The missing Rib?

The news keeps telling me there is unrest where you are... My mind thinks about the effects of that, alongside the effects of thoughts of you in my heart here, where it mysteriously pinches and bites. Physically, you nor I can see it. What hurts is knowing that right now in this I am alone. I can pray and find spiritual sanctuary, but my physical form aches to reach out and bridge this distance fast. It wants to walk unruffled, beside the havoc of the strung-out world on display, preciously held within the calm surreal black succour you offered. What you offered may live inside my head for however long it is meant to breathe, as only Allah swt Knows Best. What I beg for, screaming with my insides on fire in my agonising struggle alone, is that promised Mwaddah wa Rahmah, followed by a precious coolness of the eyes, and heart, and mind, and being, insha'Allah ta'Allah. I need more grace than what others see in me, or preach at me. On either ends of that measure I find myself lacking. Take me to him, Ya Allah, whose rib you fashioned me from. My bones wish to be reunited. My being wishes to find home in those arms. My head wishes to rest upon that chest. My heart wishes to hear the synonymous beat. My insides twist with wishes upon wishes not knowing whether this tide will throw itself upon my shore or recede apologetically like all other tides, never to return. One day my shore too will not be left dry. InshaAllah, Ameen.

Grenfell

The bottle neck is jammed up, and the breath in my throat is choked. When the deaths of innocent people around us are happening somewhere every day. The bile in one's throat is foaming, as tears incessantly flow. The screams and painful groans up on the highest floor; The man who was blindly running over limp bodies past every floor; the mother who was fawning over her four year old she had to from the tenth floor window throw; the father who strapped his lil babe to his back and was pulled away from his bedsheets knotted up together as the only means of escape via this measly makeshift rope; the 24 year old beautiful son who managed to save his mother, carrying her over his back, but his father who had to be left injured behind, and must with the reality of his most-likely death their broken family must now respond to and solemly react; the Syrian refugee brother who made it out safe and had to listen to his younger brother cry until he his last breath had taked; the family of five with two toddlers who made it, but their 6 month old baby sibling remained with daddy and mommy too missing, the snap chat video that had us all shocked as the lady prepared to die and calmly kept chanting to her Maker and said her goodbyes; the hundreds whose stories remain untold, the hundreds whose bodies lie blackened with lungs torn; some 42 people of all ages and genders were found in one room of one flat all dead; the ruthless barbarians and governments around the world, called ISIS Assad Trump or just the token mentally unstable demonic, perhaps just KKK; the selfish and spineless murderers who use guns and bats and vans and parking lots, who bomb mosques and set fire to places of worship or of shopping or where you take kids to buy icecreams; the suicide committing fools who believe in their Devilish Misshapen rules and taint 'Allahu Akbar'; the high on power drone controlling taker of lives in uniform; those who kill about to graduate young ones, and who kill people at concerts, and they kill and rape innocent souls, and some in videos behead, and others get picked up from their homes and at airports before a holiday they were about to go on and instead find themselves incarcerated tortured and bound up in Guantanamo, and hate and anger and bigotry continues to be spewed and Hitler gets reborn and the world isn't even shocked that he is being hailed again, and the Mays Modis Sharifs and the terrorist making machines from the extremists born out of religions of Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Zionism, put on their masks and shake hands with each other and get pictures taken, and stand with glee shining out of their eyes in front of mysterious globes of tainted light, while innocent people in countries get told they are being barricaded in, and some have to give up their lands and their blood and kin, where countries lose their name, where UN is an acronym that should hang its head in shame, where charities are collected to save people from famine and drought, where malnourished are being born to die, where children are breathing white phosphorus and are questioned about their cries being lies, where fish are dying and eating salmon in becoming unsafe, where Earth's glaciers are drifting and melting while Mars is being eyed and scaled with plans to be cultivated, poachers of lives and the living we are surrounded by, and our only hope lies in beginning to open our own eyes and hearts and start loving and listening and sharing and giving. The bottle neck is jammed up, and the breath in my throat is choked. 

Allahu Musta'an. We ask God for help. 


Inna lillahi wainna ilaihi rajioon.

