The people of Gol’em – a poem and a tale

This is a purely fictional story, taking inspiration from Islam, Judaism, Zoroastrianism and a whole lot of other things! It is a tale in the form of a poem, and I hope to continue it with many more parts to come…

 

The People of Gol’em

In the time before time lived a being
Nothing but existing; suspended in the void
Not seeing, not feeling, it wasn’t created
Nor shall it be destroyed

In it’s timeless state it stirred, it’s mind unfurled
Behold, Order and Chaos spilled forth!
Floating in the aether; no shape or form

Until they clashed, and a half of the void was torn apart
In its place a million, million stars
Celestial bodies, twisting and burning with flame
Bound on the battlefield of this mortal plain

The war between Order and Chaos raged
And from this eternal struggle, the Earth was made
Blood spilled from their strife
And mixed creating life
On the surface of this trivial grain

Beasts burst from the Earth as trees
The rains gave birth to the creatures of the seas
The winds that drifted by awakened the creatures of the sky

Order gave life, Chaos gave death
And they intertwined to create a cycle
As rhythmic as your breath

From within the dust formed hundreds of lifeless husks
Fashioned by mysterious hands
They were struck with the breath of life
Behold, the creation of woman and man!

This humanity rose, and a Voice said unto them
“From this day forth, you shall be known as the people of Gol’em
Order has birthed you, Chaos shall take you
And from your seeds shall rise the nations of men
You shall wander the Earth evermore
And you shall have the power to love, and to wage war
You shall be of different shapes and colours
And that is a blessing, for like the fruits of the trees
You shall invoke a vibrant word
But mark my words
Even with this wisdom and warning
You will sacrifice your health and chase all the wealth
Alas, it is of no use where I await you in the void”

Scatter they did, and their numbers did grow
Generations would come and go
Until the blood started to flow as they split into their tribes and clans
They were no longer the people of Gol’em
Behold this rabble of woman and man!

Time passed in a torrent as mighty nations were forged
Yet for Order, Chaos and their eternal fight
They dwindled out of sight
As sparks among the clashing of swords

The being of the void watched his children, and his children’s children
In the ocean of time, it glimpsed humanity’s end
As well as it’s beginning…

A poem that I preformed at Catweazle – The Children of Ishmael

The Children of Ishmael lived in the desert

Hot and barren, empty and arid

Unlike the Sassanid

Who had the snow capped mountain and the Fertile Crescent

Unlike the Egyptians who would crush beatles to bits

And use their blood to stain their lips

But they did have camels; beasts who would float through the sand

And take them away to further lands

But with all the trading, buying and selling

Nothing grew in their home, but for sand and stone

To fulfill the human need of expression

 

Brutally beautiful desert aside

There was one thing that filled them with pride

It was their tongue, rich in sounds almost alive

As sharp as the scimitars by their sides

Or soft as the shades,

They were bent like iron into poems and tales

Like all peoples, they had their time

Conquering Persia and the Byzantines

They spread from China to Andalusian Spain

And they adopted the music and geometric shapes in part

But close to their heart, remained the power of the word as Art

For what kind of God swears an oath by the falling of the stars?

That is what they believed He said to them in their Qur’an

King, Sultan, servant or slave

They dropped to their knees everyday and put their heads upon the ground to pray

Reciting verses of rhythm and rhyme

That spoke of beauty and the beginning of time

Their very scripture, an anthology of poetry

A spiritual guidance and a moral philosophy

 

They were as one, submitting to the divine

Each a slave, knowing of a certain time where they shall taste death

Drawing breath

And entering an afterlife

They sought knowledge, translating ancient works

That may have been lost forever to the world

Why is it that we know

Of Aristotle and Plato?

Of Hippocrates and Galen

And the very idea of medicine?

 

And so the wheel turns, time comes and goes

The light of which I have spoken is now but an afterglow

Like embers, living or dying, there is no way to know

If the wind of fate blows then it shall burn again

But if it stands still then it shall be the end

And as aged men, they reminisince of the Golden Age,

as if they were the good ol’ days

And in all honesty, I see nothing but decline and pain

To think I gave too much praise is missing the point

I am merely showing you the other side of a coin

A coin old and rusted, by the Ocean of the Media

Almost engulfing it, in it’s agenda

In giving different perspectives I challenge narratives

And that, my fellows, is but one duty of the artists…

The Game of Thrones and prophecy in the real world

I have been reading the Game of Thrones, and I am on the second book now; a Clash of Kings. Asides from the amazing level of detail that George R.R. Martin has put into the history and culture of his world, which I find truly inspirational, I think that there are lessons to be learned from a book such as this. I find that the story reflects elements of reality that we have in our own world, elements that are either simply interesting, or crucial to the understanding of society.

