Contrasts

ACT I

There is a little boy

Sitting on a plastic bag

Selling cigarettes to passersby

On an unpaved street

In Baghdad

His dark hair peppered with dust

Wearing the same torn shoes

He was wearing when his parents

Were killed before his eyes

There is a man in a sharp suit

A red tie and polished shoes

Sitting on a chair

Before Congress

Saying “these are credible threats,

Backed by solid intelligence” 

ACT II

There is a little girl

Sitting on pebbles

Under a tent

In Amman

Imagining her mother

Say these magical words

“We can now go back home to Palestine”

There is a King

Sitting on a cozy bed of petroleum

Sipping on red wine

As the sound of the adhan

Echoes from Mecca

ACT III

There is a teenage girl

Sitting on a concrete floor

In Nigeria

Her pregnant belly

Hiding the emptiness she feels inside

As she waits another day

Another month

Another year

For freedom to come

There is a woman

Sitting behind the anchor’s desk

Her eyes filled with concern

As she says

“And now, we turn to breaking news

Kim Kardashian is blond...again!”

ACT IV

There is a child

In the third ward

Sitting on a wet carpet

Under a leaking roof

Eating from a can of beans

For the seventh day in a row

While waiting for his mother

To return from her third job

There is a prime minister

In a private airplane

Flying back to Tel Aviv

From Washington DC

Where he just gave a speech

Insulting the Commander in Chief

To rousing applause 

Holding a $3 billion check

A gift from American taxpayers

FINALE

There is a planet

A speck in an ever-expanding universe

Blue in color

Magnificent in beauty

Performing an annual

Pilgrimage around an ever-kindled star

Two lovers in a chaotic universe

No matter how many mosques are burned

How many churches are leveled to the ground

The pilgrimage of love must go on
Until an appointed time

--AK

Kill Them All

A few days ago, while driving on a cold evening on I-10, listening to This American Life, one of my favorite podcasts, I saw an oversized black truck on the lane to my left pass noisily in front of me. Not an unusual site in Houston. But what caught my attention was a large sticker on the back window.  Something about it attracted me, and as I drove closer to the truck and read the words, I felt my heart sink.  The sticker read: "Kill them All, Allah Will Deal With Them."

I turned off the radio. I've seen stickers like this before, though not with the same exact words. But on that night, my reaction to it was different. My usual reaction has been to drive past them as I tell myself there are hateful people everywhere, and remind myself that this is not the norm. I live in a diverse and tolerant city. The people I interact with every day are kind, loving, and accepting.

But that night a few days ago, I felt numb, defeated, overpowered, and exhausted. My eyes began to well up uncontrollably and heard myself mumble "God, I hate this world." The tears filled up my vision to the point where all I could see were overlapping blots of light and color.  So I pushed my feelings deep inside and told myself I'll deal with this once I'm home. But every few seconds, I would feel the emotions inside of me resurface and I had to push them back harder. I kept thinking I want to catch up to this driver, get him out of his car, shake him and make him feel my presence. My real, actual, human presence. I wanted to show him how the hateful words he had advertised to the world made me feel. I wanted him to feel my anger and hurt.  But a few seconds of lucidity would bring me back to reality and once again I tried to push my feelings inwards.

The night that I saw the truck was a few days after the Charlie Hebdo event, while the media was talking about it nonstop and the vitriol of some people was oozing across my computer screen. I tried to not read the articles, the comments, the posts, but it was impossible.  As with every such event, my first reaction is "God, don't let it be a Muslim" while knowing in my heart that it is. And when my fears are confirmed, my heart sinks, and I try to ignore the news to no avail. Then I read the article and I read the comments and I feel defeated and small. I feel as though whatever I do or say will no longer matter. Millions of people are watching the news, and they are all thinking the same thing "Islam is evil and Muslims are evil." I feel as though no amount of education, no amount of words, no amount of peaceful action on my part will change that. I feel infinitely small.

It's been more than a week since I saw that truck, and my reaction to the driver, whoever he or she is has changed. I no longer want to shake him and make him feel my anger. I don't even care if his beliefs about my religion or me as a Muslim will change. In my attempt to soothe my feelings, I've imagined all sorts of different scenarios of how I will interact with that driver if I saw him, and I've decided that this is what it will look like:

I would introduce myself. Tell him "my name is Amenah.  My name means 'peaceful' and I've never hated so hard to want to kill. I send peace your way. Have a great day."

I don't care how he will react because it doesn't matter. What matters is how I react. And I choose to react peacefully because I'm a lover and follower of Allah (SWT) and Al-Mustafa Muhammad (PBUH), and because I am a human being like every other human being on this planet. And we all deserve to live -- otherwise we wouldn't have been created in the first place.

--AK

There is a Wild River Before Me

There is a wild river before me, and a thousand falls

Pouring, pouring, breaking up all the resilient walls,

Lightning strikes, piercing through my heart,

Carving out a letter to set me apart

And I run to a shelter, only to find

The shelter is an ocean

And the ocean and river are intertwined

There is no where to go

There is no where to hide

And I fall to my knees,

With my carved out heart and broken dreams

Screaming, someone, anyone help me find

My home, my world, my peace

But all I find are maps, oil, guns, and machines

Drones drilling death a thousand miles deep

Bombs bursting babies a thousand angels apart

Missiles missing murderers and striking mosques

Police putting peace in prison and choking life

Politicians preaching plans to topple regimes they put in place

Funding fresh factions to finish-off former friends

All in the name of peace

All in the name of freedom

All in the name of God

With the last few breaths I have left

My voice fragile, my heart bereft

I voice a declaration to my dying human race

That in the course of human events

When the heartless seek to conquer our hearts

And the heedless lead our nations and mosques,

When politicians are just a tool,

For the rich and powerful to use as a mule

To carry out their tainted wishes

Cover up their tracks and build up their riches

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That the pen is mightier than the sword

