Shades of Islam. Rafey Habib
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night pass in
Your day.
Sublime are You, whose
Beauty burns in all Being,
Exalting all substance
Through the far corners;
Who breathed Your light
First on the face of formlessness, and last
On the forms of Human Reason.
Serene are You, in Your
Otherness, Your
Yearning depth embraces me;
Your knowing pales before itself:
Enthroned in realmlessness,
Your wisdom’s endless sea
Is adrift in my tears.
Absolute are You:
The pavilions of Night wear Your perfect Form;
From East and West Your lanterns rise:
Light upon light.
World upon world are You, Knower
Of destiny, harbinger
Of Time’s still path;
Who finds me bowed
In the rhythms of fate;
Your splendor, it is in both worlds,
Your light, it fills the far corners of Being:
Here, all is You; there, all is You.
This is the Word of God. If you recite
It before others, be sure that your voice
Is sweet and melodious: not mere noise
From an odious mouth drilled in despite.
Let the lips which shape His language of Light
Sing not just to sense, but weigh divine choice
Of syllable and word, whose divine poise
Holds the soul in its journey toward sight.
Many have fainted, hearing aloud these sounds.
Many have converted. Let me faint, too:
Let me feel His music as it resounds
In my deepest hearing, as it moves through
Sense, psyche, will and act. You who recite:
Make sound sing in my soul, till it takes flight.
A Passage from the Qur’an
(Translated by Rafey Habib)
God is the Light
Of the Heavens and of the Earth;
His Light is a parable, of
A lamp within a niche; without the lamp, a glass
Haloed as a brilliant star, lit
From an olive tree, blessed;
Whose soil is neither East nor West;
Its very oil would shine forth
Though untouched by fire:
Light upon Light.
God raises to His Light whom He will;
He engenders parables for men, He
Whose knowing is beyond horizon.
His Light abides in houses, sanctified
For the adoration of His Name. There
Is He glorified, morning and evening
By those whom trade nor profit can
Divert from remembrance of God
Or steadfastness in charity and prayer;
Whose sole fear is for the Day
When heart and vision wake
In a new world
Where God rewards their deeds
Giving ever more from His Grace
For God furnishes measurelessly
Those whom He will.
– Holy Qur’an XXIV: 35-38.
Alif. Lam. Ra. These are the
Letters that will not yield. They
Stand like before and after,
The unremitting, unreturning
Face of time. Inscribed in
Uncomprehending hearts,
Unyielding faces, they are
The traces of eternity, returning
To language, overshadowing
Viewpoint and perspective
With higher harmony, notes
From sacred spheres, intoning
Veiled letters, trailing an
Invisible journey, trace
Of Otherness, whose sign
We read but cannot know.
Symbols, stood in the still light;
Will not be understood
As words, signs for
Things. Their wisdom shapes
The sounds they fill
From a deeper source than shrill
Persuasion. They call to deeds but
Also to silence, whose depth reaches
Beneath recitation
Through long centuries,
Exegesis, back to the voice of
Man, treading desert sand,
Listening to voices higher than all the
Words within, around his world.
These symbols call to all the
Forces of reading: book more
Than book, whose signs
Are more than words, opening into
Worlds of self, struggle, silhouetted
Against fading of night, opening
Into red of distance;
Their voices flow, in meaning
Shivering through many realms,
Past and future,
Whose movement cannot
Be stilled; voices whose life
Might not be stifled, in schools,
Be killed in codes and ghosts of
Rules, of literal reading:
Symbols, whose sounds
Are more than meaning.
Without Your Word in my heart,
I am not me; Your Word on my lips
Is not enough; it can be smudged off
By the world’s kiss, alluring in softness
Of speech. Your Word in