Mohja Kahf
 The most widespread manifestation of the arts of rhythmic sound in the Islamic world is the recitation of poetry. Without doubt, poetry is the prime means of literary expression in Islamic civilizations. Poetry, like the Qur'an, was never read: it was recited. The rhythmic power of good poetry practically forces the reader to recite or chant it. Only people who have lost a sense for the beauty of their own language are not moved by their classical poetry.
In the hands of an accomplished artist, poetry captures the imagination through its sound and music, and poetry, in contrast to the Qur'an is often recited to the accompaniment of instrumental music, which enhances its power. One of the primary messages of the Qur'an is that people should recognize the beautiful and do what is beautiful. This is not simply a moral beauty but a visual and auditory beauty as well. Conduct should be beautiful, writing should be beautiful and speaking should be beautiful. For many Muslims, beauty is DivineÖwherever it is found, it can only serve to remind people of God.
Mohja Kahf is a Syrian-American poet and professor who considers herself an Islamic feminist. Her work takes a bold and courageous look at the Muslim American reality. In this series of poems, she writes of some of the feminine role models of Islam: Hagar, wife of Abraham, Aishah and Khadija, wives of the Prophet Muhammad, and Fatima, his daughter.
Hagar in the Valley
Sometimes I think of those days
in the belly of the valley,
the child on my hip, the weight
of the heat on my head, the sun
far above like a hard-hearted city
This is the final ground of faith,
where a woman is left alone
to survive as she can
It is hard to understand the will of God
Hard when the child is hoarse with thirst
and makes noises like a hurt animal
and what has he done to offend God?
Hard when the earth scorches like lava,
the sun circles overhead, and the heat
corrodes the mind like doubt
First I dropped the empty water-skin
Then I dropped the boy; I dropped everything
Running from heat, running from doubt,
I found the two boulders before me
I climbed the black ridges in desperation,
rock digging into the flesh of my thighs
I ran heavily, I ran lightly
I ran with the momentum of running, of ritual
I ran with the rhythm of the cry of the child
behind me, waxing and waning
Today they say seven.
It may as well have been seven
stages of descent to the final questions of faith
I stopped when I sensed the possibility
of change in the valley
I stopped at a catch in the cry of the child
When I found him, his small palms were moist
When I pushed him aside, I found it--
as if something had broken
deep
in the channels of the earth
as if the chest of God,
full of pity,
finally burst,
then to flow forever:
Water springs at Zamzam
Sometimes I think of those days of mine
in the pit of the belly of the valley
I think of the stone of doubt
that burdens the breast,
of hardness and heaviness
and the lightness of water
I have a heart that has been scorched
by the white fire of midday,
by the fire that must be extinguished by water
I have a faith that has withstood the weight of the sky
I have been more alone than any man
I was given water and gave birth to prophets
who emerged from my womb to a world as parched
as the valley of my trial
Sometimes I think of those days
and I want people to remember,
but what will make them remember?
And will they come to the belly of my valley,
when they have a white fire,
when they thirst for this water?
This poem first appeared in the Pakistani Journal of Women's Studies.
The Pearls Are Lost Again
Aisha, they're
burying us alive again
First they crowd us
from the well
We wait placidly
for a muscled Moses
to part this discourteous sea
They hang a curtain
between us and the Lote Tree
Next we allowed ourselves
to be blindfolded
Now we sit here,
sand
running through our eyelashes,
our arms
already stilled
Aisha, ride a high
camel. The pearls
are lost again
Khadija's Little Ones
The tight bud of his lips had no chance to unfurl
He was in a hurry to leave this world for the other one
I whispered, cradling my son's tiny body,
"You're right, it's a rough place, but there is love
also, and a soft pillow on my arm, and sweetness."
The hard breathing racked his small chest
and I knew he would go soon, my anxious one,
to where angels would take the pain from his body
God blessed us with four daughters to love
When they enter, their father is lit with sweetness
and joy wells up and tightens in my chest
But I see my boy in dreams, his whole self unfurled
holding my hands and flying, free in his body
Who am I to get through this world with love
untempered by sorrow, to taste only sweetness
Who am I that the wound should not touch my chest,
when it is the wound that teaches us to unfurl
ourselves in kindness to the suffering ones
My second son, I tried to coax him to live
My whole self became prayer and ache and sweetness
"Stay with us," I said, hand on his little chest
"You will see how beautifully life can unfurl
Life! Come toward life, please come, little one
Your mother, father, sisters, everybody
has surrendered like the angels to your sweetness,
would ransom you with the hearts in our chests."
I know it's all good, that goodness unfurls
for my boys like God, who encompasses everyone
And I have other children, healthy, with bodies
straight as palm trees, a companion whose love
fills my home, and my gold overflows the chest
I know God cradles us as morning slowly unfurls
like a sleepy mother with sleepy little ones,
whose round hopeful flesh nestles against her body
Still, there is a place in my ribs where their love
would have fit, where their mouths sweetly
grazed my skin, their small bodies plumped
against mine. Love and sweetness unfurl
in my chest, and the wound is a tender one.
Our Lady of the Sorrows
It is hard to find Fatima. Fatima's face
is always averted from the crowd
Fatima's form, wrapped in its black cloak,
is always receding to another place
I think she carried in her pelvic floor
the knowledge that her son Hussain
would die at Karbala, his body gored,
my Lady of the Sorrows, of the shroud.
Even as a girl of ten, worried for her father,
her pinched face peering right and left,
sad and worried, picking her way
through the crooked street, bereft
among the sweaty backs of men the day
had made unmindful, Fatima, little daughter,
little mother, turns from this world, takes on the pain
of those who, by this world, will be slaughtered.
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