Promitory

Promitory 

Point me the way

And I shall follow thee

O my promitory

Although my appreciation of thee

Is necessarily 2D

You are forever in my sights 

Sometimes I err

And forget your existence 

But then you bring me back to my self

Then I pinch thee. 

But when you bring good my way

I indulge, but do not call thee hero. 

And where my brains cannot justify a path

Then I ascribe to thee all that is irrational and prescient

Thee art the fall guy. 

Ever ready to take the blame

Silent

Yet so vital. 

My first sense 

(C) Shafeesthoughts 12 October 2017

MSBachelani

Promitory is artistic license. 

There is no such word in the English Language, but for me it fits. 

the Rushdie Question

The Rushdie Question. 

I remember in, or around 91, when I was secretary of Bath Islamic Society, I was asked to a school to present on

Islam. 

At that time, Abid Karim asked me what my response would be if I was asked about what should be done to Mr Rushdie. I said that I could not avoid, or meander around, the question and would state it as I saw it. 

On the day, in the Q&A that followed the presentation, I was asked what I thought should be done with Mr Rushdie and I said as I said I would:

"He should be killed". 

A stunned silence followed. 

It was a statement of fact concerning my belief. It was not an advocated position and I was clear in my mind that I was not suggesting that I, or anyone else, do it. 

But what I was stating was that the honour of the man that he impeached in the vilest terms was worth more that his life. 

I knew, even then, that the arguments concerning apostasy bore no weight here. To argue so is to argue about the legitimacy of the action. But the action is purely raw emotion. 

In the decades that followed I have not really worried about the issue, but after two turbulent decades it might be prudent to revisit the arguments and see how a maturer me might frame them. 

Of course the old arguments are one of freedom of speech vs freedom of belief. 

That Rushdie was exercising his right to freedom of speech and that the resultant Muslim backlash was medieval. To the Western mind it recalled the inquisition, and the storm surrounding the age old question of religion and science. 

Never mind that Muslims were always advocates of Science and the Scientific processes. All religions were tagged with the medieval line, and standing against freedom of expression just proved it. 

As many commentators have previously said, the Khomeini fatwa and the price on Rushdies head, was a dramatic political statement made by Iran to curry favour with Muslims worldwide. It had no legal basis, because apostasy laws relate to Muslims living in the Muslim sphere. They are there to protect the community from false converts, then sowing the seeds of doubt. 

It's clear that Rushdie was neither a true Muslim, nor living within the Muslim sphere. Indeed his ramblings rather than causing doubt, increased our faith. 

But that did nothing to address the insult that he heaped on the Messenger, and our faith. 

And so once again I affirm my statement, "that he should be killed". 

This is not advocating an action. But it is a reflection of the hurt and anger that he has caused to our community. 

His life and works are not worth even the semblance of a memory of one who taught nobility and respect. 

You cannot fight disrespect with respect, such things just do not add up. And so if someone disrespects me, and my beliefs, then whilst I am honour bound to respect their lives and their persons- in order to be commensurate- I do not need to show that respect in the words that I use against them. 

And I cannot malign their character as they have done with one who was never impuned in his time, and by his enemies. And so I simply state: "his life is worthless".

That when he dies, and GOD takes him, that I will not cry. I will rejoice that his judgment has come, and he is alone with his actions and deeds, and they will haunt him. 

Shafees

The Hypocrisy

How great a martyr. 

To be a thorn in the powerful's side. 

To tell the truth of their hypocrisy

How their truths are all lies. 

How they ignore the Palestinian cry

How they would sell their mothers, brothers and sisters 

On the day that will come to haunt them

When the truths that they spew 

Will be made fickle

And they will curse themselves 

And wish they were dust 

But they will burn, 

-burn, 

-burn,

And GOD is not unjust.

First Love

First love 

Scorches the earth

Etches itself in memory

Just like those words we spoke

Then why did those embers die

More real 

There cannot be

But nothing lives in desolate lands

Where once the forests grew

And now eons gone by

Black gold is mined

(C) MS BACHELANI 

Shafeesthougths Sept 2017

Travelling southbound London Overground, and it's a beautiful day. 

it is a sad World, when ...

