The Sunnah

They have all fallen short and I
I am not surprised in the least
I have come to learn what
It means to be human
Fallible

The azaan is pure ecstasy
If you could truly hear the words

Everything is beautiful within
Limits ordained
We are sheep grazing
Too close to boundaries
Eating from the forbidden
Hunger pushing for anything green
Ignoring other means of
Permissible fields uneaten
In our desire to fill this space
We have strayed

I am taken aback
I could cry as
She kisses her thumbs
And rubs her eyes
Oh dear me...

If I ignore the wrongs in my vicinity
Then I cannot be a shepherd
I will be nothing but a sheep

And he (sallallaahu alaihi wasallam) also said:
"… and every innovation is misguidance and all misguidance is in the Hellfire." 
Reported by an-Nasaa'ee (1/224) from Jaabir bin Abdullaah and it is saheeh as declared by Shaikh ul-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah in Majmoo' ul-Fataawaa (3/58).

Ibn 'Umar reported that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, "All of you are shepherds and each of you is responsible for his flock. A man is the shepherd of the people of his house and he is responsible. A woman is the shepherd of the house of her husband and she is responsible. Each of you is a shepherd and each is responsible for his flock."


The Prophet (peace be upon him) said "Both the halaal (lawful) and the haraam (unlawful) things are (made) obvious, and in between them are (suspicious) doubtful matters. So whoever forsakes those doubtful things lest he may commit a sin, will definitely avoid what is clearly unlawful; and whoever indulges in these (suspicious) doubtful things bravely, is likely to commit what is clearly illegal. Sins are Allah's Hima (i.e. private pasture) and whoever pastures (his sheep) near it, is likely to get in it at any moment."

Sahih Al-Bukhari Hadith 3.267 Narrated by An Numan bin Bashir


'So hold fast to my Sunnah and the sunnah of the rightly-guided khalifahs, bite onto it with the (canine/molar) teeth. And beware of the new matters, for every innovation is misguidance."
Abu Dawud; Ibn Maajah; Tirmidhi; Ibn Hibban

Mistakes

I am tip-ex and smudged Biro pens
These wrongs have been corrected haphazardly
I am unable to hand this in for marking
So I rip it up and start again
But I can't remember my mistakes
Papery memories sit at my feet

We forget the things we love the most
Until it is one with us, it will always be
On top of us, this theoretical capacity unfulfilled
With no tolerance and one hundred percent error

Why have these words slipped from our tongues
Frantic hands flip through pages but we
Cannot read, we would not read

My mistakes are found through history
And the epitome of the story is
Found within the morality of the character
Textbook answers seen yet unread
We are blind, oblivious of oblivion
Forgetting the things that weigh the most
On these shoulders
Are heavy
on the scales
The answers are so obvious when we are told
And we were most definitely told

And whoever turns away from My remembrance - indeed, he will have a depressed life, and We will gather him on the Day of Resurrection blind."
He will say, "My Lord, why have you raised me blind while I was [once] seeing?"
[ Allah ] will say, "Thus did Our signs come to you, and you forgot them; and thus will you this Day be forgotten.
Surah Taha

“Verily Allaah raises some people by this Book and lowers others by it?”
Sahih Muslim

Interview Etiquette

Maybe I want to be everything you ask of me
But the process of becoming is like
Manufacturing cheap goods , second rate versions
Costing more and lacking luster and quality

Interviews are blouses and skirts billowing in a
Half hearted breeze of laughter
They will never be pleased with me
This system is agonized by the sight of me
Black abaya and scarf  without the accessories
And how can I meet you half way
To hell, fire singeing the ends and this
Hijaab loses a few inches quietly

Why can't I be assertive in the one thing that counts
Must I de-robe for a racist ideology
Climb career ladders in tailored suits
We're all just monkeys jumping through hoops but
This hijaabi can shoot from outside
The three point line so give me a foul but
Don't deny that I knew my stuff

And don't worry I can integrate
Let me factor out all the lies and trials
Found in the small print of this contract
And divide my time between between heaven and this
To find the truth in clause 1ai- I am oppressed
By fools who try to tell me how to dress

To be Forgotten

Narrated Sahel Ibn Sa’ad (RA): that the Messenger of Allah (SAW) said:

‘Two will not be rejected, Supplication when the Adhan (call of prayer) is being called, and at the time of the rain’.

