Khalid Mukhtar

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

Till We Meet Again

· ·

Inspired by this picture, which made the rounds on Twitter a couple days ago.

No mother should see her child die.
No father should bury his child.
But death is no guest to deny
Or turn away unreconciled.

There lives a prophetic example
Of how such a grief may be borne
Through tears in quantities ample
That help mend a heart that is torn.

Yes, weep for the memories cherished
And weep for the times that you miss,
Remember, to honor the perished,
The warmth of each hug and each kiss.

We grieve at the sad separation;
Though every ocean is spanned,
The journey may need preparation,
But know what awaits us is grand.

So let every teardrop flow
In waters of hope come together
To carry us where we must go
Through every gambit of weather.

And there be united again
To never feel burdened by breath,
No grief and no worry of when
For time is the last pick of death.

We pray that our children live long,
To bury us while they are strong.

Recalling an old poem

· ·

In the last forty-eight hours, three instances of death have me thinking about this post from many years before.

On Cancer, Guns, and Hit ‘n Runs

The rough similarity of these three unrelated individuals to the three characters in my poem is uncanny to say the least. Reality bites.

Sapling

· ·

I just learned about the tragic passing of an old friend’s little son. Tears.

We come from The Ever Living, and to The Ever Living we return.

I still remember wondering about
Whence came this little sapling in my care,
I planted it with all my love without
Withholding any love that I could spare.
I’d tend to it each morning when the dew
Exchanged itself for drops of golden sun,
And as the nightly veil of darkness drew,
I’d gaze upon the beauty I’d begun.
But yesterday, a storm aroused my fears
And tore my little sapling from the earth,
And all my loving care and streams of tears:
All proved to be of very little worth.
I saw last night within a timeless hour
My sapling blossoming a fragrant flower.

Tamir Rice, Peace

· ·

Not a toy
But a gun
In the hands
Of the one
You can trust;
Yes, you must
With your all.

Then you fall:
All that trust
Up in flames
Of disgust,
As you lay
In the dust,
Someone’s son.

Not a gun
Just a toy
In the hands
Of a boy.
Now he’s dead
Cut by lead,
Burning deep.

Can you sleep
As they weep
For the loss
Of a life
That you slayed
From the palm
Of your hand?

And then killed
Him again
With a law-
Mocking pen.
Is this all
We have for
Tamir Rice?

Tyrants

· ·

This poem was written for (“by”) one of the characters in my first novel, Tyrants.

Of all the tyrants big and small,
We come, the meekest of them all,
For all oppression that we do
Comprises that which leads us to

Exalt the means above the end,
Betray the trust of trusting friend,
Abandon love that comes to aid,
Or flee the mess our weakness made,

To stress the bonds of love well tried
Until two kindred hearts divide,
Or turn upon ourselves in hate
Begrudging much that seals our fate.

Of all the tyrants big and small,
We come, the meekest of them all,
I cringe to think what we might be,
Were we to wield more tyranny.

Winter Remembrance

· ·

The signs to love God and His beloved are everywhere. Looking over the prairie on a gloomy Saturday, I felt this rush of words fall in a sonnet. SallAllahu ‘alayhi wa Sallam.

My heart is as the prairie, dry and dead;
Though withered by the kiss of autumn winds,
It welcomes drops of rain that fall instead
Reminding me of my surviving sins.
But somewhere through the prairie flows a stream
Of sweet remembrances: a name, a face,
A man whose love for me surpasses dream,
A love that thrives beyond all time and space.
All death is winter, silent, cold and still,
All life is spring where hearts revive, immersed
In love and faith, beat patiently until
The waters of the fountain slay all thirst.
I long to drink my fill from hands I know
Will take me to my Lord, won’t let me go.

Next

· ·

What we wish we could undo
Was meant
To be,
To shape our present,
To fashion an impetus
For what we do next.

Silence

· ·

Be silent to say a thing,
And listen to explain it.
An audience deaf to silence
Requires mutes to train it.

On Separation

· · 

To see a flower open into sun,
To hear the crack of dawn in sparrow's tweet,
To breathe the sounds of children having fun
Through syncopated pats of toddler feet;
And then to leave that all behind to join
The wheel that swallows everything it finds
To spin its labor straw into a coin
As shiny as its meal of chewed-up minds;
It's hard upon a silent, weary eye
That misses hearts long dead and longer cherished,
That knows no inability to cry
And cries so long as longing hasn't perished.
The solemn rite of weeping in the rain
Is all a fool for love can hope to gain.

Why The One Thing Suicide Bombing Cannot Be Is Islamic

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Let me begin with a definition of Islam.

