ISLAMOPHOBIA IS NOT A THING TO DWELL UPON

Listen here dear Muslims!
Align your selves to God
Islamophobia is not
A thing to dwell upon
And listen here dear people
Of faiths or of non-faiths
Our job is to explain to you
There’s none except His Face
If you don’t take our calling
Well that is your freedom
There’s no compulsion in belief
God rules His whole kingdom
It’s not for us to judge you
There’s only One True Judge
So, you worship the gods you like
There’s no need for a grudge
But God tells us: ‘Don’t worship
No other gods but Me
If you choose to forsake My Words
None can save you from Me….’
So dear Muslims don’t worry
Or fret about cruel words
Islamophobia will pull you
From the beauty of His Words
Focus on the One Presence
Like Prophets of the past
The people of their times were worse
And looked at them, aghast
Noah was cursed and slighted
Moses was shunned and scorned
Jonah felt down and left his town
Mary was left forlorn
There always will be those ones
Who don’t accept Allah
They will see you as trojan horses
Plotting to cause them harm
So stand tall like the Prophets
Don’t fret that they curse you
Crying Islamophobia
Will not calm or soothe you
Shed light like Our Muhammad
Peace be upon him well
The more that people hate on you
Let Divine Love swell
For some this world’s a treasure
For some: heaven and hell
For some this world is such a pain
For some this world just smells
For true life is hereafter
That’s why you should not dwell
On their Islamophobia
Or mistreatment so fell
I don’t say be a doormat
I don’t say be passive
Protect your rights and learn to fight
But live and learn to forgive
So Muslims don’t you worry
Of Islamophobia
And people of all other ways
Shun xenophobia
We’re not so strange or scary
What we believe is ancient
We echo our father Adam
And our mother so patient
We will persist in saying
That God is only one
We will recite His holy book
And read the moon and sun
We do not worship your gods
You do not worship ours
But our origins are one and the same
We’re from the same flowers
Peace be upon Muhammad
And blessings on his friends
And be upon him family
And close ones till the end….

A Response to Katherine Birbalsingh

Dear Katharine,

I hate to sound like one of those preachers

But I’m a local English secondary teacher

Have been one for more than twenty years

And in every school I’ve taught, I’ve said my prayers

My zohr, asr and my dear maghrib

Whilst teaching the Destruction of Sennacherib!

And here’s a thing I hope you will not fear

Some students have prayed with me, laissez-faire!

The daily prayers have always lifted students

The ones I’ve seen have always been quite prudent

So, my advice to you before I depart

Is don’t break off your students from their hearts

The prayer for Muslims, like a flowing river

That we bathe in, it lets the soul just shiver

If you think that the kids are immature

Then surely there are staff you can implore

Or elders who can guide them while they pray

Who’ll help them to explore enriching ways

Your secular mission is oxymoronic

You seek to thrive with rules which are pharaonic

You can’t divorce a child from their deep roots

Exam results are not true learning’s fruits

So let these children be, and see their faiths

The real world is there beyond school gates…

When the CEO fell for the Majzoob

This story will confound you through and through

A CEO fell for a poor majzoob

She was the founder of a beauty brand

He lived on streets and hung around the strands

She worked so hard to build her own empire

The presence of Allah his only desire

She’d made enough money for long lifetimes

He slept in rags whilst witnessing the Divine

She had been scarred by handsome parasites

His only fear to lose dear Allah’s sight

And so one day, next to the riverbank

The CEO strolled by, with workers flanked

And so along this path, the majzoob staggered

Drunk with Allah, and looking rather haggard

These two conundrums met by the streaming water

The CEO took off her sunglasses and faltered

And though the crazy guy appeared offensive

She saw in his deep eyes a beauty intensive

Taken aback by wonder so supreme

Which shone in eyes that never touched eye cream

Inside a voice said to her, “He’s the one…”

And she was drawn like moths unto the sun

Discarding all her aides and pompery

She said to him: “you’re the one for me!”

The majzoob stilled himself and shook his head

Then chose to give her some advice instead:

“You’ll never find true peace in just a man…

Flee to Allah and take Mustafa’s kind hands

I’m not the one; Allah is One, you see…

Through Him be rich, and vanish in His seas…”

And whilst these two engaged in reverie

An aide piped up: “are such positions open for me?”

