What words can show the sorrow of a lone child
Sobbing over his dead mother’s corpse?
None can, for suffering is beyond language    
 
What words can express the distress of an old man
Who just lost his house, his kinfolk and friends?
None can, for anguish is indescribable 

What words can depict the grief–convulsed face of a mother
Gaping at her four kids lying lifeless on the ground?
None can, for wretchedness is inexpressible
 
What words can evoke the terror
Of four famished, wounded boys
Stuck in the gloom of a room
Four days long
Beside the festering corpses
Of their four mothers
And two headless relatives of theirs?
None can, for the face of horror is beyond words
 
What words can convey the wordless woe of a baby
In the midst of corpses sucking its dead mother’s toe?
None can, for sorrow defies utterances
 
What words can conjure up the ache that gnaws the heart
Of a school girl whose two legs have been amputated?
None can, for desolation baffles articulation
 
What words can portray the hushed horror,
The gruesome dismay
Of dying humans being devoured by dogs?
None can for hideousness is beyond idiom
 
Words can only glide over the surface:
Suffering is too distant for them to reach
It even defies those who suffer—
Let alone those who – like us –
Watch from a safe distance!

Farhat Ahmed Ali

 
* All the incidents in this poem are real. They  took  place during the 2009  barbaric Israeli onslaught of Gaza

A single day epitomizes our lifetime. Therefore,  we should attempt to be constantly upright and pure so that we meet our Lord in the best possible state of mind and heart. Days are where we are born and where we shall die.

Farhat Ahmed Ali

The five daily prayers may be likened to the five fingers of the hand: they are complementary, mutually dependent but at the same time unique and individually necessary.

Farhat Ahmed Ali

Life herebelow does not have a value per se, nor does the life hereafter. The former gains value only if it is associated with the life hereafter and the latter gains value only in relation to seeking Allah’s pleasure- the ultimate goal one may ever attain.

Farhat Ahmed Ali

As he/she enters the realm of Islam, a new revert is bound to feel somewhat torn between a former self and a nascent one. Shall he/she relinquish his original culture altogether, or shall he/she find a middle ground, a compromise between it and Islam? Shall he/she proceed slowly and gradually or quickly and impetuously in whatever direction he/she has opted for? Shall he/she integrate in his original culture or isolate himself therefrom? Shall he/she accept the others as they are or attempt to change them, no matter what? Shall he/she wear Arab or Pakistani clothes or keep those he/she has always worn? Shall he/she mix with the other gender unconditionally as he/she used to or mix regularly with members of the same gender and only exceptionally with the other?
These questions and many more similar ones presumably cross the mind of any new revert to Islam. We devote this corner to answer with the help of Allah any such questions.

Such is the perfection of the human biological constitution that should one single organ or bone be displaced, it would disrupt the harmony of the body and jeopardize our very existence. Take for instance the elbow joint. Without it, all human achievements –cultural, technological, intellectual, etc- would have been impossible. More, we would have been long extinct. Indeed, had we been created without an elbow joint, how could we eat, drink, write or build anything with a pair of stiff stick-like hands dangling on our sides?

Farhat Ahmed Ali

Salaah -prayer- is a bridge crossing over the agitated waters of life and connecting this world to the hereafter, the seen to the unseen. Not only does it elevate our souls to heaven but it also liberates our body – 5 times a day – from the shackles of flesh and vanity and infuses us with peace and tranquility.

Farhat Ahmed Ali

A field of wheat
Stretching as far as the eye can see
Its golden ears
dancing in the wind
Sipping the sunshine
Its unperturbed solitude
Mingles with mine

Farhat Ahmed Ali