Mayhem - Death

*Picture taken from the internet: Source unknown


With dirt across their face in streaks
Grimy hands and cracked feet
Shirts strewn with blood and…

Doesn’t your heart shriek
Don’t your eyes weep
They are desperate for you and I
to do something
before all and everything
that we knew to be life
is destroyed by their
bomb and gunfire speak
Age is not even a number
as their bodies are piled high
One across another
Two on top of their mother
brother sister aunty uncle
They’re all holding hands
of aged worried grandparents
stooped, then maligned and buried
beneath a ravaged son and a father
who holds his new born bundle
blown to pieces before he could
even kiss its cheek
The unborn fetus that couldn’t
even make it into this world
before it was wrenched
into uncountable pieces of a family
drenched and buried in their own blood
Lineages wiped out before humanities eyes
Havoc is hurled about
And all its creations lie asunder

Oh Lord! Please send your Mercy?

With dirt across his face
Grimy hands, cracked feet
Tears in streaks upon streaks
Tattered clothes strewn with blood!

Asleep?

All around me rests; as it sleeps in the quite of the night, I sit outside under a very still pink sky... Everything around me underlines the silence of the night... Everything seems to be at a contrasting parallel to what I have allowed myself to be watching from the 'safety' of my home, these past couple of screaming loud relentlessly moving, yet un-moving hours... This pink night sky is as if a reflection of all the blood that is being shed in the crimes against humanity... The silence itself as if mourning all the loss... A silence before a storm from the Lord of all mankind, perhaps? The soul yearns and hopes, for His commanding stroke to manifest Itself and spread It's desperately called out for Mercy, upon all those pining with their arms outstretched to the skies, with their bodies and families, their unborn fetuses and children, forsaken in the hope of a salvation from their Maker -

Ya Lateef, Ya Hakeem, Ya Qawiyy, Ya Rahman, Ya Raheem, Ya Malik, Ya Jabbar, Ya Furqan, Al Awwal, Al Akhir, Al Qayyum, Al Qareeb...

... I wonder if my pink sky will soon join me, as my eyes cry for the people of Palestine, for the oppressed and needy everywhere... As we - all of humanity under the same sky - bleed under oppression, unhelped, unheard... To death, number after number, multiplying into a nameless heartless statistic quoted to me sometime tomorrow, when the rested have awaken from their quite sleeps...
Allahu musta'an

''Innalillahi wainnailaihi rajioon''

Why Do We Jump To Act God?

I am not a leader, so I cannot imagine what it is like to be one. Having said that, I am a Muslim who believes in The One Lord; Most Merciful, Most Forgiving. If I expect of Him to have mercy on me, forgive me, then as a follower I sure feel obliged to at least practice that which I ardently hope to in the end myself receive. At the end of all discourse, Allah swt remains Knowing Best... SubhaanAllah.

Sabra and Shatila

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjU_Sj8_5KE

The last sips of my chai I took, when I clicked upon the above link to unveil to my eyes, rather my ears - that which I did not wish to see. How does one see with their ears? One see's when the words heard tell of a story real. Pictures take shape in your mind's eyes, and an image crushed comes back to life. Blood becomes real, their cries become loud, their voices can be heard and so much imagined, remains no more - imagined that is.

Many a times I have been there, as have you. So many times I have refused to allow my eyes and ears from living their screams and realities. So many times I have succeeded, but every time that I have not, is when I have perhaps done something right. To what avail is hiding, blocking one's self from pain that was really another's? What does this hiding achieve? If only our hearts were to open and see the pains that exist in a world very much the same as we live in, but oh so different in the lives we live. While I was growing up in a house - fed, loved and safe, they were being cheated of life itself before it even began. While I was being looked upon by eyes of parents that were disciplining my wrongs, and loving my achievements - they were being washed by theirs and buried... or not, for their parents too were gone? How do two such extreme lives continue to exist in a world that in name is the same, but the lives permitted to them both have no one standing up to take the blame? How do we convince ourselves to stop listening, watching - while those who lose, continue without having a choice or the means? How does one find the peace and sleep, when the images are not even real for me and yet this is how they leave me to feel? How does one pray to their Lord, and beg for His mercy to spread over His creations? What a test, their life truly is. In knowing that those gone, have done so straight up to His Promised Heaven, but the plight left behind through their blood, is only watering the bed for more lives to be lost in their name - no matter what side of the game they be shed on. For how long shall this be, for how long shall all this so remain?

