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Khalid Mukhtar

Word, like wind, cuts through you / Withers all but true you

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Khalid Mukhtar

Time and I

Khalid Mukhtar · June 8, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Come time
Have a seat
Dip your toes
Wet your feet
On the shores
Of Eternity
If you could learn
To bide me

Ya Shāfī

Khalid Mukhtar · June 4, 2023 · Leave a Comment

Take my weary body
Dented by the world
Shattered by disease
Broken by the earth
And make it whole again
As whole as you decree
That I may die a Muslim
Your name my final word
And I your slave submitting
Ya Shāfī Ya Rahīm

Take my weary soul
Dented by desire
Shattered by the whispers
Broken by my nafs
And make it whole again
As whole as whole can be
That I may walk in health
And follow my Habib
To where the fountain flows
Ya Shāfī Ya Rahmān

Romancing the Kernel

Khalid Mukhtar · May 27, 2023 · Leave a Comment

            There’s a pumpkin seed in my mouth. In fact, there are three.

            There was a time I used to be conscious of hulling them inside my mouth and extracting the coveted kernels using the apparatus of my tongue and teeth. I don’t think about it so much anymore.

            Did I mention I’m driving? I keep my hands on the wheel. I use the tip of my tongue to shelf two of the seeds into what I have come to call the attic, the elastic vestibule between my upper lip and teeth. The basement is empty for now.

            The first seed has been deposited at the center of my tongue. It is sitting there for me to taste, to feel, to get to know a little better. A mad twenty-second sequence is about to begin as I court this pepita. Allow me a brief detour to give you a taste of what I believe is the primary component of our complex apparatus.

            The human tongue. It comprises eight muscles divided into two groups of four each. The intrinsic muscles change the shape of the tongue while the extrinsic alter its position. Seven of these eight muscles are stimulated by the hypoglossal nerve that supplies the tongue with motor control, while only one is innervated by the vagus nerve, which communicates with the heart and stomach. This is a complex nexus of neural activity.

            It follows then that seven eighths of this beautiful musculature are actively employed when we speak, and a smaller fraction when we eat. You may wonder about speaking and eating at the same time. If we think about it, we find that we don’t do that well. Even when we do it well, we’re just doing it concurrently, interleaving moments of articulation and mastication so that at any given time, we’re either talking or eating. When we manage to do them both at the same time, we are said to choke.

            Daunted by the crazy complexities of tongue dynamics during speech, I have instead chosen to present the magnificence of this organ in all its muscular splendor by capturing the mechanics of something with which I am quite familiar: hulling a pumpkin seed. That is, without manual assistance.

            First, I spend a couple seconds tasting the seed. If I encounter the smallest hint of bitterness, which happens one in a hundred times, I jettison the defective seed into my cup of waste with my tongue immediately dislodging number two from the attic. But if it tastes fine, then the next step is to turn the seed over and lap up as much moisture as possible off the genioglossus, the largest fan-shaped muscle that constitutes the bulk of the tongue. Duly marinated, I next test the seed for crackability, first elongating my tongue to press it up against the inside of my teeth, with the longer edges of the seed lined up between my incisors. If I can’t peel off the hull, I shuttle it over to my right molars and lodge it between the jaws to wield even pressure, whatever it takes to engineer that first crack. There are no crunching motions here. Any irresponsible violence and the kernel and its hull will be mashed together into an indecomposable pulp. We don’t want that.

            If it still hasn’t given, then it’s time to swing the seed over to the left molars for the same treatment. All the while my tongue stands by, incessantly expanding, contracting, protruding, retracting through exertions of the superior and inferior longitudinal and transverse muscles. It’s like a live swiss army knife of sorts, switching between pick, press, mallet, scraper, vacuum cleaner, and crane. I run the seed by my incisors again, and this time the hull gives in to the persistent peeling. My tongue collaborates with my gums, squeezing down along the sealed edges to coax the kernel out of the opposite compromised edge, assisted by whichever tooth is down for it. The rest of the seed coat gradually tears away. The green treasure slides out.

            In the interest of efficient garbage disposal, I stash the empty husk in the basement and proceed to mash the kernel, thereby awakening the vagal neural pathways. But my tongue knows no rest. I find that the second seed has been fetched from the attic and deposited at the moist center even as I consume the first one with relish. There is a lot happening behind the scenes. Let us exit this tour now and get some air.

            We work hard in our quest for pleasure, be it in terms of health, wealth or the more rewarding pursuits of knowledge and understanding, the two brightest mile markers on the road to peace. We can’t afford to be rigid and set in our ways. We must be prepared to collaborate, to exercise intrinsic and extrinsic forces, change shape, expand, contract, twist, reach, exert pressure, and lavish love. The soft must work with the hard to produce whatever marvel of physics we may contrive to extract that prized kernel, preferably whole and untainted by husk parts.

            The Arabs call the kernel the lubb. It is the thing worth getting, the thing that matters, the essence that lies at the center. It holds the substance. It is the inner meaning. Men and women urged by the Divine to their highest intellectual calling and their most magnitudinous purpose are addressed as Ulul Albaab, the People of the Kernel.

            I will be on the road for fourteen more minutes. That means there is a pumpkin seed in my mouth. In fact, there are three.