Abu Dawud & ibn Majah

It is 3:07am , the year 2022. There is an hour left until Fajr and I am awake listening intently to the rain. My body lulled out of bed, the same way it was all those years ago. Perched knees sink into the pillow as the curtains quiver along with these fingertips.

I am a sleep deprived fool and a fool when fully rested too. There is nothing to see here , there are no stars when it rains , there are never any stars but I still stare into the pre-Fajr darkness. It is as if I am looking at the sound, the crisp lines of rain reverberate, like the strokes of an artist, in the soul of the painted. Yes, I am a fool, most definitely.

Ten years have passed and I still cry at the sound of the rain , out of habit mostly. I remember anxious eyes leaving to break their fast in more ways than one , hand in hand with him. She tells me religious things before she sins ,to comfort me, to call for help, I never did find out which. It doesn't matter now, I wasn't able to answer her. She is words of that water was delicious, the taste of Quran on her throat. She is texts saying I'll never be a good muslim no matter how much I try. She is gone though remembered and I am here, easing myself away from the window, for fajr, for prayer.

I will forgive but I cannot forget.

Chambers of the Heart

I am narrow twisted corridors
With tack and love affixed to walls
And the paper peals from the weight
The ornate towers reaching ceilings
And emptiness and little nooks and crannies where
It is too hard for this soul to breath

I am full

My heart is filled with trapdoors and secret rooms
I amass the contraband of emotions and distant faces unwillingly
There is no more space I claim
But tomorrow comes and somehow everything fits

This is an organized mess
I know where everything is - I think
I am amazed and concerned simultaneously
What poor beloved item has been squished?
What will happen when my heart is well and truly filled?

I imagine heaven to be
A silver key that opens
An unfounded room of infinite space
I imagine heaven to be easy-breathing
with hearts filled with substance
I imagine heaven

I nail the image of heaven to the front door
Refusing to let anything else in

Be quick in the race for forgiveness from your Lord and for a garden whose width is that (of the whole) of the heavens and of the earth prepared for the righteous. 
Surah: 3. Al-Imran Verse 133

Unlike Fridays

I don't want to write poetry about you because you're not even that poetic.
I don't want to think about our impromptu meeting today because you are gone save unpleasant memories.
I don't want to be shaking but it is so hard to stop.

I want to be able to talk to you like a normal person and not feel as if I am lying to my soul.
I want to ignore all that has happened but how when he is standing right next to you.
I want to know that all these words and thoughts and feelings , these little tidbits of advice, random stories , my entire life this past year , all the random things that reminded me of you, every half formed apology , every Monday morning epiphany will somehow be conveyed to you, that in some strange and remarkable way ,just by the look on my face, you will understand what is heaving in this here chest.

And I want you to stop shaking your leg. I want us to finally be able to sit and talk, without that horrible strung tension, of avoiding the elephant in the room. I want peace for you .

I want...

I wish that I could say "Assalamu Alaikum Wa rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu" to you and that these almost wasted years could be a testimony to its truth.

Murderers

You are a murder spilling
Blood indiscriminately stains
These children played beneath
A tyrant who ordered the slaughter slow
enough to feel the pain of limbs
Ripped and the sinew beneath your nails

You have murdered a nation
No earthly trial will do, you have
Butchered a people never met
And you cry the false tears of regret

Your palms are the sweaty red of
Adolescence and fruitless speech
Delayed prayers as fajr meets
You through curtains closed
Minded opinion, rationale of no benefit
Incessant need to stare with eyes of arrows
Poisoned acts of innovations
Quran whose explanation is unread
Completely until someone is dead and we
Clothe heads for a time to be seen and
We lie and we cheat and he beats
His mother into tears of nights
when he is never there because he
Drinks the blood of his victims
Heads spinning , palms wrongly read
As if to say through the smoke that
We feed the youth with idleness and curiosity
To kill the cats too as if
this all wasn't enough

We have murdered the innocent
We cry for Gaza , for Palestine
Cry
Cry for yourself as you stand
With unrepented sins and its
Corruption sits inside
Clasped, foolish hands

"Allah does not punish the individuals for the sins of the community until they see the evil spreading among themselves, and while they have the power to stop it, do not do so."
Ahmad

God commands justice and doing good and giving to relatives. And He forbids indecency and doing wrong and tyranny. He warns you so that hopefully you will pay heed.
Qur'an 16: 90

The lustful gaze is a poisoned arrow from the devil.