With a piercing headache, I only manage to type out my angst... and listen to some more pictures that I shall for now, leave unframed.

That Finger That Points At Others...

... Yes it irks me!

For every piece of news we seem to get hold of, in these globally advanced times of ours; every discovery has to be glamourised, or at least hyped oh so much, that the listener in response either gapes, hates, or cries. Yes, interpret those reactions as you may!

Every nation, culture, and religion has one thing in common. They're all comprised of human beings. These human beings, based on the beliefs of the Abrahamic scriptures (I won't claim to presume about other religions, for I have not read of them enough), are designed in such a fashion that renders them susceptible to erring; the very reason for man to be set down on earth. If humans were mistake-free, or the epitome of perfection, then the very connotation of angels would be moot or void.

The fact that human beings are not perfect, leaves the door open to one, two, or few going astray - perhaps some more yet, having a mean streak stretched beyond what is comprehensible by the majority. The general good all of mankind collects to agree upon, regardless of creed and sect, just as they mostly do over the general bad. But offlate, the trend seems to be name calling; in the name of religion, country, groups, etc. 

-If one person belonging to your group goes astray, does that make the entire group lost? 

-If one person from a specific sect claims to say something that is disagreeable, does that bound everyone from that sect to the same thought/rigidity/stance? 

-If one person from 'x' country does something one way, does that make all citizens of that nation duty bound to do things that very same way? 

-If one person (or even 10) from religion 'y' interpret their rituals and duties as doing certain things in a certain manner, does that mean that all who claim to be under the umbrella of this faith will, and do, every thing that very same way?
Why are communities, nations, and a people being stoked and stroked by a quick smearing of the same brush? Why are we confining ourselves to the limitations of a single story, when what we really need to do is expose ourselves to the possibility of something more that may -and often does- exist beyond our myopic exposure? Why does it have to come down to either Muslims being terrorists, or Americans being Conspirators, while all Indians and Pakistanis being doctors and IT people, and all Arabs owning oil wells and camels, not to forget that all Brits have to have horrible dental hygiene, and everyone in Antarctica lives in Igloos! 

I guess by now, the ones reading who have a working grey matter would have caught on my drift, and woe.

One can only hope so much... and pray, if you're thus inclined...

*sigh*

Protests & Discord

Death by bomb, rifle, or stone
Injustice and crime we must condone
Lives at stake
No one will be 'forsaked'
Your brother, mother, 'et al' they'll take
They will pester and break
Till they muster enough ache
And let all fester with hate
Until all that exists
Perishes beyond a requitable state.

''Religion Police''

The past 30 years of my life, I have been born and raised in Saudi Arabia. Yes, the very country that to date is STILL heard of as being behind the times as far as rights of women are concerned. What was a sad sad sad thing to witness for me today, was that in 2010 - after having defended this country of its idiosyncrasies for so long - I was harassed by the very fanatics that most who have lived here as long or longer than I, thought were no more, if not all bygone by now...

Such, I realised today, was going to be a very far away tomorrow (if at all possible one day), for as long as this Monarchy were to reign. Why? Because Democracy would ensure that voices of the educated (slowly yet consistently increasing) be heard; be made to count. But until that were to happen, the Ignoramuses who claim to be the know it all's -rather demand it- will always bring disgrace to their creed, their religion, their people and the history of a religion that to me is my very spirit - Islam!

I am ashamed by the actions of a select few who demand that all and sundry convert to their interpretation of the Holy Grail. I am ashamed to share the same belief system, that seems to be practiced on a whole another level by some who seem to have lost the very essence of what they claim to believe in - simply because they are too lost in following this system as it was handed down to them without question, somewhere having been intertwined with cultural beliefs that began to confuse themselves with the core of these religious beliefs that in my minds eye, all lead to the same God, the same teachings and the SAME essence.

