under|progress

Smart kid

There once was a man from Kashmir,
Who was a Muslim and lived over here,
When he went to the mosque,
Some youths shouted, Get lost!
And hurled a bottle of beer.

After watching a bit of TV,
To bed went our friend the Kashmiri,
But his sleep was cut short,
By a knock on the door,
Very early, at just after three.

The officer said, Sir, we suspect you,
Even though we have never met you,
Of what we suspect you,
We don't have to tell you,
And on this suspicion I arrest you.

-- Adham Smart, 14-years old, London

Background article.

The world and her offspring

I chided the world for giving preference to the ignorant
and passing over those of knowledge
She replied: I beg your pardon;
but the ignorant are my children,
the virtuous are the children of my co-wife.
               -- Hafi al-Ra's

Some Rumi

Acts of helplessness
Here are the miracle-signs you want: that
you cry thruogh the night and get up dawn, asking,
that in the absence of what you ask for your day gets dark,
your neck thin as a spindle, that what you give away
is all you own, that you sacrifice belongings,
sleep, health, your head, that you often
sit down in a fire like aloes wood, and often go out
to meet a blade like a battered helmet.

When an act of helplessness becomes habitual,
those are the signs.

But you run back and forth listening for unsual events,
peering into the faces of travellers.
"Why are you looking at me like a madman?"
I have lost a friend. Please forgive me.

Searching like that does not fail.
There will come a rider who holds you close.
You faint and gibber. The uninitiated say, "He's faking."
How could they now?
Water washes over beached fish, the water
of those signs I mentioned.

Excuse my wandering.
How can one be orderly with this?
It's like counting leaves in a garden,
along with the song-notes of partridges,
and crows.
                Sometimes organisation
and computation become absurd.

The world which is made of our love for emptiness
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
this place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes empitness,
this existence goes.
Praise be to that happening, over and over!

For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of
dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece
of straw
blown off into empitness.

These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
existence, empitiness, mountain, straw: words
and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.

                                                                                  -- Jalaluddin Rumi

Imperfection

The sweat, the blood
The tears
Is life ever anymore?
The joy, the happiness
The laughter
Who said Paradise could ever be a place on this earth?

Made in 1979

(To be read aloud)

A conifer or a deciduous,
It’s got roots, it shoots – he scores,
3 2 1: Good God everyone, ground zero,
Why’s this terrorist here a hero?

Call Mr. Analyst, the Zionist,
But he don’t know what to say,
He choked: look what you did,
Made O’Reilly look like a little kid.
It’s just FOX News, media fantasy,
A story, baloney… it’s hypocrisy,
He’s live, stuck outta luck,
Like a sock in a stinky shoe,
The laces tied too tight, what’s he gonna do?
There’s nowhere to go, no hope for air flow.

Suck it up buttercup,
Yeah I can say that,
Cuz I wear my hat forwards
Like a white man, though I’m an A-si-an,
We who lack identity, just suburbia superficiality,
Criss-cross philosophy, mish-mash mentality,
A tisket, a tasket, a Protestant casket,
We brown people, we never conquer anyone,
Hell I never even owned a gun
But shhh! Don’t tell anyone.
Lest they get the best of us
And turn thus dangerous

A black man might as well be from Mars
He’s like a virus, make you sick like SARS
Speaking ebonic, might as well be bubonic.
They’re contagious, everything they say sounds so good,
Knock on wood

Little Haroon: Do you wanna end up in poverty?
But that’s not fair, we get so much
And for them it isn’t such,
I drove through Harlem, I can talk to you about the problem: Not enough money!
Quiet honey, act like the cat got your tongue,
The doorbell rung,
We ran out the other door, why but it’s the FBI
No reports, just deportations,
Don’t be shy, he says, I got some questions, sir
Well enter, mister,
I just wanted some answers.

Avari-Nameh

Mankind because man's nature has wrought cruelty

"To unravel life's secret it gave man serendipity
However, it gave no clue to test his propensity

He is eager to perceive and to comprehend
The essence of the existence, but cannot apprehend

Beginning and end are so enigmatic
In this hall of mirrors they are problematic

The river of life flows in a state of ferment
To combine with the ocean it is ever fervent

Clouds on a blowing wind, afloat and adrift
Proped on its shoulders like a floating raft

The stars are in ecstasy with their fated wine
Prisoners to the heavenly design

The Sun brings to the morn asceticism
Awakens the world from its slumbers

Behind the hills far in the West
Cups of wine are drunk in zest

Wrapped in its own entity
Mixed with its own identity

No help from the surroundings make forth a sound for man
What a hard challange for man! Hard pounding for man"

-Muhammad Iqbal, Insan Jo Qudrat Ka Ajib Yah Sitam Hai, (Mankind because man's nature has wrought cruelty)

The reason why I like to share the poetry of Muhammad Iqbal, is because, like so many children of Pakistanis in the UK, I missed out on this moving and ecstatic, sometimes critical, art during my upbringing; being taught poetry and to understand poetry it is hardly part of schooling (apart from a few weeks I got in English literature during my GCSE's). I have rediscovered Iqbal, and it is easy to see why he left a profound effect on Indian Muslims. Even today, I feel his words hold strong meaning, and we can see why many might have been moved into political, as well as social, activism, solely due to his words.

Though I must admit: I'd probably never engage in writing any potery myself, unlike young Zachary Latif. Nowadays, I am far too sober for that... ;-)

Intellect and heart

"Intellect one day said to the heart:
'I am a guide to those who have gone astray

Though bound to earth, I reach the heaven above
Just see how far reaching is my sway

I am cast in the mould of the legendary Khizr [1]
I am destined in the world to show the way

I am the interpreter of the book of life
I am an attribute of divine display

You are only a drop of blood
I am the envy of ruby's ray'

'This is all true', replied the heart
'But look at me, be as it may

You look at life's trauma and drama
I see through life's white and gray

You deal with outer manifestations
And I am aware of the inner fray

Knowledge is to you, intuition to me
You seek God, I show how to pray

Limit of wisdom is restless doubting
I am cure for the malady of dismay

You are a lantern to illuminate a spot
I am a lamp to illimunate the path

You deal with time and space
I deal with Judgment Day

To what lofty place do I belong?
I am the pedestal of God Almighty, I say.'"

-Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), Poet of the East, Aql or Dil (Intellect and heart)

Notes
[1] Khizr is the Urdu/Persian rendering of the mysterious and legendary Qur'anic figure of al-Khadir, the one who is said to have encountered the Prophet Moses (p). More on him can be found here.