Khalid Mukhtar

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

Renewal

· ·

To have the comfort of knowing that Allah knows is the point. Ishq!

– Shaykh Amin Kholwadia, Tafsir Surah Qāf

These six stanzas inspired by Shaykh Amins’s tafsīr of Surah Qāf, Session 2.

Send prayers and send blessings on his name
Before you heed this message Qasimiyy
Renewal is a constant in this game
Of time that guarantees the loss of me

This love for newness is an endless song
We long for change until the day we die
Proclaiming hope in God with every dawn
And crescent moons that sickle days gone by

What’s more: the kalimah renews our faith
Like rain that falls upon the barren earth
Salaah renews our time and blesses space
Zakaah renews our wealth and checks our worth

And Ramadan renews our lifelong goal
When we obsess to find that night of Power
And Hajj recasts the pilgrim’s weary soul
As new born child's that lives its foremost hour

Now khalid mourn the arrogance of man
With empty claim I am with Allah Let’s
Return to the beginning of Ihsān:
Allah knows me better than I myself

Ishq! The stilling comfort when you know
That Allah knows and that’s the point my friend
To make yourself a cushion from each woe 
And say Allah is with me in the end

Rahmatan

· · 

Some days when grief arrives in all its grays
When every flower in your garden dries
When laughter doesn’t burst with golden rays
And all the rains seem dammed up in your eyes
Go find yourself a rock to sit upon
To let your worries float upon a breeze
(If you can do this near the break of dawn
Around when dew has washed the tops of leaves)
Then coax your heart to journey back instead
To when a sad unbroken man sat down
To cleanse his sandals overcome with red
Derided, scorned and driven out of town
    Take heart from him and dry your tears friend.
    He is a rahmah to you till the end

Dustbound

· · 

You know all that garbage you spew
There’s a reason it came to be
And if you had paid attention then you
Would undoubtedly come to see:

You alone are the greatest sign
That you have a long way to go
Sit down in the dust poor khalid a while
It’s purer than you’ll ever know

Surf

· · 

Beware the currents of doubt
And the undertow of kufr
Sometimes it's not enough
That you can swim

Somewhere Deep

· · 

Put that secret in a chest
Lock it up and toss the key
Somewhere deep is always best
Choose your well or find your sea

That’s the key, now to the chest
Bury it with naught below it
Somewhere deep inside your breast
Where heart won’t suffer brain to know it

Show Yourself

· · 

Hope is in His Nūr
Hope is in His Name
Hope is looking for the ones
Who’ll play its hopeful game

It’s not that you lose hope
It’s you that must be found
For Nūr seeks out and floods each soul
That to His Name is bound

So say His Name my khalid 
And show yourself my dear

Mendicant, See

· · 

Repentance is to see
Through well-abluted eyes:
Rebellion is blindness

How blessed then to be
A mendicant who cries
In awe of such a kindness

Firm As A Rock

· · 

You float up the nile
An infant delight
Get raised as a prince
And then comes the flight

A fugitive off
In a desolate land
Till comes the nubuwwah
With blood on the sand

The tyrant won’t listen
The signs are not heeded
And time is against you
But you do what’s needed

You lead them away
Down into the sea
The hordes of the tyrant 
Won’t let you go free

But you’ve got your faith
As firm as a rock
Bismillah the sea
Gives way to your flock

‘Alaykum Salaam

Quietly

· · 

The peace that we long for
And the hope that we seek
Lies in those who prefer silence
When the ignorant speak