I do not belong to the fanatics. I do not wish to belong to anyone, anywhere NEAR them... What upsets me is that these fanatics that still run free -thank God not rampant- are the ones who make even their own brethren HATE muslims like them when they inflict pain and hypocrisy first hand to their fellow humans - thinking they are the direct messengers of God Himself (Astaghfirullah).

The last I checked - Lakum Deenakum Walya Deen  [Quran 109:6] - is what our esteemed beloved Prophet Muhammad pbuh taught us, and that is what we have in the teachings of our Quran...

What makes some MEN believe that they are the custodians of Islam, the soldiers of its message, the beholders of its authenticity, I'll never be able to fathom! Thus, I pray to my Maker, swt,  to give me the patience to not react to the ignorance of this 'religion police', and be blessed with never having to face their lot upfront ever again, insha'Allah... Ameen!

Outraged in the Fold of Islam?

OUTRAGED by the disbelief, questions, disagreements, differences, deeds/acts, planned efforts/intentions, etc. of those who do not ''follow an Islam that you do''?

What are the core values of Islam? The 5 Pillars... Agree? Yes, and I do mean CORE (as taught to us by the Last Prophet -pbuh-).

If your answer is in agreement, then what is WITH this ''outrage''?
 
Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) did not react in outrage to the people who drove him away from his home, mistreated him, bad mouthed him, fought against him, etc... then what gives US the right to be outraged by such things/events when we are treated similarly?

He (pbuh) was the best example set for his entire Ummah that lived when he (pbuh) did, and the one that followed his demise, thereafter.

I see no excuse or justification for our behavior when we go against the examples set by him!

We are either in denial (as ''followers'' of Islam), or we are hypocrites (to some extent or another), or we simply do not believe!

I believe: Leave the outrage to the disbelievers (kafiroon) or to the hypocrites (munafiqun), and instead stand strong and patient alongside those who follow the same CORE values that make Islam; praying to The Maker of all that exists (known or unknown to us and His creation) to show His light and mercy upon them, and grant us patience and direction straight from Him. Ameen!

For without an iota of a doubt, for those who ''believe'', only Allah (swt) Knows All; Knows Best!

(*Link credits belong to the websites they were taken from. Any errors in translation or interpretation are my own, as used in the writing of this post and for that, may Allah (swt) forgive me.)

To Have Lived?

When you allow yourself to be touched by the mist of misery that exists around you - the misery that you feel entirely helpless against, to do anything to help abate it from around you - that is when your hope to live in this ruthless brutal world diminishes... Your dreams to live long enough to see the beauty that this world and its people have to offer, start taking the form of clouds... Clouds full of hypocrisy, ephemeral facades comprising of divine mirages that are not the longed for oasis one needs to quench their thirst with; rather just clouds that are ready to burst upon you - else cocoon you - based on which state your spirit is in, in that moment.

To go back into the vacuum of the mind where in just you exist, or to live with your eyes and ears open - all senses alive and functioning - allowing you to see the realities that exist beyond your self?

To have catered to your own needs; is to have lived?

Or...

To feel for another, their pain, grief, happiness; is to have lived?

Relentless Ignorance

I was reading The Huffington Post online, when I came across an article written by Asif Shahzad, an Associated Press writer. On reaching the end of the article my mind went into a reaction of torrid anger mixed with utter disbelief over some of God's creatures that sadly fall under the guise of 'mankind'... I quote the said words as follows,

''... Since the floods first swept the country, the Taliban and al-Qaida have been relatively quiet. But on Monday, three bomb attacks rocked the northwest, one of which killed the head of an anti-Taliban militia on the outskirts of the main city of Peshawar.'' 

When one reads an article about natural disasters resulting in human crisis and grief, end on a note such as above - One is rendered speechless for some time, thinking about the absolute blindness of some men who have dug themselves SO INTRICATELY deep into a hole of ignorance and sheeple mindset, that they are unable to save themselves from a darkness which has folded them and their being into an infinite evil grasp!

Such are the people who have stripped themselves of their rights to be identified as one of mankind.