Don’t Wait Too Long

Khalid Mukhtar · May 5, 2023 ·

There is one God
Just ask your heart
But only after it may start
To beat the drum
Of lasting Truth
For that my friend
Will outlast you

The prophets came
All men you know
They came and went
Like shepherds go
Each looking over
His own flock
Reminding we’re
Of one-God stock

The last of them
The Lord’s habīb
A Rahmah unto
All the worlds
He came affirming
What his brothers
Told their flocks
Who came before

So listen to your heart my friend
It won’t betray you in the end
Hear its beat and heed its song
There is one God and one alone

Don’t wait too long

We Love Them All

Khalid Mukhtar · April 30, 2023 ·

We love them all

The immobilized uncle
Who shouts his response blaring
Salaam over the phone
His hoarse tones streaking our ears
Like syrup on pancakes

The uncomplaining voice
Of a dear cousin poorly faring
Who does more with less
How her words of shukr
Lend her a regal bearing

And the affectionate aunt
Who braves crowds thronging
At the rawdah swearing
She won’t leave till
Her eyes have their fill
“Aayiram Kangal,” she said something declaring
In Tamil verses of delight:
“A thousand eyes couldn’t
Take in this sight.”

Lovers of salaam
Lovers of shukr
Lovers of the habīb
SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa sallam

Collateral Damage

Khalid Mukhtar · April 29, 2023 ·

Collateral damage has hues
Of innocent blood
That stains the ivory tower

Keep your hands clean
To make the tower gleam

Waiting Room

Khalid Mukhtar · April 24, 2023 ·

A beautiful day
Is no less beautiful
Because I cry
With clouds gathering
On my brow
Raining tears on a shirt
Otherwise dry

No, the day remains
Beautiful
Playing out its purpose
For whichever
Of God’s creatures
Must have its share
Of beauty in the air

We all know we’ve had ours
Smiles and laughter
With leftovers after
All while fire rains
Or earth splits
Or lead hits everything
In its way

Yes, the darkness lifts
Slowly
On this or the other side
Of this azure marble
Swimming in space
All that is willed
Must pass into Grace

To bring into view
The golden hues
Of a shared dawn
Enough khalid
Stop resisting
Bow or be bowed
Desisting

Mushaf

Khalid Mukhtar · April 12, 2023 ·

Like many, I’ve found that reading from the mushaf hits differently than reciting from memory. Especially on days when I have a lot of dunya swimming around in my head, picking up the mushaf, reciting from it for a few minutes helps clear the cobwebs. 

It’s like a wash for the senses: for the eyes that read; for the lips, cheek, palate, the entire mouth really that plays stage for my tongue; for the ears that listen to the rivery rush of my recitation; for the hands that feel the containment - four fingers have the cover while thumbs get paper; everything gets something. 

But then you wonder, what about taste and smell. Well, those senses reap the benefits. They are the ones that make me want to return.

Tilāwah

Khalid Mukhtar · March 24, 2023 ·

Paraphrasing in verse a brief talk by Shaykh Amin on the third night of Ramadan 1444

What - he asks instructively -
Is the primary purpose
Of revelation?

There are many:
Reciting it
Teaching it
Citing it
Preaching it
Understanding it
Reaching it
But the primary remains
Reciting it

Reciting it

Tilawah

We’re in Ramadan
The month of the Quran
In which we recite from it
Day and night from it
Till our hearts might thrum it

But then, fasting
Where does that come into it
A feast for the soul that’s been to it
Depriving ourselves
Of food and drink
Suppressing impulses beastly
To channel the angelic status quo
For angels don’t eat nor drink you know

And what does all that starvation do
To you, struggling khalid?
It lightens your soul
And the soul that is light
Can carry the weight of the Word

It’s a heavy Word
It just didn’t come
Easy on the heart of a man
In a cave in Makkah

SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa Sallam

But what he endured
Imbued him with Nūr
And by his wasīlah
It floats on our breath till
It rolls off our tongues
Like dew off a petal

Like water it flows

And here in Ramadan
The month of the Quran
In which we recite from it
Day and night from it
Till our hearts might thrum it

The more we recite it
The lighter the soul
And the lighter the soul
Recites it some more

Believers all over
With angelic bearing
Reciting in parts
So the needle of rahmah
Pulling wahy thread
May stitch up our
Broken hearts

We do this as the moon
Waxes and wanes
Through the end in store
When the night comes that measures
A thousand months and more

But a Nūr so intense
Cannot stay disconnected
From creatures of Nūr
Who crave its sweet nectar

So a portal is blown
Through the heavens, its gates
Fly open to pour out
The Nūr on their wings

Thus throng countless angels
To this planet enveloped
By the collective breath
Of believers reciting
Quran, just reciting
Quran, just reciting
Quran

We’re now in Ramadan
The month of the Quran
In which we recite from it
Day and night from it
Till our hearts might thrum it

On Fools and Traps

Khalid Mukhtar · March 9, 2023 ·

The fool belittles content
And glorifies form

The trapped belittle form

The trapped fool belittles

The free fool writes
And that for the paltry price
Of goose bumps or victuals

Almost everyone else is cool
Belittling the fool
Or belittling the belittling

While the silent rule 
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