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
Collateral damage has hues Of innocent blood That stains the ivory tower Keep your hands clean To make the tower gleam
Waiting Room
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
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
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
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
Seal
To see him as the seal of prophethood Is all the nūr you’ll need to brave the end
Brothers
Salaam upon Yunus For the noble frustration he felt At the obstinate rejection of his message That frustration would be enough For us beggars to fly into paradise But the mission of Yunus lay In not fleeing Not until the Word came And so a physical darkness Was sent from high to surround him In the fiery pit of of a beast under water That he may reflect upon The greater darkness He had left his flock in With the fire awaiting them Such is rahmah That led him to cry out The ayah karimah An ayah nestled in a chapter Of The Book A chapter titled The Prophets It brings us full circle To that heavy day outside Taif Where a man sat bleeding As he fled an angry mob Not because he had given up on them But because he hadn't He was an ayah karimah It is opportune then That another man came to him A slave hailing from the land of Nineveh The land of Yunus Bearing refreshment for the Hashimi With bloodied sandals It was in the legacy of Yunus To bring relief to his noble brother The last of the brethren Still on his mission
Gone
Every joy a passing moment Every grief a passing moment Every moment gone Like water Lost in the whorls of a dream
Passage
The farther we go down the road of time The wider the field of our vision That when we look back to things from the past To measure what is and what isn’t We take in so much, much more than we had The moment the moments came down It colors the grays calamity cast With tinctures of azure and brown But some things can only be read Once time and its cloaks have been shed