Silent Dhikr

1. My name is too long to fit into the tiny space of your mouth.

2. My God is too big to be affected by the pebbles you throw with your tongue.

3. I am too beautiful to care whether your sons are comfortable with the black fabric in place of my bare skin.

4. My father’s beard is none of your business.

5. My mother’s henna spotted hands can strangle the appropriation out of you.

6. FGM is not Islam. (However I refuse to demonize women for what tradition has taught them, for what they do not know.)

7. My deen does not differentiate in knowledge, it is a requirement of every believer regardless of gender or lack thereof.

8. Educate your daughters.

9. Teach your sons.

10. He who sees all descends in the last third of the night. Ask.

11. Let me call you Abdullah instead of Abdi.

12. He (peace be upon him) should be protected with every sliver of intellect you own.

13. Place your head beneath your mother’s feet. Be her place of rest.

14. Drones should be renamed “Muslim children killing machines”

15. Abu Ghraib should still make you ill.

16. Iraq should still make you ill.

17. Syria should still make you ill.

18. Pakistan and Afghanistan should still make you ill.

19. The inconceivable numbers of unarmed black people being killed because of white supremecy should still make you ill.

20. Kurdistan should still make you ill.

21. Somalia should still make you ill.

22. Guantanamo should still make you ill.

23. Trans-Atlantic slavery should still make you ill.

24. Genocide in the Congo should still make you ill.

25. Al-Quran, Chapter 37, verse 25.

26. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. (Hadith Qudsi)

27. Why don’t we ask?

28. Islam predates first wave feminism.

29. May He who hears all forgive us for what the angels have written in our books. Say Ameen.

30. When you return to Islam your rewards are doubled for every good deed and good intention, remember this when those Aunties and Uncles press you.

31. Beat boxing is halal.

32. Better to be the oppressed than be the oppressor.

33. Barbican.

34. He (pbuh) took a hit in Uhud.
When the weight of that stirs the belly, call it love.

35. Hijab is also for men. Let that wipe away the shaming of your sisters.

36. Oppression has driven us mad.

37. No one saves Palestine yet. But HE is the best of planners.

38. Don’t forget us in your prayers.

39. La illaha il Allah.

40. There are sisters who take off their hijabs when they go to school, and sisters who have to wait to get to school to put them on. Hold your tongues before they betray you.

41. Pull the plank out of your eye, it’ll help you see better.

42. If the One who knows all covers your sin, do not uncover it.

43. Taubah is life long, yet short lived.

44. Dear Fox News, ”For you is your religion, and for me is mine”

45. May He cure you of your vices, and me of mine.

46. There is a mercy in the shortness of this life.

47. You are allowed to be happy, but let us not forget where our true home is.

48. Be very very mindful of the word kaffir/disbeliever. This mirror can be two way.

49. Send peace.

50. Our stories are perpetual reflections of the prodigal son.

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Key Ballah is a Toronto-based writer and Hip Hop enthusiast. She is the author of the poetry collection, ‘Preparing My Daughter For Rain‘, she melts faith, love and her experiences of being a woman of colour navigating the western world in her writing. She believes in empowering the brown girl to reclaim her selves and her body, by connecting and healing collectively, over borders, oceans and time zones, through story telling and poetry. She is currently working on a new project due out this fall.