That the Creator of the ocean is greater than the Ocean and all that it can hold

That a loving smile of a child can halt a bomb

That the single word of a righteous scholar is holier than the sermon of a rogue imam

That when the typhoon of ignorance

Seeks to engulf us in its dark hole

We take shelter under the loving wing of none

Other than the Creator, the Sustainer, the Ever Living One

And we declare, with our hearts, with our tongues, with our souls

That we will march on until we reach our final goals

Love, peace, and justice for all

-- AK

"Farewell My Beloved x 300"
(a.k.a.  "The 300+ Dead Children of Gaza" a.k.a. "The Human Shields"  a.k.a. "The Others")

Remember the time you were running in the living room

And I yelled at you -- I said

When you run,

The breeze you make bothers me

Now...

Now my child

I wish I could collect every molecule of that breeze,

And every molecule of fragrance that it carried of you

To get a whiff of the sweet smell of your flesh

Once more

Just once more!

Gone are the days I held your face in my palms

And kissed your curly locks

Gone are the nights I would get up from my warm bed

Just to take a look at your sweet, gentle face

I know I promised that I wouldn't hug you too hard,

But when we meet again,

I will hold you harder than I've ever held you before

And I will hold you longer than I've ever held you before

But for now,

I will pray that when the angels call you to play,

They will call you as I do – "habibi" – my beloved

Farewell habibi . . .

 -- AK

The Love-Spangled Banner

Ramadan Reflection

I don’t remember her name, but I can tell you every detail of her face. Her eyes were dark, shiny, and as shy as the smile on her chapped lips. Her round face was tanned and flushed cheeks roughened by the heat of the sun. She was around my age—eight or nine. The first time I met her was at the doorstep of our house in northern Iraq. She was hiding behind her older sister and I was hiding behind my mother.

The second and last time I saw her this close to me was at the school courtyard. The school offered two shifts,  morning and afternoon, and I would sometimes see her walking through the gate alone, her big eyes looking bashfully at the ground as I ran to catch the school bus home. But that day, something was different. She was looking straight ahead, and even stranger, was smiling with pride. I could see joyful curl of her lips from the opposite end of the courtyard, and I could also see my old leather school bag across her shoulder.

As I made my way to the school gate, I heard a group of boys talking and laughing loudly –nothing unusual. But I looked around anyway, and what I saw was a return to normalcy. Eyes cast firmly on the ground, lips devoid of life, and tears making their way down her parched cheeks. 

It was a split second decision, and for me, a shy and quiet third grader, an unusual and scary one. I ran towards the mocking voices, and forgetting my timidity, yelled at them with a high-pitched voice that drove them into a fit of laughter. I didn’t care. I placed my arm around her and urged her not to listen to the bullies, as if that was possible. I remember her quiet tears, the cry of a person accustomed to pain and harassment. And I remember her walking towards the concrete wall for support, where I soon left her so I could catch the school bus home.

Noor. Light. Luminosity.  I’ll call her Noor because it’s my favorite Arabic name and I want to give her a lovely name that matches her beautiful heart.

Noor was an orphan. Without mother or father to support them, Noor’s oldest sister had quit school to provide for her four siblings.  While I ate, played, complained, and slept in my parent’s house, Noor’s sister was at work, trying to feed and shelter her young brothers and sisters.

I think about Noor and her family often, especially during Ramadan. Maybe it’s hunger that makes the hands of time linger a little longer at every second and leaves us pondering life more than we usually do. I don’t know where they are now or even if they’re alive. I hope to God they’re alive, and happy. God, please let them be happy.

During this month, we need little cajoling to remember the less fortunate. But I hope that we will do more than just remember for a short time and forget for a long while. Let us do what we can, every day for the rest of our lives, to stand in solidarity with the oppressed, Muslim or non-Muslim, confront injustice, however minor, or donate time, money, or both to a deserving cause. It is with these actions that our heavy hearts begin to shed the burden of apathy and soften in the presence of our Creator.

God doesn’t need our fasts or our prayers –we all know this.  He’s given us a month-long chance to attain the highest morals of humanity, and for this, we can never be thankful enough. 

“The Believers, men and women, are protectors one of another: they enjoin what is just, and forbid what is evil: they observe regular prayers, practice regular charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. On them will Allah pour His mercy: for Allah is Exalted in power, Wise.” (9:71)

-- AK

“The Love-Spangled Banner”

O, say, can you see?

By the crescent’s waning light

The old man (hunch-backed)

The young woman (veiled)

The little boy (unafraid)

Walking, driving, flying away

From the bright streets of Paris

Narrow alleys of Tabriz

Busy corridors of Karachi

Restless highways of Houston

And together

Walking in unison

To the golden dome of Karbala

So gallantly they walk

Attired in black

Black as their grief

Through a perilous trail

A trail of endless tears

As the bombs burst into a crimson glare

And the bullets fusillade in the air

They strike back

With a million swords of “Ya Hussein!”

So proudly they walk

Not for their slain sons

For their sons were buried

Hussein was not.

They beat their chests

Not for their oppressed sisters

For they were veiled

Zainab was not.

They shed tears of blood

Not for the orphaned children

For they were spared the sight

Of the butchered heads of their fathers

Ruqayya was not.

So bravely they walk

On the burning sand

Under the sweltering sun

Mindless of the tempest of hate

Heedless of the typhoon of ignorance

They walk

To the welcoming home of their beloved

And they chant

“Ya Hussein!”

O, say, can you see?

The love-spangled banner forever wave

Through the desert dales of Karbala

Home of the free

Land of the brave

-- AK