It’s Been a Long Time Since I Made Salat: A Muslim Horror Story With a Hopeful Ending

This might be your story.  It starts with missing Fajr (too early) or Isha (too tired).  Zhur, Asr, and Magrib (too busy) also get lost.  Maybe you make salat once at night and try to make all five prayers at one time, but then that becomes too difficult. 

A Place of Gratitude

 

 

 

Where words cease
And language cannot describe
That is the place where tears begin

Where the body cannot reach
Though it meets the unseen
That is the place where tears begin

Where emotions tumble
So the heart cannot decipher itself
That is the place where tears begin

In gratitude to Allah
For all of His Mercies
All unexpected, all undeserved

© 2007 Umm Umar

 

 

My Heart

There are times when my heart
Is so full of fear
It aches from the weight of it
 
There are times when my heart
Is so full of joy
That it flutters like a bird full wanting to take flight
From the sheer joy of submission to its existence

There are times when my heart
Is so full of shame and grief
That it bends like a willow, weeping for forgiveness—
Its boughs trailing in a stream, the tears of its repentance

                                            © 2007 UmmUmar

Tahajjud

 

The soul is unwilling to listen
To the body’s excuses left over
From its earlier turning away
When awakened to answer
Nature’s call and Allah’s

Heeding one, but heedless of the other
From the seeming need for sleep
The soul is numb and stunned
By an instant’s choice to ignore
For a simple hand-washing and cool sheets
A wudu that would have flowed over sins
Washing them away, readying the body to pray

The waters that should have been wudu
Have flowed away without giving any hope in Allah
The prayers in the darkness
And tears streaming down with cries
For forgiveness and mercy
Are forever lost, unmade, unprayed
The hour is gone, irretrievable

A soul that could have been full of hope
Awash now in grief and loss and shame
Like a mother in a war watching the forest stream
Carry away her fat, drowned babies

The soul waits now
Wanting another night to come
Another chance for prayer
Another chance for hope, for forgiveness

Umm Umar © 2007

The Path

Hurrying down a path
A small, ordinary stone
Caught my eye
I nearly passed it by

A second, third, fourth and fifth
Were strewn along the way
I was really in a hurry
But stopped each time that day
For the small, ordinary stones
That caught my eye
When I had nearly passed them by

Later that night
Before I went to bed
I took them out of my pocket
And discovered what I had
When I dusted them off
And polished them clean
They were the finest, brightest jewels
That I had ever seen

Now each day
As I travel on my path
I never pass it by
When a small, ordinary stone
Catches my eye

© 2007 Umm Umar

Kauthar

       

I stand on the shore                 
Scanning the horizon
While the waters of sorrow
Lap at my feet

I feel the waters’ slow warmth
I ignore the soft desire to look down
To wade into them, to submerse myself
Or to drown

I look only to You
I look only toward the waters of Kauthar
That may one day replace the waters of sorrow
That are lapping at my feet

 ©  UmmUmar 2007

Where is My Happiness?

Where is my happiness?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my consolation?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my joy?
Oh Allah, it is in You

Where is my sustenance?
Oh Allah, it is in you
Where is my consolation?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my joy?
Oh Allah, it is in You

Where is my rest?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my consolation?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my joy?
Oh Allah, it is in You

Where is my success?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my consolation?
Oh Allah, it is in You
Where is my joy?
Oh Allah, it is in You

Umm Umar 2007