It's a sad World, when people believe that you are unpatriotic because you denounce Israeli aggression. 

And it's an even sadder World when they believe that what you say are untruths. 

A decade or more ago, before the Guardian became the Zionist propaganda machine that it is today, it used to run "eyewitness" accounts of real journalists reporting what was before their eyes without interpretation and without care for political correctness- just the facts as witnessed by them, the words of the people that they talked to and walked with. 

And I remember well the eyewitness account of the COLD BLOODED MURDER of a Palestinian girl, Hannah al Masri- from memory I recall her name- 

Who was on her way to school carrying her satchel, without a care in the World. 

The Israeli soldier called her to stop and then immediately opened fire. 

Dozens of bullets later he calming walked to her lifeless body and point blank launched another bulleti into her head. 

These are not lies. 

This was before fake news 

The girl was not even a teenager. 

Her crime?

That she represented a future that Israel wanted to demolish. 

Her crime?

That her land would one day be free. 

Free of the oppression of Israel. 

Free of the blindness of the World that allows such aggression to go unchecked, 

That allows Israeli Monsters to visit crimes and murder and death and incarceration upon the defenceless. 

I am not a Patriot. 

I am better than that. 

I am a human who cares. 

Who will not turn a blind eye to wrong. 

Until my heart gives out. 

Moon Rise

MOON RISE 🌙 

In the inky twilight

Of no mans land 

Beneath sullen trees

With lengthening boughs 

Between the descending of the sun

And the rising of the night 

My namesake beat a retreat 

Whilst I, I crept out 

Self pity was ever my shroud

And the thought of death, my relief 

But all was not lost

Whilst I lay beneath those circling trees

For the Evening Star

Woke me from my reverie 

Piercing bright 

Later dimmed by the near moon

Which rose on its side 

Splendidly full

The moon and its glitter

Rolled the World in Silver

Moon rise 

More wondrous than any snow fall

I stepped out from that shade

Stood proud 

Whilst she lay a crown

Upon my head

Who was he that lay sullen?

Well he was gone 

Reliance and True Love

Reliance and true Love.

A father can love his young son because he represents all those chances that he did not take, or all those mistakes that he wishes he never made. 

It is as if the son were a reflection of himself. 

And if the reflection good then he loves him even more, since it vindicates his own self love. 

And if the reflection poor then his love diminishes.

The true name for this is not love, but vanity. 

True love is not vain. 

And for it not to be vain requires autonomy. 

However is it not love to care for, and wish the best for, a dependant?

And yet in order for it to be shown to be true, and not vain, requires that you help that dependant to grow in autonomy. 

Interestingly enough from even before our outset God declared the autonomy of man. HE did so in a speech whereby He informed the angels of the creation of man as a vicegerent, or successor, on the Earth. The implication being that man was from first a free agent. And then He empowered him with the knowledge of words.

Words are abstractions, the very stuff of ideas and imagination. And words were amongst the very first of creations even before the angels. For at the first He created the PEN and commanded it to write. 

And so to show HIS love for man and HIS hope for man, He set him free and empowered him with the greatest of His creations. And then He sent the Messengers to advice; as bringers of glad tidings and as warners of a day of recompense. 

There is no doubt that we are reliant on God, the sustainer, the gracious, but He shows His love for us by emphasising His independence from us. This is a clear fact: that whilst we depend on Him, He is independent of all. 

A father can never achieve that degree of love, precisely because a father can never be truly independent of his son. There will always be a time where the father can envisage the loss of his power, and his dependence. And at that the table turns and the son shows love for his father.

The opposite also holds in respect of a son or daughter for his father or mother. Their necessary dependence precludes any true love in the nature of how GOD choose us and blessed us. 

And that is why the Messenger informed us of the two who would be together on the Day of Decision, and who would be so close as two fingers side by side, both there and in Heaven. And these two are those that love one another, because of God’s grace and bounty, and are independent of one another in a way that family can never be.