When I Went To Palestine

I was guided somehow and the year was 2000

My heart had grown dark by desires

But then the deep hole was lit up in my soul

When I went to Palestine

We moved through the cordons of Israel and Jordan

The border staff grilled us in lines

This moment a fear grew that we would not get through

When I went to Palestine

But worry’s a killer, and Alhamdulillah

Our way was freed by the Divine

Off we embarked on a cab from the car park

When I went to Palestine

We checked in a hotel near where the Arabs dwell

Jerusalem East and sublime

And something beyond called to us with a song

When I went to Palestine

So ancient and pretty endured the old city

We walked as if under a spell

The sun seemed to rise as we came to the climb

When I went to Palestine

Above the roofs rose the clear golden dome

My heart rent apart and just sighed

The closer we got so our fears we forgot

When I went to Palestine

We came to a guard gate, met these eyes full of pure hate

But the other was friendly and fine

The Israeli guard scanned, the Palestinian shook our hands

When I went to Palestine.

It felt so distinct in the sacred precinct

The blue walls, the dome hit our eyes

Al Aqsa in view, like an emerald, a jewel

When I went to Palestine

Our tears were unblocked at the Dome of the Rock

And it felt like we floated in time

At maghrib, enthralled, resting up to the walls

When I went to Palestine

And fajr heavenly in masjid Al Qibli

We met a Shaykh with glowing eyes

He gave us some mint tea, blessed hospitality

When I went to Palestine

The next day we risked it and just took the biscuit

To Hebron we both set out eyes

We felt the appeal of pure Al Khaleel

When I went to Palestine

A young man he helped us, along there he guided us

To get to the mosque in good time

But he was debarred by the colonial guards

When I went to Palestine

The wrongs they increase and the thoughts will not cease

But the beauty remains in the mind

Your heart feels at home, your soul’s free to roam

When you go to Palestine

Strange Meeting on the Gaza March in London on November 11th

For Owen

It seemed that from the march I escaped

Down some tunnel, with mouth agape

Scooped through the hazy granite of time

Deep into the annals of past years, hopes sublime

Yet there, sleeping soundly as cherubim

Lay men of merit who’d seen times so grim

Those unknown faces who once in the past

Had laid their lives without much questions asked

For country, duty, and for freedom of good

And of them now a line of sleepers stood

Before me, all my grandfathers of yore

Who’d bravely fought in all these Western wars

And at the front there stood a man of charm

My own grandfather an honourable Khan

“Strange indeed it is,” I said, pensive

“That for a foreign land your life you’d give…”

My grandfather, he looked me in the eye

“My son,” he said, with a knowing, wistful sigh,

“My own father, my cousins and my elders

We served so that our families would be sheltered,

And we fought hard and firm for the British Raj

Not fleeing from a skirmish or barrage

And so eventually I settled in England

I wore my medal ribbons and I mingled

I bore a family in old Birmingham

And now you stand here with a plate of jam!

But listen here, these words, I speak in truth

Never would we fight for this, forsooth,

For selling the poor soul of Jerusalem

And purging that land of Bethlehem

Never would we stand with such disaster

As bleeding dry the children of young Gaza

The enemy they kill are young and free

Who now lay cold, were loath to leave early

Alas us men at arms we had no such choice

So for those children indeed raise your voice…”

We Need Peace In The Middle East

We need peace in the Middle East

We need peace with an immediate ceasefire at least

We need peace from the aerial bombings at least

We need peace from the indiscriminate killings at least

We need peace from killing mostly civilians at least

We need peace from the chemical and nuclear weapons-and of course from the rockets at least

From the tanks, the infantry, and the white phosphorous at least

We need peace in the Middle East

Continue reading

VOICES FROM THE SMOKE AND BLOOD

Terrorist! Devil! Barbarian!

Thieving Occupier! Felon!

Son of a killer, murdering fiend!

Son of a coloniser supreme!

Your fighters slew our kids in bed

Your snipers shot our children’s heads

We will avenge your shameless crimes!

We will resist your vile designs!

80 years we have had no peace!

80 years our lands decreased!

The rockets you sent they killed our dreams!

Your bombings blew us to smithereens!

From you, we do fear our security

Before you, we lived in our country, free

We were fleeing persecution and death

But you exiled millions of us in a breath

We returned to this land, our clear birthright

You usurped all our lands; we will always fight!

