what I've always wanted to be
This life is beautiful...
I swear by Allah
That a bullet through my heart is what I await
I swear by Allah
That an airstrike tearing my body apart is what I await
When my lord is pleased with my efforts
He'll give me one of the two ends.
But what I pray for
Is the courage to blow myself up in the midst of the enemy
And I know this is another fear you have
So I know my Lord will put the courage in my heart soon
To the man that died
And to his likes still alive;
Will you not reason?
Tuesday 25 November 2014
a fly is a fly...
Monday 15 September 2014
As I lost my sleep...
The mosquito buzzed through the room as I lost my sleep to its unwanted company. I had drawn the sheets over my body and covered my face with what was left. I threw my hands across my ears and over my head but she kept returning like an over-domesticated cat. I couldn’t stand her company anymore so I got off the bed and switched on the light. I sat looking around for her. She had absconded, the creepy little blood sucker.
The fajr adhaan resonated through the neighbourhood - my day, technically, had already started. I had to wake my father up for the prayer as usual- the old man couldn’t trust the white man’s toy to wake him up. “When I was growing up, the fear of our mother’s water wetting our faces forced us up for fajr” he’d say whenever I insisted he get himself an alarm or at least allow me get him one.
It was dark, and the moon had cast its light on the compound after the electricity company took its break. I walked towards his door and knocked gently, not wanting to wake the scornful neighbours up. I yawned as I rubbed my sore eyes from the terrible sleep I was forced out of. I walked off to perform ablution before my father got out to join me.
I returned to his door, surprised that he still hadn’t woken up. His room was dead quiet. I knocked slightly harder and I couldn’t hear the usual grunts he makes when he wakes up. I mentioned his name through the window sill. Still dead silence... What could have happened to him?
Thoughts of how my father found my mother dead flooded my mind. I knocked harder at the door and called his name out loud. The neighbours began waking up. I couldn’t be bothered. The door had to be broken down. Even if he wasn’t dead yet, I felt I could at least save him. I forced open the trap door. The neighbours were awake now but too scared to come out because of the darkness and rate of crime in the neighbourhood. I wasn’t going to let my old man die without me.
As I raised my foot to break his door open, someone spoke to me, “Dela, nukeyjor?” I turned around to see my father looking at me, bewildered by the intended action. I sighed. Mixed feelings of anger and happiness made a cocktail out of my reaction. He could have at least told me he was going to spend the night in the mosque.
Monday 8 September 2014
...the beardless men
Basking in the flames of defeat,
the beardless men asked for the leper’s hand.
While the clouds swept in
like a desert sandstorm.
And she smiled again;
Not because she’d seen the beardless men fall back
But because the score had been settled.
She remembered when her sisters were dishonoured,
When the throats of the noisy little kids next door were slit,
As the once proud men on the street were stripped naked and tortured,
She remembered the boy who starved to death,
And the girls who traded their pride for food,
As the world watched on unperturbed.
But then the clouds marched in
Shading the homeless from the sun
And pouring rain to wash away the filth left behind by the beardless men.
The clouds spread;
Reaching town upon town,
Field upon field,
Until eyes turned green
While others turned red
In envy and hatred.
Then the dogs started to bark at the clouds
While they wagged their tails at the beardless men.
The dogs, the friends of the beardless men
And the clouds, too far up to be bothered by the dogs…
The women of this world
Are of two camps;
Those whose desires are for the dun’ya
And those whose hearts yearn for the aakhira while working towards it.
Let the beardless men
Acknowledge their weakness
And let the sincere lions charge at the filthy hyenas
That crossed the boundary.
This world is like a path.
You can either keep walking
Or you can camp beside the path like the disbelievers
And watch the travellers rush to Allah’s promise.
But do we see
Or do we look?
Are we Muslims
Or are we just people?
Where are our hearts?
Are our wealth and lives too precious
To be sacrificed for our aakhira?
Or maybe, we just don’t understand
What Islaam really is…