There is not a shred of kindness, or its like, that remains in them. They are a ''condition''  which he who is flabbargasted by it, can only leave in the Hands of a Maker of us all to deal with them in True Justice as can only be deemed appropriate by Him Alone.

And Allah (swt) Knows Best...

May he send down from His infinite mercy and Blessings, a cover and relief to his creatures so desperately and morbidly grief ridden...

Ameen!  

Good Better Best

We live in the world of Big Better Best, where one is never at Rest... 

The following words of my Lower Kindergarten teacher echo in my head,

... Good Better Best
   Never Let it Rest
  Till Your Good is Better
  And Your Better Best ... 

as I think to myself: This was all good while we were being taught young, to not give up until we had achieved our best. But; while growing up on the message of nothing being good enough as good, because it had to be something bigger -better- and better had to be best, some of us lost track of standing still and being okay with what we DID have. Perhaps what I am trying to get at is still a mystery in a way because I sat down to write my thoughts out based on the unrest that prevails our everyday existence on a whole...

I heard about a man from my father's workplace today, who, about to go on his annual leave had put in a request for his pay due. The ensuing details were no news to me of course, nevertheless, shocked me anew they did on hearing them. His Big Boss (who ever he is) refused to pay the man of humble means his salary until AFTER he returned from his trip back home! This man of no means except for his daily wages (who was denied his earned for bread); he is not to be paid when he needs it while going back home to his family that he lives away from, for months on end if not years!

My heart pounding in anger and my mind at unrest, I silently wailed over the irony of mankind; The rich who have all the means in the world keep getting richer, while those who need to be given their due, have it kept from them in ways all kinds of unfair and unfathomable!

What has become of our faiths? The moral fibre of our being? We continue dabbling away with the going-ons of our everyday - mostly - oblivious to the hardships and toils of our fellow pedestrians on this road we are all to walk on... A road very transient if we but only stop to ponder! This temporary abode that most of us are throwing ourselves after, is not going to serve us for much when it all ends, will it? Do we ever find the time to stop and reflect beyond what we have always known to be right to US? Does it matter what faith we follow and what material objects we own when the final bell tolls? Isn't humanity to be strung into our moral sense before we loose ourselves in the intricacies of selfish never ending viles that belie kindness, goodness, and justice? What makes us think that we are better than anyone else? How can one man who has not much to want for, be blind to the every day basic NEEDS of another? And, as if that blindness was not enough, even go out of his way to make sure the other unfortunate is bereft of the little bit that is in all fairness his? This due amount is a mere scratch on the vault of his riches in comparison!

Meet our death we all shall, us mere mortal beings... 

Perhaps a reminder of our glimmering mortality is what may slow us down today; to remember to be fair? To be content with our ''goods'' (and not fall prey to greed), try doing our better for another soul if we have been blessed with the tiniest of means even, and live an ultimate best of together-ness as a result? Too much to hope for it seems, more often than not, off late!

A sad state of affairs our human shred of conscience has fallen into... 



*(To anyone interested, check out the following link for an interesting animated information about the world of consumerism that we live in; us the consumers!  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8 

Humanity Dead?

I sit so far and try not to care
about all that's happening
so long as I'm not there
those not near are easy to distance from
shouts and screams, ignorable
just so long as I can't hear them...
- Denial?

Pain too deep
very sharply it seeps
If numb myself not
the heart and mind
keep tangling up into knots
brothers and sisters
they wretchedly weep
while I in my bed lie peacefully asleep...
- Helpess?

Wars of the world
Torrential losses
Lords of this world
The so called bosses
Unscrupulously rule
Lost in their glory
Unmindful of the end
When the ONE GOD'S rule surpasses
and all to Him will ultimately return
and in this life who mourned
will in the hereafter no more burn
the unfeeling killers
will be left then to yearn
when time for them will have stopped
And their time to suffer will have come
based on the deeds in this lifetime
that they had blatantly earned...
- Justice!

