For the Love of Poetry

I love poetry; both reading and writing it. It's taken a while (over thirty years) for me to finally awaken to it, but as the saying goes: "better late than never."

Poetry causes one to think. It enables one's thoughts to soar above the mundane. The lines of a poem are like windows to parts of the world we haven't seen, to emotions we haven't felt. Writing poetry takes a little while to get used to, but the right surroundings and timing may facilitate the pouring out of words from one's mind. My "poetry time" is the hour before sunset, and my "poetry place" is at my desk in my bedroom. 

It shouldn't come as a surprise that I like poetry. As a teenager I listened to R&B, hip hop, and rap. I would learn the rhymes to the songs and then sing them to the beats. I loved the rhymes that artists came up with. But I also loved how the rhymes depicted the life that many artists lived: the ghetto, poverty, struggle, prejudice, racism, rags to riches. Through their rhymes I could feel their struggles. And this is what good poetry does. A good poem doesn't have to rhyme - some of the best one's don't. A good poem has to take the reader into another place - the place where the writer is. The reader must feel what the writer feels; see what the writer sees; hear what the writer hears. Poetry is like an act of communion between the poet and the reader.

When I started practising Islam, at about the age of twenty one, I quickly became hooked on Islamic poetry, especially those compiled in qasidas and naats (Islamic songs). My favourite Islamic poem is The Burda, a poem compiled by the Egyptian Imam al-Busiri (1211–1294). It is sung throughout the Muslim world. Here it is in full: The Burda. In addition to listening to qasidas and naats I like reading Muslim poetry. Translations of classical Muslim poetry, including Rumi's Mathnawi, can be found here: Sacred Texts (Islam) (scroll down to 'Sufi texts').

These days I not only listen to qasidas and naats and read Muslim poetry, but also read Western poetry. A good place to find Western poetry is the site Poem Hunter. It has a 'top 500' list of poems, containing some of the most famous and well loved poems of the world. Here's the link: Poem Hunter Top 500 poems.  

It is reported that the Prophet Muhammad (sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam) said that "there is wisdom in poetry" (Bukhari, Muslim). For the Islamic view on poetry see this link: Did the Prophet or the Companions Partake in Poetry?

May we benefit from the lines of a poem. May we become wiser after reading poetry. 

***


Here's one of my favourites, by Rudyard Kipling: 

If
 
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
 
If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools.
 
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
 
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!

****

Here's another, by Omar Khayyam in his Rubaiyyaat:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it. 

A Bit About Me

Today marks the two month anniversary of this blog. I know it's early for an anniversary, but I'm surprised I've lasted this long. So far it's contained light everyday reflections with poetry and some more serious observations. The next few months will contain the same. I'm working on a few academic style articles that should be ready next year. Anyway, two months in, I thought it would be nice for the visitors to this blog to learn a little more about its owner. Hence, this is a brief post about where I come from, my beliefs, and values. I'll add more after six months, should the blog still be running (in sha Allah - if God wills).

Early Years

I was born in Canberra, the capital city of Australia. I'm the first born of two boys. My brother is eleven years my junior. My parents, of Indian Muslim origin, come from the beautiful Fiji Islands. I've been there on three occasions, the last being in 1991, a trip I remember well. I live with my parents and brother in the outer Western suburbs of Sydney, in a suburb called Bonnyrigg Heights. It's a lower-middle class to working class area with a lot of people from Fiji along with many from South East Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos). There's a mosque run by the Fiji-Indian Muslim community in the neighbouring suburb of Green Valley. This mosque is where I learnt to recite the Qur'an at the age of about eight or nine. I remember my dad taking me there at the beginning, when I wouldn't let him go because the mosque felt like a strange place. However, a few months later I began to feel comfortable and made friends, a few whom I still see today. Lying only a few hundred metres from the mosque is Green Valley Primary School, which I attended as a child. Because of both places Green Valley has a very special place in my heart. 

As much as I love home, I also love to travel. I've visited or lived in eight countries: Canada, United States, Fiji, India, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and Australia. Traveling tends to bring out the best in me - the inner Aussie explorer takes over. However, like the saying goes: "there's no place like home," and for me home in this life will always be Australia.


Beliefs and Values

There are two main things that define my personality. First, the society in which I was born and grew up: Australia. Being Australian, to me, is to be the following things: straight-forward (or "fair dinkum" as Aussies call it), easy going, and a bit of a larrakin. It's to give all people, regardless of race and creed, a fair go. Second, the religion to which I was born and brought up in: Islam. Being Muslim (a believer in Islam), to me, is to be the following things: humble, a servant, a voice for what's right and against what's wrong, a helper of the oppressed. 

 








Being Australian and being Muslim are complementary, in my opinion. Indeed, when Islam started out in Mecca in the 7th century it was a sanctuary for the underdog. Coincidentally, Australians love to support an underdog. Logic would say that Australians would support the cause of Muslims in Palestine or Muslim refugees, as these people certainly are underdogs in today's world. Unfortunately, this isn't always the case.