In the second book of the epic, called “a Clash of Kings”, the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros fall into chaos as three separate lords lay claim to an already occupied throne, and another lord aims to carve out a kingdom for himself through conquest.

However, high in the sky, a blood red comet is spotted. It’s presence seems to be like that of a second moon, prolonged and ever present, blood red as it spews fire from it’s tail. The most interesting thing about this is that many people look at this comet and see it as an omen:

Daenerys Targaryen, who used a witch to bring back to life three dragons after an age of their disappearance, believes that the comet is guiding her to a goal across a harsh desert. A goal leading to her reclaiming the throne in Westeros.

Balon Greyjoy, a lord to the sparse Iron Islands to the west of Westeros, sees it as an omen for blood and conquest, seeking out to carve himself a kingdom in the north. As their saying goes, “we do not sow”, implying that they don’t create, but take what is theirs.

Mellisandre, a priestess from the Far East, and advisor to Stannis Baratheon, another claimant to the throne, has brought her religion to the Lord and those who swear fealty to him. Unlike the polytheistic pantheons of the Old Gods and the New, she has a monotheistic vision of a fiery lord of light, R’hlor. The burning nature and red colour of the comet leads her to believe that it is a harbinger to the God’s prominence and rise of Stannis Baratheon to the throne.

These are just some of the interpretations as to the meaning of this sign. Yet what it reminds me most of is the concept of the Antichrist and return/coming of the Messiah that spans the Abrahamic religions, and also the more general concept of the “End Times”. Islam, Judaism and Christianity believe that there will be a particular sequence of events leading to the end of the world, and that there will be signs pointing to this. Yet each has their own interpretations of what the signs are, or who the Messiah will be and what he will do. I can’t help but notice a similarity here, as devout followers of all Abrahamic religions look at what they perceive to be rampant corruption and materialism around the world, which they see as a sign of the End Times, or maybe even a harbinger of God’s wrath.

Atheism as a “religion”?

I just had a thought, and I think it is time this site lived up to it’s name.

Before I begin this discussion I would like to make some things clear. At my most faithful I am a Muslim, and at my most doubtful I am an agnostic theist. Therefore, I am talking about Atheism as an outsider, and not as a person who is part of the Atheist community. I am not trying to downplay or insult Atheism, it is just a random question that turned into a full blown conversation in my head. Please keep an open mind.

Can Atheism be considered a religion(that is in the least traditional sense possible)? Initially, I thought that the straightforward answer was yes. The structure of Atheism is based on a set of beliefs.

Before I go further, let us use the example of Islam to draw a contrast. Islam’s sources of knowledge are three; The Qur’an as holy revelation, the hadiths of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his companions, and the Sunnah (or way of life) of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) which, in a sense, is found out from the Qur’an and the Hadiths. From these sources come the theories about the origins of the the universe, of man, of morality and so on. And these can be interpreted and then practised in many different ways.

Now it can be said that Atheism, as a system of belief, has a similar structure. There is one source of knowledge, or a methodology, from which its theories arise; that is empirical observation followed by the Scientific method (i.e. experimentation). From this comes the theory of the big bang and evolution. But this system, as a whole, can be interpreted and practised in different ways. One friend of mine, an agnostic atheist, chooses to live and let live, so to speak. Even if I present an argument against the existence of God and it had some logical flaw, he will point it out purely because it is a logical flaw. He is pragmatic and very respectful, and we do get along well. Other Atheists I see harbour some sort of hate for “religion as a whole”, despising its history and its present state and doing all they can to undermine it because they see it as a threat. Some go as far as hunting down who ever thanks God for being helped in a dire situation instead of the people who “did the helping” so to speak. And again, other Atheists, interpret their inevitable death and lack of an afterlife as an opportunity to live life to the full and make it better for everyone else, others seem to slip into a depression and fear death for the rest of their lives.

But there are problems I ran into. For instance, in Islam there are more definitive sets of practices and beliefs one must have to be categorized as a Muslim. That means that although interpretations are numerous, there is striking similarity between all of them. Atheism is not like that, it is much more “free form” in a sense.

