March 11, Qom. I have just returned to the hotel. The others have gone out—the lights are off, the room is dim. My only company is the soft breeze drifting through the window. I have spent the better part of the morning grappling with the trellises of my soul. My brain is tired. My heart,… Continue reading drenched in light
Tag: islam
orange peels
I still remember the first day I signed up for Facebook. I was in the ninth grade, and a friend had just spent a lazy spring afternoon at my house. We were hanging out in my room, discussing everything from the travails of high school to our most recent YA fiction read, when she decided… Continue reading orange peels
what matters most
There is a surrender that happens at the peak of life, and another at the edge of death, and the two do not weigh the same. There is an abdication when the first glimmer of light is seen on the horizon, and another when the last glimmer is about to fade, and the day between… Continue reading what matters most
everyone except us
Hugo writes, "Curiosity is a form of gluttony. To see is to devour." Few exist the cannibals of the flesh, but many the cannibals of the soul. Many, who spend their evenings by the fireside, slavering over the slabs of a fellow man's spirit, the blood of a fellow man's struggle dripping from their lips. Many,… Continue reading everyone except us
choosing for your friend a person
Do not choose for your friend a person unless they wake you in the early hours of morning for prayer. Unless their company moves you to the book of God as they share with you a verse that moves them. Unless they silence your tongue if they catch it in vain speech, reminding you of more… Continue reading choosing for your friend a person
the clock is chiming
the clock is chiming, marking the hour of separation and i am caught in a slow moving apart, a heavy gaze, a drinking in with the thirst of one dying the angles of your face, the wrinkles of your eyes, holding your cloth, breathing in the remnants of scent of the only person i have… Continue reading the clock is chiming
such a woman
"...They feel that Hijab shall bring down the standard of their beauty. What a strange meaning of beauty! What is beauty? Where is its realm?...In your own environment, your own society, there are innumerable curtains, which have been drawn on the beauty of your being. Why don't you see these curtains? Who are you? In… Continue reading such a woman
our way through fire
millennia ago, when the world was a younger place in the heavens, a human being was created from clay a being of sinew and flesh and stardust and bone a being that would, in time, call this Earth its home. the Lord said, ‘I will create a vicegerent on Earth.’ the angels replied, ‘what… Continue reading our way through fire
the ways i knew you (on the death of a great man)
When I was five, I found you in the smiling curve of numbers. I sat in the pale morning sunlight of a Sunday School classroom painted the yellow of tender summer peaches. The wind from the fan caressed my face in rounds, the buzzing gape of its mouth first turning this way then that,… Continue reading the ways i knew you (on the death of a great man)
fragrance of the found
"O God, what did find who lost you? And what did he lose who found you?" -Hussain ibn Ali (a) I’ve heard whispered tales of a flower in a slumbering wood Whose tears did fall when the world’s weight it understood Drowning in the haze of fairytales, countless once upon a times Of knights bright… Continue reading fragrance of the found
guardians of the green
I lay beneath the cover of trees, the day warm against my skin...watching glimpses of sunlight make their way across the leaves, flecks striking branches as they dance together, swaying in the breeze. My hand finds a root splayed tenderly beneath my arm, and I’m struck suddenly with the strangeness of it all. That these… Continue reading guardians of the green
W A R R I O R S + P O E T S 