This is a poem I wrote circa 2005. It first appeared on YouTube. It is about how Western civilization and the Muslim world are clashing and what this means. And when I wrote this poem I had more optimism and hope as to how the Muslim world would progress and also to how Islam and the West would get along better.
Sons of the Prophet
Sons of the Prophet──
Heed this poesy, be aware of this strife:
Our civilizations are colliding──clashing
As winds from the West meet
The Holy Quran's way of life.
Yet only one query arises:
It overshadows all others in thought:
For it is the Muslim question
And how it is to be wrought.
Sons of the Prophet──
Glory be the great civilizations of thy people's past!
From Babylon's Hanging Garden and Pyramids of awe and wonder,
To the Tigris and Euphrates valley's procreation's vast,
To the tomes of Alexandria's knowledge amassed.
And when ages of darkness befell Europa,
Moslems rejoiced in an era of gold, with courts of splendor:
Artists──poets──saviors of our classics rendered:
Cairo! Baghdad! Córdoba! Without any contenders.
Sons of the Prophet──
Beware the Western imperialism of yesteryear;
For the threat of hegemony and exploitation
Is always of near;
As the ghost of Napoleon's Egyptian army
Longs to rise──domineer.
Mandates, colonial borders, and dictators made gods──
Cultures with age-old traditions raped and plundered:
This be our legacy of might and blunder
──Yet one forever threatening new eras
Of lightning and thunder.
Sons of the Prophet──
Primitive savages of bigotry and hate and fear?
──Or, beauty and unimaginable compassion and love?
O Prophet! What be sincere──and what be veneer?
Do jihadists with steed and sword
Mirror the Crescent Moon's core?
Or does the green from the Indus Valley
And North African sands to the
Spanish coastline be more?
Sons of the Prophet──
Reforms of the sacred waters of Nile a must:
Let there be no compulsion in religion;
Let there be but toleration and trust.
And the River should be a most personal joy:
One not of all, every and society entire,
Else Mohammedanism shall come to aspire
Ottoman's destiny of doomed empire.
Sons of the Prophet──
Fear not things from others' seashores;
Seek Wisdom from lands both unseen and unheard,
As they too learn of your mores and legends and lores.
Know the heretics of Greece;
And the ungodly of Rome!
For Western ways are not but pleasures and trinkets
Of the godless alone.
Sons of the Prophet──
Infidel invasions there shall never come:
For charioteers of Mars proselytize none
As victory eludes campaigns of such might therefrom.
So if not by another Hundred Years' War──
Nor if by vassal and fief?
Then ye be the exalter:
Both mother──midwife.
Sons of the Prophet──
Once our land was also desert most dry;
All thinking but handmaiden to theology──
Separation of State and Church impiety most high.
Christendom: religion by flogging:
Conversion of heathen and pagan by sword:
Witch burnings! Dogma by divine revelation!
Spreading faith by intolerance──
Knowing truth only by horde!
Sons of the Prophet──
A renaissance is needed!
And enlightenment must be unyoked!
Where knowledge is not simply learning
Ancient texts by rote.
Let the mind think on all things unknown,
Allow Newton's science of inquiry
To travel all roads;
Hold nothing forbidden or left in the dark──
Permit an age of reason yet told,
And Copernican revolution to embark and unfold.
Sons of the Prophet──
Monarchs and soldier-politicians must the Bedouins depart
As the body politic falters and rises
To freedom of expression and to
Freedom of thoughts in their hearts.
Social tolerance of opposite views,
And speeches without fetters must roar:
To keep authoritarian traditionalism at bay,
And for government by the people to soar.
Daughters of the Prophet──
Ye must attest most of all
How Khadija's betterment and deliverance
Shall despise forced veilings and seclusions
As mere patriarchal law.
Be neither a shadow nor silhouette,
For authentic lives of liberation await!
But bathe in prideful garments if that be thy wish
──However, scream and howl if subjugated,
Or ignored of Arabian societies created!
Sons of the Prophet──
I will not be cowardly and meek──
But tell of the most unholy of wars inevitable
That Martyrs in waiting do seek.
For if totalitarian theocracy be without hope,
Then all of Islamdom shall hang by self-rope;
──Or, a cursed wasteland of conflagration
Of only poison──flies──and scorching breath
Foretells our future in a world
Damned to unending torment and death.