Khalid Mukhtar

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

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Known

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This poem was inspired by Shaykh Amin’s jum’ah bayaan from June 19, 2026.

The rhyme finds its way into the verse as I find my way out of it.

So well did he know his people
So familiar was he with their lives
The lives they abandoned behind them as well
As the lives they were building anew

So well was Allah’s final prophet
Involved in their struggles each day
Their wins and their losses, the pains they endured
All trifles to be close to him

That when someone told him a Zaynab
Was waiting to see him one day
He rather than asking after who she was
Looked up and enquired, “Which Zaynab?”

You cannot begin to know someone
Without them first knowing you too
For knowing a soul, by nature, it brings
Both seeker and sought together

So how will this man magnificent
Know me? It follows of course
That I must begin my journey to learn
Who he was, who he is, who he’ll be

I listen to stories about him
Then want to know more, so his words
Become the most blessed obsession to me
His Message and everything heard

That ‘scaped through his lips so mubarak
But how can I know it without
Some knowledge and love of the Arabic tongue
To lessen the burden of doubt

So slowly I learn all the letters
The words are not easy on me
The sarf and the nahw get better each day
The sapling grows into a tree

This knowledge is humbling I tell you
For once you attain it you find
That all you have gathered and everything learned
Has left you ashamed of your mind

The hunger for more brings you closer
To teachers and books so much so
The more that you learn the more you discern
How little you really know

Then one day you utter an alif
That cuts away body from soul
You answer three questions and rest for awhile
Till trumpet assembles you whole

To rise from the womb of the earth
And join in the hordes on a Day
When the crawlers and limpers and walkers and runners
And flyers all travel the way

You see in the distance Muhammad
On him Allah’s prayers and peace
He’s searching the throngs for faces and names
He knows are approved for release

You cannot begin to know one
Without them first knowing you too
The seeker and sought are finally brought
Together united and true

So throw up your hands and shout out your name
That he may respond, “Which khalid?”

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