One need not relinquish being Australian to be Muslim, and vice-versa. In fact, the best Muslims I've met are the most "Australian" ones. It is now up to the Muslims in Australia to be people about whom others say "the best Australians I've met are the Muslim ones." We must teach our children to be proud of being Australian and Muslim. We must inculcate in them a love of service, to both country and creed. In this way can our presence improve our society, in sha Allah.

Supporter of Women

The Prophet Muhammad (sallAllahu alayhi wa sallam) is reported to have said: 

           “Made beloved to me from your world are women and perfume and the coolness 
            of my eyes is in prayer” (Ahmad and An-Nasa‘i).

What did the Prophet mean when he said he loved women? He didn't say. I'm not going to try to guess what he meant, but something I can surmise from the above statement is that women are special, and they are to be loved. That the Prophet loved women makes him, in my eyes at least, a supporter of women. 

That the Prophet Muhammad should have a charitable view of women should not come as a surprise to those who know what the Qur'an says about women. Women are treated in the Qur'an on several occasions as the equal of men. Here are a few examples:

And the believing men and believing women are protectors of each other. They enjoin the right and
forbid the wrong, and they observe regular salah and give akah, and obey God and His Messenger. On them God will have mercy. Truly, Gos is All-mighty, All-Wise (9: 71).

Whoever works righteousness, whether male or female, and is a believer, We shall give him [or her] a
good life, and We well give them their reward according to the best of what they did (16:97).

Indeed, the Muslim men and Muslim women, the believing men and believing women, the obedient men and obedient women, the truthful men and truthful women, the patient men and patient women, the humble men and humble women, the charitable men and charitable women, the fasting men and fasting women, the men who guard their private parts and the women who do so, and the men who remember Allah often and the women who do so - for them Allah has prepared forgiveness and a great reward (33: 35).

While the above verses show that women are the equals of men in the eyes of God, there are a few things that make women unique in contrast to men. The first two points I learnt from my friend Brother Zahid:

(1) Men are not required to wear hijab. 

One of the amazing things about women is that God trusted them with being able to rise above sensual pleasures in their view of the opposite sex. In Islamic tradition, men are only required to cover from the belly button to the knees. Of course, this rule does not intend to advise men to walk around town without a shirt, but it demonstrates the less perverted mind that women possess. Indeed, some women are perverted, but I think this is an extreme minority, and a lot less than the male side. Women on the other hand, are required to cover from head to toe in loose fitting clothes (hijab). This is because mens' straying eyes cannot be trusted.

(2) Men are responsible for more than what women are responsible for. Women are not responsible for men.

Another special thing about women is that God gave them the privilege of being taken care of by men. Men's responsibility for women is known through the following verse in the Holy Qur'an:

       And women shall have rights similar to the rights against them, according to what is equitable;
       but men have a degree over them. And Allah is Exalted in Power, Wise (2:228).

From the tafseer (exegesis) of ibn Abbas (may God be pleased with him) we learn that the words "a degree over them" means  "a degree of responsibility over them." God gave the man a greater degree of responsibility over the woman than that of the woman over the man. In other words, men have got more to answer for than women do or, to put it another way, women have the special rank of having less to answer for than men do. 

3) When women are mentioned in the Qur'an they are shown as believers.

The North American Catholic convert to Islam, Jeffrey Lang, observes this point in arguing that women are described in positive ways by God in the Qur'an. When women are mentioned in the Qur'an they are shown as virtuous individuals: the Queen of Sheba, the mother of Moses, the wife of Pharoah, and the mother of Jesus. In contrast, the men mentioned in the Qur'an range from the despicable (e.g. Pharoah, Qarun) to the Noble (e.g. the Prophets). 

These are but a few examples of why women are special. Needless to say, there are others. For example, a feature of women that I like is how they are around babies and young children. Women seem to have an ability to communicate that most men don't have. 

May women be treated with the respect they deserve. May they be given the care due to them. Aameen.

Poems and Aphorisms 3

Equality

Practice equality

Treat good and bad luck

With equal frivolity

War on Islam

Trouble rains down

Creating holes in the ground

Soaking up tears

But the world doesn’t hear

De-Islamisation its agenda

Muslim faith under pressure to surrender

New World Order

Unholy society

Lip-service to human rights

Fake piety

Peace-treaties?

Eyes in the storm—temporary relief

Humanity savaged

Mothers and babies collaterally damaged

Foreign policy 101:

Invasion, oppression,

Install ‘democracy’

European Colonialist

American Imperialist

Same old hypocrisy

Governments ban meritocracy

Replace godly men with godless bureaucracy

World War Three

Beginning of the end of this worldly odyssey

Atheists mock

Believers await prophecy