POEM 1:
***Masjid Nabawih***
Limping souls,
scarred spirits,
lame limbs
they trudge, they trot, they strut,
each step a story, each gait a prayer.
Some once steeped in sin,
others wrapped in worn sanctity
all drawn by the call
to Masjid Nabawih,
where the silence sings,
and the Prophet’s shadow still comforts the earth.
That hallowed anchor
of a faith cradled in time,
where light still spills like mercy
to cleanse the weary soul
and hearts, long exiled from their Maker,
find their way home
in the hush between two breaths.
“Then which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?”
they whisper,not in doubt,
but in awe.
POEM 2:
***To Masjid Nabawi***
From windswept corners of the world, they came
Throngs cast from the margins of the earth,
Each bearing sparks of a flaring flame,
Verses half-held, wisdom unbound from birth.
Some were Hafiz—oceans of divine breath,
Others brought droplets, scattered, unsaid.
Hearts that knew but the echo of ayah,
A single refrain their spirits were fed:
“Which of your Lord’s favours will you deny?”
They whispered it like a sacred cry.
Though tongues may falter and meanings stray,
Their souls bowed low in silent sway
To the One who taught the pen to write,
Who births from blood and shapes with light.
Some bore Surah Rahman on trembling tongues,
Others came with half of surah Ikhlas
A broken Fatiha, mispronounced and torn
Yet in sujūd, all veils were shorn.
For none is turned in that sacred space,
Before the One who grants His grace.
What counts the measure of sacred light
In Madinah al-Munawwarah—City of light,
Where hearts ignite with the Prophet’s flame,
And faith recalls its truest name.
From Scalp to Soul
***Halq — the Hajj rite of shaving the head***
The last time my hair was shorn,
it was under my mother’s decree
in days when Afro crowns were thrones,
and a blade felt like exile from the self.
To cut your hair was to cut your presence,
to dull your fire,
to vanish a little from the world.
I sulked in silence,
nursed rebellion in the roots that remained,
and vowed: no hand shall command
this head again once I am grown.
But now
I am grown.
Older than she was when she stood
behind me with scissors and soft fury.
Today, I bow my head
not in protest,
but in sacred submission to halq
A razor hums where ego once stood tall,
and each falling strand becomes a verse
in the poem of surrender.
This is no mere thonlon
it is a thinning of the veil,
a farewell to the illusions of self,
a silent labbayk uttered
from scalp to soul.
I shaved today for Hajj,
but truly, I shaved for love
the kind that bows,
not to mother nor memory,
but to the Beloved
who waits in every rite,
every loss,
every letting go.
POEM 3
***At Masjid Quba (The Adam of Masjids )***
I entered Masjid Quba
first sanctuary after the Hijra,
raised by the Prophet’s own hands,
when the Haram had not yet risen as a masjid.
Here, silence wears the hush of angels,
and date palms remember the pluck of mercy.
I stood where time bows its head,
where echoes stretch beyond the veil of centuries.
Drunk with joy, I wandered in reverent zigzags,
hoping my foot might graze
a trace of his sandal’s sacred imprint.
I drew breath as though to inhale
the air of that radiant moment
when the Prophet crossed the threshold
of Kuthum bin Al-Hedem’s home,
and history, barefoot and awed,
sat down to witness and weep.
Solace hovered like unseen incense,
suspended in the stillness of duʿāʾ.
I crossed the seam between two worlds—
my soul bowed low,
my steps forgot the weight of the world.
Masjid Quba endures:
the primordial masjid,
immaculate beneath swaying palms,
cradling time in cupped devotion
where memory kneels beside faith,
and light still echoes
his first footsteps.
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