Islam is…

I’ll give you a second to complete that sentence in your head.

If you said peace, then you’re likely getting your knowledge of Islam from main stream media and Muslims who really want to make Islam synonymous with the idea of peace. And that’s all very good.

The only problem with it is that it waters down the discourse of Islam as a religion followed by an individual for his/her individual salvation, that being the whole point of the Islamic faith.

From an Islam 101 standpoint, Islam does not mean peace. Islam can include a rich discussion of peace. Morphologically, it is very closely linked to the Arabic word for peace. That word is Salaam. In fact, it is so closely linked to Salaam that some say it may as well just mean Peace.

But the fact remains: Islam does not mean peace.

The word, Islam, is classified as a masdar in Arabic grammar. That is the equivalent of a gerund in English, i.e. a verbal noun. For instance, the verbal noun of “to sleep” is “sleeping”, as used in the sentence: “Sleeping is my favorite pastime.” Islam comes from the verb: As-la-ma.

Aslama means to submit. The gerund of Aslama is Islam. Hence Islam means submitting.

This works better than submission because submission has a quality of being a bit discrete, as in point-in-time. But submitting is a perpetual state of mind and soul. A Muslim (one who does the act of aslama) is always submitting.

Now let’s be honest here. To be in a state of perpetual submission is a rank attained by the prophets and the saints. That being said, perpetual submission is the gold standard.

It is the state in which the Muslim strives to be. It is the rope which the Muslim holds on to. When he or she loses grip (and that is expected), the Muslim struggles with regaining a hold. To a Muslim, Islam means submitting your everything to God. This includes the physical, mental, intellectual, and spiritual facets of submission.

As a Muslim, if you are afflicted with an illness in body or mind (or your spouse or child is), you submit to God’s will.

You do not resent your state.

You certainly do not argue with God.

If anything, you recognize that both difficulty and ease come from One indivisible God. That is why the Muslim draws close to the One who ultimately is the source of the affliction.

It gets better. You submit your body and your mind.

Not easy.

As a Muslim, if you apply your intellect and arrive at a conclusion that is in direct conflict with a tenet of the faith, or that is irreconcilable with a conclusive precept, you submit to God’s will. For instance, adopting intellectual recourse to “prove” that pork is acceptable for consumption by a Muslim would reflect a total lack of submission. This level of submission weighs hardest on scholars and thinkers. To submit your intellect is even harder.

The Muslim is ever submitting to Divine will and command. Sometimes, the word submitting tends to have a passive connotation, often times in the English language. It is worth noting that Islam is a state of active, deliberate and conscious submitting. It takes strength and, oddly, will to put one’s own will second to that of an unseen God.

My favorite story is that of the great wali (saint) Shaykh Abdul Qadir Jilani who once had a vision wherein he sensed a presence that claimed to be divine. It informed him that he had attained greatness and purity, and that he was absolved from having to perform his obligatory prayers any more. The Shaykh cursed the presence and sought refuge from the devil before he proceeded to make ablution and say his prayers.

Total submission.

What is permitted by God (halaal) is permitted. What is forbidden by God (haraam) is forbidden. And that is where submitting comes into the picture. If nothing were forbidden and everything were permitted, then there is nothing left to submit to begin with. And that is fine if it’s what you’re looking for, but it would be a different religion than Islam.

Regarding suicide bombing

It is ludicrous in the most unfunny way that given the above primer on Islam, an act that involves careful and deliberate planning to take one’s own life and with it the life of innocents, can in any way be associated with a religion that by its most intrinsic definition and self-defining name means submitting.

The act of planning and executing the destruction of one’s own life is in effect one saying to God:

You are Al-Mumit (The One Who Takes Life) but I will stand between you and your Divine attribute, and I will end my own life of my own free will. I will not submit my body and my mind to you.

To take the life of others along with your own life is in effect saying to God: You forbid the taking of innocent lives, but I have thought about this and after due deliberation, I have concluded that killing innocents is actually quite justifiable. And just to be more unsubmitting, I will take the life of others even as I take my own life of my own free will. I will not submit my intellect and my spirit to you.

Suicide bombing is the most glaring manifestation of everything that is the opposite of Islam. It comes from a flat-out unwillingness to submit to God’s will. The fact that the ideology driving and extolling this heinous act claims to be Islamic in any form is a great trial and tribulation. It is a trial for those who truly strive to submit their everything to God, actively and consciously. It is a tribulation for us all.

And God knows better.
Based on a recent reading of Mishkat Al-Masabih at Darul Qasim by Shaykh Mohammed Amin Kholwadia.