Our Hands

This piece was performed live in the IONA Women's Conference 2018, dedicated to the youth.

We have a big problem here sisters and brothers.
And this problem is more than just about this country.
This country that looks like a heavy white semi-truck being paraded around by miniscule, beaten down black rubber tires with no particular destination in sight
A country that tastes like a steroid-injected, caged egg cracked and scrambled on a platter, served with a side of non-halal bacon with entirely too much salt
It feels like a place you want to call home but nobody inside loves you for who you are.
It smells like fear and anguish in here.
All I can hear are the sounds of sirens and gunshots.
But this is not what I’m here to talk about.
 
No, we have a bigger problem on our hands.
Our hands.
Hands that are meant to hold tranquility and shelter
And feel soft to the touch
Are now calloused from the white knuckle grip on a knife that stabbed away any form of hope for the youth.
These hands are quick to slap your face with criticism
and painstakingly slow to wave salaam
These hands are for welcoming, for hugging, for loving
But now they’re trembling
Malnourished
Hungry for affection
In a world where it seems there is no such thing as compassion
These hands pound against the ground like thunder
Begging for answers to the wrong questions
It’s raining on the Ummah.
It’s raining and none of us are willing to share the empty space under our umbrellas.
The pellets of water hit the skin of the youth hard these days
It pours down like gunshots and they don’t know how to protect themselves
They’re getting cold
And sick
They’ve been out there too long.
 
Our poor youth
All they are taught is hate
The cold bitter feeling of being alone
Life is not about surviving
It’s about living
But these days they think the only way to live is
To Judge or to be judged
 
We teach them this because we think it’s the best way
for them to overcome the burning struggle of fitting into
a world where people don’t accept them
This is fire at war with fire
Which forms into
A lifelong battle where neither side has a just cause
 
To fix this problem is so simple
We need to look at ourselves
And notice all the times we talk about that one sister that decided to take off her hijab
We pity her
We scoff at her
Every time her name comes up
We can only picture her as less than a human being
As if this measly cloth gives us the right to punish her
As if this measly cloth gives us the ability to see her connection with her creator.
She doesn’t know how much this measly cloth can hide
There’s a difference between wanting to save someone
And wanting to watch them fall
She might feel our gazes and catch the glint in our eyes
But she can’t hear a word we say
She can’t but our children do.
Our children eavesdrop on our arrogant whispers
And they think it’s okay to follow
They think this is how the world works,
my sisters and brothers.
 
We teach our children ignorance before they know acceptance
Tell them about the punishments of Hell before they learn about happiness of Jannah
Enforce our intolerance on them before we explain Allah’s love
 
Deep in their hearts is an emptiness they don’t understand
So they try filling it with the fitna of this dunya
But if only we showed them
If only we didn’t force them to
Keep quiet and just listen
No questions allowed or they’re going to the face Allah’s wrath
Maybe just maybe they would be more honest with us
More open
More willing to be right beside us
More willing to actually listen instead of rejecting every word we say
But now it feels like they’re too far away for us to try again
 
That hopeless feeling is ingrained in us by the Shaytan
He doesn’t want us to bring our family together
The family of this Ummah

The Shaytan is sneaky

He makes us think we’re doing the right thing
When we push our children away from us if they even think about the smallest of fitnas
He makes us believe we are not the problem
but these phones are fully responsible for corrupting our children
The Shaytan is smart and scary
But we have to stop him in his tracks
We must fight through it
We have to have faith in Allah that this is only a test
Allah loves us
Allah loves everyone
Allah only gives us all what we each can specifically handle.
And inshallah we WILL handle this.

-Hawa Rahman