Secondly, and more importantly, you simply cannot use the Bible or the Vedic scriptures to disprove the Qur’an and vice versa, they are completely separate, each with its following who do not dispute its truth, or at the very least, take information from it. The Atheist methodology can be, in a way, used to dispute these scriptures in terms of their physical state (working out when the books of the Bible were written, for instance) and their content (did God really create the Earth in seven days? Does the Hebrew within it suggest that it is literal or metaphorical?). And so on and so forth.

It remains that Atheism is a set of beliefs, with a groundwork methodology, and people can choose to base their practice and conduct on these beliefs. However the methodology is outside “the box” of revelation, scripture and tradition. So can it be called a religion? pseudo-religion? Unique religion? Or no religion at all? Please, feel free to add to the discussion.

P.s. check the comments for some very good contributions.

I am a traveller at the foot of a mountain

I was sat with a friend of mine that I had not seen in an age (maybe three years for someone like me) outside a cafe. We talked about a lot of things, but the main theme seemed to be religion and spirituality in the end. We talked about meanings, metaphors, the truths and stereotypes of religions (mainly Christianity and Islam). But at one point he leaned forward and asked, in a very enquiring and interviewing manner:

Let me ask you this, Ziyad. You sound like you are on a spiritual journey, where are you on that journey. 

He took me by surprise. Maybe I am on a spiritual journey, but because he was so open minded I felt comfortable with spilling out my feelings about religion (as someone who was born into a Muslim family) and so I did and here is what I said:

I am a traveller at the foot of a mountain. The summit is where truth is. I can see a possible path up there but I am not sure if it will take me there, I doubt it highly at times and at others I have faith in it.

We discussed this metaphor further, but here is the rest of what I have to say about this:

The strangest thing is, I think I can see multiple paths that lead to the same point. I am only left with an agonising possibility. Do these multiple paths (religions, spiritualities etc) have things in common between each other because there is indeed a universal truth or meaning to life? Or is it all just imagination, a part of human psychology?

Basically, the crux of it is that I do doubt myself at times. I doubt myself in all possible ways and one of them happens to be in my faith. It is said in Islam that if God loves you he will not give you gold or material riches, but he will give you faith. Every now and then I feel fearful that God does not love me, but I tell myself that this kind of thinking is ridiculous.

But one thing is sure and it keeps on going ringing in my head like tinnitus:
Anything is possible, anything is possible, anything is possible. 

Why do I do Hip-hop?

Before I begin, I want to post a link to a motivational hiphop track in light of the fact that I have just not been feeling motivated as of late:

I want to sit down and type out what I believe brought me into this little subculture. A subculture that is not very well known to my family, and one that, five years ago, I would never believe to be a part of at any point of my life.

 

This is myself!

 

 

I remember at one time being very (Islamically) religious. My brother was almost like a religious teacher; he taught me how to pray, gave me advice and I took his interpretations as my own. One of these interpretations of everyday living was that music is sinful without question. Whether this still runs true with him I do not know, but I followed it with all my heart. Hearing music back then, especially commercial music, with no knowledge of underground hip-hop or anything meaningful only added to my convictions that music was “useless”. Islam is mostly a non-materialist religion, it frowns upon everything that supposes the utmost importance of material gains, and unfortunately the only impressions of music I got back then were materialistic.

My mind was closed up a little. I believed in one true way that was so specific that I was afraid of change in any way of thinking, yet something about Philosophy attracted me, so I took it up in my A-levels and it loosened my mind up a bit. But what opened my mind to hip-hop was an even prior to that. My other brother pointed me to Immortal Technique’s Dance with the Devil saying that it was “interesting” but he waved it off later. But when I listened I got hooked with the whole story. I was struck with the meaningfulness, the insight and the poetic language…and I entered hip-hop. The track gave me hope that there is Music out there that was meaningful after all, this happened when I was around sixteen years old.

I listened and explored the genre a while. One day, a friend of mine who also got into the hip-hop scene just said a general comment to me, “hey Ziyad, you used to write poems, why not try writing some lyrics?”. I was plunged back into memory when I would wrote rhyming couplets for fun and enter some small competitions; that ranged from around the age of twelve to fifteen. And I realised and also punched myself in the head for it: of course! These tracks I listen to are poetry! So I got back into writing, I pulled out my pen and pad…and I hope that I won’t put them down for a while.

My Islamic Arab heritage gave me a huge respect for poetry, and blessed with that notion I surged forward into lyricism.

I want to thank my brother for being there, my other one for pointing out the direction to hip-hop (he probably did it unintentionally and he still doesn’t know!) and my friend for pushing me there.  :)