To The City of Peace
To the City of Peace,
May God’s Peace and Blessings be upon you.
I am a stranger to your lands.
I was neither shaped with your soil,
Nor cradled between your rivers,
Nor taught within your madrasahs,
Nor am I a holder of your passport,
Nor eloquent in your tongue.
Yet my lineage shapes your soil, 6 foot deep
Yet, you cradled an entire Civilization
Yet, you educated the Golden Age
Yet, I subscribe to the unbound Book
And I read it with your tongue.
It teaches me, as it once taught you
That
God will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves (13:11)
That
If Muslims do not protect one another, there will be Fitnah on the earth and great corruption (8:73)
That
Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by reason of what the hands of people have earned so He may let them taste part of the consequence of what they have done that perhaps they will return to righteousness (30:41)
So have you had your taste?
Will you unite on the basis of your Islam,
Or divide on account of it?
You were founded on high ideals.
You gave us law and order,
Unsparingly
And forgot to keep some for yourself.
What use is provision without provider?
Milk without mother?
Son without a motherland?
You gave us reading and writing,
Cultivated unheard-of poetry
And now, your people stand unheard
Out on the streets
United in peaceful protest
Not in divine Brotherhood
but in mutual frustration
Famine
Injustice
Corruption
Oppression
A kingdom may last while there is irreligion, but it will not endure when there is oppression (Nizam al-Mulk)
And now
Your people supplicate to their Maker
Against your sovereigns
Are you aware that the supplication of the oppressed
Knows no barrier between it and God? (Bukhari)
And yet your sovereigns will never abdicate.
Isn’t it ironic, oh City of Peace?
How Peace knows no bounds
except within your borders?
And that, here I am, across the Atlantic,
Within vastly different borders,
Wishing you peace?