Day of anointing

‘I want this, I want that’
Today they're happy, tomorrow sad

'She’s a git, He’s a cad!'
Immoral society in which dummies are clad

With lying aplenty, their cheatings not bad
Amassed in such delusions, they thrive on in their habitats

‘He is, she is,’ their fingers forever pointing
Oblivious to their own day of ‘anointing’!


-BAH! =/

Morbidly Blind Man-kind

The despair of a father who can not save his family from pain in death,

while he watches their angst in front of his eyes…

The tears of children mixing with the blood of their wounds,

while trickling down from their eyes…

The helplessness of mothers unable to pacify their babies,

while they are being ripped and bloodied right under their watchful eyes…

These eyes that can see, feel, hear and smell the distress and pain…
These very eyes still continue to not just watch but inflict it all; they define the word insane…

Humans killing their own kind,
In spite of being blessed with a thinking mind,

The worst of living kind!
The worst of living kind!
The worst of living kind!

They are so morbidly blind

and their being is a curse to the rest of innocent man kind!
To all of living kind!

-

Indeed there is no cure while we remain in this life time
Justice will be served in the after life, and in that time
there will be situations and people of different hues
But all will be accordingly paid their fair dues…

With the belief in That guarantee I try to find peace
And until that day
I hope to continue praying for all living and deceased.

Pain is Unique to the One Who Feels It

I feel this world is functioning in a limbo of very many layers. Each layer is a seperate entity of beings and it is hard for them to comprehend while in one layer, the realities of the other.

There is a layer in which exist the ones who have all the money and the riches in the world, and it is their oyster.

There is a layer in which families make a comfortable living and can splurge on luxuries once in a while.

There is a layer where people work extremely hard to make ends meet.

Then there is a layer of those who have lost everything and depend on charity to survive.

There is also a world where a bridge of sorts is formed, on which walk together those who are rich, those comfortably living, the hard workers and the ones with nothing. This is the exclusive bridge formed because their loved one is ailed with a fatal disease or an un-fixable disorder, and are dying. Also part of this world are those that lose a loved one.

Then there is a world of the war trods. Those who die everyday, in-numerable deaths in not just a day, but in one body aswell- of a mother, a brother, a father, a sister, a daughter, a son...

In each layer there is their happiness and in each layer, there is their pain. Do they all blend in with one another? I feel they dont. One layer can not even begin to feel the pain of the other as they themselves live through it. The turnmoil, the breakdowns, the agony felt- those just cannot be felt in the same depth, as one who feels it while they are living/have lived it.

It's like watching it all from one world, while it is happening in another. Trying to walk in the shoes of any besides ourselves, is simply insurmountable. We can try as best as we want, but it remains a glimmer of the actual truth. It is only when life walks us from one layer, into the other, that the scaffold of our understanding caves in, and the massive reality of THAT layer's intensity, enfolds us completely.

Mankinds own wrath

Large; unworthy
Dark; ugly
Short; abnormal
Squint; obscene

I thought we were all made by a Higher Being!
He says, she says; hence we are unclean?
People against people, their fingers untired
from pointing at him and her; all liars?
we're all the same, stop looking for differences
stop acting this way by pleading your defences

Large or Dark, Short or Squint,
not unworthy not ugly
nor abnormal or obscene
Inspite of our differences
we remain human beings

Awaken, Accept, Embrace and Educate
Stop running an agenda against your own race
Uplift your own, they need your attention
Stop ignoring them! Dont live in pretension!

Please! Already... before it's too late...
Before our time passes and we're buried in hate...
I breathe, I sigh, I wipe away a tear,
Then silently I continue on with my prayer.

Cartoons for Gaza

Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff creates artworks that call on the world to condemn Israeli holocaust of Gaza...

My peace...

You may not be around but I will be okay,
my heart may ache, it may question my fate,
but I'll keep trudging on fighting my dismay,
I will not shatter nor will I break away.

Walk on ahead I will, even if for a bit of a time
perhaps it may sway, a temporary lapse,
I will not let you take my smile away,
I will beseech to the heavens and bring it on back as I'll pray.

You will not be the end of me - Nay!
My tomorrow I will seek, come what may,
Forward on will I keep stepping until
a peace in me will come and permanently stay.