Voice of British Muslim Women

Yusra Dahri, Tilford

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لَا تُدۡرِکُہُ الۡاَبۡصَارُ ۫ وَہُوَ یُدۡرِکُ الۡاَبۡصَارَ ۚ وَہُوَ اللَّطِیۡفُ الۡخَبِیۡرُ

‘Eyes cannot reach Him but He reaches the eyes. And He is the Incomprehensible, the All-Aware.’

The Holy Qur’an, 6:104

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We are in the maze of idols,
Desperate to find the Centre.
These hedges of tamarisk are so thick
That we cannot break them.
And the things we think will help us
Through, only make it harder.

We think Time will tell us when to move.
But Time is a frozen lake, reflecting nothing more
Than our own cold faces. We slip in circles
On the ice. Our hair turns white,
Waiting to have enough Time
To find the right way.

Knowledge should show us where to go,
But Knowledge is a quarry made of lime.
Transfixed, we read our way down its corridors.
We sleep where we stand, hearts barely beating.
We step down into a mine, seeking the theories
Of crumbled minds. But Knowledge
Collapses when given too much weight.

There is often much fear in the maze,
So we build our Homes in a dead end
Thinking we are safe. Smothered
Under our pillows and blankets
We listen to no difficult thing.
Yes, we are safe now, but we will weaken.
Our gratitude and justice will dissolve like sugar
If we stay at Home, sweetly sleeping.

And at some point, the Merchant appears,
Offering to help with our journey in the maze,
Plying us with wares to make it easy.
The Merchant coaxes us to spend
Even what we had kept for charity.
We keep purchasing from the Merchant
Until we turn into objects ourselves.
The Merchant happily packs us in his cart
To sell us to someone else.

But if we are found by Children,
Compassion makes us human again.
Whatever little we have left, we spend on them.
Yet slowly, we start to expect things from them.
Press them to return what we provided for them,
Forgetting from the first, we never owned them.
Become lazy and tell them to find the Centre in our stead.
We mould Children into idols and they cannot bear it.
To test what little freedom they have
They swallow fire, burning themselves from within.

Eventually, we forget that we are in a maze.
We start to get used to it:
Cold comforts. Strained eyes. Airless houses.
Buying things that will only be burnt in the end.

All we can do is rely on ourselves.
Some say that is the best end to our story.
But our skin cracks around our swollen joints
So we compete to numb the ache:
Who has the highest tomb?
Who has the nicest shroud?
Whose death will draw the biggest crowd?
In the end, we become the idols hardest to break.
Tamarisk leaves, small and salty, fill our mouths.

For as long as we worship surfaces
Instead of the Unseen, we will keep making
A maze on what had always been a straight path.
Our actions will only get us more lost
Unless we walk on with pure intentions,
Accepting our faults yet summoning
The strength to pray for guidance.

We are in a maze of idols
And the truth is, for all of us,
We cannot reach the Centre
Unless the Centre reaches us.

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