Western Minaret

By Kelly Crosby

Has the light gone out in the Muslim world?
Is it too late?
Much too late to resurrect our glorious past?
Or is such futile?
Every people, every empire has its chance to shine
And, oh, how did we shine!

Surpassed the expectations of the first umma
Rejected and enslaved by belief
Persecuted for the radical new message
La ilaha il allah
There is no God but God.

Has the light gone out?
Is North Africa too caught up in tribal warfare?
Or Afghanistan steeped in poverty?
Or the Gulf states too poisoned with oil?
Can Islam be successful for the Muslim whose allegiance is to money, to nation, to ideology, and not to God?

Are we embarrassed by our devotion to admit that we serve and love an Irresistible, Benevolent God?
Or are we drowning in interpretation as the West sits back and laughs?
As we are divided and conquered Julius Caesar style, picked clean of our gems,
Hating but yearning to be like our oppressors?

This is colonial legacy.
When strange foreigners move into your home and steal your goods, your property, your talents.
Then blame you for not being smart enough, sophisticated or secular enough to fend them off.

I know my belov’d family
My eastern umma.
I, too, was a slave, a product of colonialization,
A tool of Western engineering,
Taught to hate myself, even blame myself
For being captured, for being enslaved.

Has the light gone out?
Where is the beacon of my eastern minaret?
Thousands of miles high, illuminated by night sky and Northern star.

The azan, its melodious voice
Fills the world and ears
Is it sweet enough to raise you from your sleep?
Or would you rather rebel than revere the East and West in you?

Globalization is here, the world is smaller.
Catch up but do not let the cold, heartless ones, whose souls like metal and silicon,
Who can never understand why you believe,
Why you pray, why you fast, why you read.

Their god seeks offerings of steely-eyed atheism, no nonsense business and monthly installments paid with interest.
My brother, my sister
Walk that sweet bridge between religious superstition and dead cynicism.

Has the light gone out in the east?
I don’t know…
But there is a mosque in my heart
A western minaret
Lit by the light of my love
Signaling for wayfarers
For those who can not reconcile village ethics and city life.

Come through the doors humbled
Ready to bare your soul.
Let your head touch the softness of a rug drenched in incense,
Lift hands up to make du’a after salaat
And sweetly plead for a light to flicker in the hearts of those
who search for the Transcendent One.
May Allah bless you in beauty.
Ameen.

Art by Craig Weinberg