We settled right here in the holy lands

By stealing our houses and tying our hands

When we came to this land, we established law

And you spurned our rights and international law

Can’t you see all we want is to live in peace

Can’t you see all we want is our pain to cease

We are here to stay; there’s no turning back

We are of this land; we will grow right back!

THE STRANGEST MILAAD MEHFIL EVER IN BIRMINGHAM

Mustafa and Ali stood outside Masjid Abu Bakr, which was nestled into the corner of ancient Walford street and the adjoining Stratham Road. Row upon row of red bricked, terraced, Victorian houses dominated the scene. Busy traffic zoomed by as Friday evening had arrived; the sun was settling for its slumber, and the late-night shopping districts were now warming up for the oncoming shoppers.

Continue reading

The Murid, the Sage, the Water Hole, the Spade

A murid called his sage with yearning eyes

“Show me the secrets of your enterprise…”

“Okay,” the sage replied, “let it be told

With this spade that I give you dig a hole

And dig until you find the quenching water

Then drown in it your vices and their daughters

When you are pure and washed, prepare your eyes

For the boundless secrets of our enterprise.”

The shaykh led the murid to a special pit

And showed the spade and how to dig with it

“Keep digging for the water, don’t give up

Don’t let the fiends of doubt your hopes disrupt!”

And so the seeker dug on through the day

And through the night without any dismay

But as the days went on although he cried

No water came although he tried and tried

The shaykh appeared again, “Keep digging my dear friend

The deeper that you dig, the deeper your great end!”

And on the final day murid was really straining

The shaykh arrived to beautify this training

“Have you discovered water yet my son?

Have you tasted the water of the One?”

The murid cried with anguish, “my dear Shaykh!

I’ve dug without success my heart it really aches!”

And then the Shaykh so soft were his deep eyes

Some wondrous tears appeared light and divine

Each tear fell in the hole with the murid

In just a glance it filled up to his knees

And then below the earth gave way and bled

Fresh water merged with tears the sage had shed

The murid dived and bathed in flowing water

The secrets of the way in his soul’s quarters

And now a hole murid had strained to dig

Was like a lake refreshing, clear and big!

The murid returned to shore with his sage smiling

“My son you’ve found something so enterprising

But if you dug deeper for Allah’s sake

You would have found His ocean, not just a lake!”

For Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller, may Allah bless him

The Brave New World Of Sufism

The-Brave-New-World-Of-Sufism

Transcript from an interview between Mureed Supreme, Mostafa Marx and host, Uncle John, recorded live at the studios, in the Fukrfield Festival of Democracy and Equality, at the London arena in Central London.

December, 2080

(Theme Music followed by rapturous studio applause. MM and UJ lighted on the stage, seated on stylish leather chairs and separated by a smart coffee table with glasses and water decanter. Applause and music fades out)

UJ: Welcome, my dear audience and citizens at home, to another segment of ‘Talking Heads’, I’m Uncle John. And today I would like to introduce our guest, none other than Mureed Supreme, Mostafa Marx! (Applause)

MM: Many thanks, John! God bless, God Bless! (Applause ends)

UJ: So let’s cut right to the chase. You are Mureed Supreme of what’s known as ‘tariqa waahidiyya’. Could you tell us more about your movement and its achievements since you were given this role?

UJ: Well, Uncle John, first of all, I would like to thank you for your kindness in inviting me onto your programme where I can discuss this critical work we’ve been doing. As you know, our society has quite rightly equalised every facet: parents and children, teacher and student, police and citizen, prime minister and constituent. We have finally reached a societal reality, thanks to our Founding Citizens, in which parents can no longer manipulate and control their kids; teachers can no longer wield authority over their learners; and even the leader of our country over the lay person on the street. We are all equal, and only God is higher- but even that height is in all of us…. God is one- but the knowledge, the truth and the power are in the many….. And religions, of whose heart is Sufism, is no exception to these ideals…

UJ: Mmm, fascinating, please elaborate about Sufism….. How so?

MM: Well, in primitive times, when people believed in the supernatural and so-called ‘spiritual states’ like ma’rifa, shuhood, hubb, shukr, and kashifaat, this all went hand in hand with notions of hierarchy, respect, deference and obedience to what was known as the ‘shaykh’. A ‘shaykh’ was supposedly someone who had attained these supernatural, spiritual states and could transfer them state into an aspirant, thereby helping their student or mureed to tread a path of enlightenment and journey in God. All Pugwash, I have to say! These spiritual states and these spiritual guides were mostly psychological tricks performed by charlatans, wielding undemocratic power over their students and committing various acts of spiritual, physical and sexual abuse at will. Whilst the few so-called ‘real’ ones, one could say, brought some kind of inner peace into the lives of their associates through ‘ma’rifa’, the majority were pushing the faithful towards an abyss of humility, forbearance and frankly extremist quietism. But as the Founding Citizens showed us so clearly, supernaturalism indeed is all in the head, there is no God but God- which really means the God of the mind. Religion and spirituality work at their best through their facilitation of socialization, camaraderie, and communal spirit. We kept the latter and got rid of the former.

UJ: Okay, that sounds rather challenging… How on earth did you rid our society of the evil of supernaturalism?

MM: Well, we came up with these ingenious devices known as the ma’rifa and shuhood inhibitors. We patented them of course. And these wonderful, life-saving devices were used on so-called shaykhs and mureeds who displayed signs of supernatural states, like spiritual tears, visions, light in the face, peaceful countenance, and so forth. The ma’rifa and shuhood inhibitors were installed on these individuals and frankly, after some time, they were cured of their so-called inner peace and inner light….

UJ: Oh yeah, how is that?

MM: Well the inhibitors were essentially locked-in headphones and digital glasses. Every time these wackos felt a bit spiritual and thought they were touching the so-called divine light of God, the inhibitor kicked in, and they got blasted by some real-world stimuli, like flashes of pornography, or hearing orgasms, and the like. The glasses had these neat, high definition video screens and the headphones crystal clears. Just some regular flashes and screams while these guys went for their morning prayer, or said invocation before sleep, and all that so-called ‘shuhood’ or ‘ma’rifa’ poured out of them like water in an unplugged bath.

UJ: So you got the old God out of them…

MM: Indeed, out with the old, in with the new…. We got rid of these shaykhs, these spiritual states, these undemocratic relationships, these inevitable oppressive structures and spread the concepts of equality and oneness. We abolished all the tariqas, and united them into one, tariqa Waahidiyya- the way of the one. No more Qadariyya, Naqshbandiyya, Shadhiliyya and all their ilk that claimed to be supernatural chains to attain these bogus spiritual states. Complete nonsense; and all divisive, conflicting bodies of shaykhs and mureeds vying with each other to see who has the most mureeds, who has the biggest tomb, who has the most attended zikrs. The tariqas were complete chaos. We abolished all notions of shaykhs and shaykhdom- now there are only mureeds, or seekers and enlightenment is naturally found within- no other has an authority and access to special knowledge that another has to show deference to. We are one and equal, our God is one and equal, and even the Prophets, every one of them, are the same as every one of us- they were just stepping stones to the rational zenith we have reached now, all through the tremendous work of the Founding Citizens. Currently, anyone who wants to enter the path of Sufism registers online, pays a monthly membership fee, and has access to every Sufi centre and mosque on this earth. 

UJ: Hmm, fascinating, fascinating… But now, as this is Talking Heads…

MM: Indeed, indeed, I know what’s coming up

UJ: Yes, yes, you know it. devil’s advocate. I have to play it.

MM: I knew you would play devil’s advocate….although the devil is all in the mind and in the small print! (mild laughter)

UJ: As your detractors say, including that renegade so-called shaykh who is still at large…. Haven’t you gotten rid of the heart of Sufism? Isn’t the whole point, that Sufism links you to the ineffable presence, through an ineffable, physical representative on earth? And surely, some deference should be showed for the one who brought such riches to your heart?

MM: Ah, yes, you quote the words of the devil himself and advocate for him well! Insha Allah the authorities will catch him and end his heresy soon….. He loves to talk about the ineffable… But as the Founding Citizens have taught us, ineffability leads to oppression- the supernatural was the biggest stumbling block and inhibitor of human progress. The so-called shaykh and his magical tricks cannot prevent the road of progress moving on through the supreme democracy of the human project.

LONG LIVE THE FOUNDING CITIZENS! (He rises and salutes. UJ and the audience follow suit then they all sit down)

UJ: Do you have a message for the shaykh if he is watching this programme or otherwise?

MM: Yes- stop pretending you are conduit for ma’rifa- become a conduit for the supremacy of the mind and equality of the human race. Amen

UJ: Mostafa- a pleasure as always. Mostafa Marx dear audience!

(Applause)