Don’t Be Afraid Dear England…

Don’t be afraid, dear England,
For Muslims are not your fell foes
Allah reminds us we’re travellers
The news in our hearts, Allah knows
Don’t be afraid, dear England,
Us Muslims, we don’t want your land
The east and the west are from Allah
All nations are built upon sand
Don’t be alarmed, dear Britons,
Us Muslims can never replace you,
We’re sons and daughters of Adam
So prejudice shouldn’t abase you
But do be aware, our dear English,
That we say that God is just One
Muhammad is His final prophet
We all will be judged near the sun
But even if you don’t believe us
God is your judge, not our selves
You are then free to develop,
To wonder, imagine, and delve
There is no compulsion in believing
We all will return to the One
So we try to follow our Prophets
Before all this life is undone
Dear English and all you dear Gaelics,
Feel free to imagine your selves
But know that while our way is different
We pray for you heaven, not hell
So don’t be afraid of us Muslims
Even the extremists and quacks
But don’t be so fixed on your nations,
One day God will take it all back ….

(A response to the riots of August, 2024)

I’m An English Teacher Muslim Man!

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Listen and wail Tommy Robinson

Have a stiff drink Lee Anderson

And run Katie Hopkins! Run as fast as you can!

I’m an English Teacher Muslim man…

I’m your worst nightmare; I’m a living curse

When you hear my words, living may turn worse

For 24 years and around six months

Through the cold seasons and the worldly slumps

In the day I have read the rhythms of Blake

To the kids, for exams that they have to take

But before the glory of the rising sun

After sunset falling, equilibrium

I have prayed like the way of the Taliban

I’m an English Teacher Muslim man!

Run, run- get Prevent as fast as you can

I’m an English teacher Muslim man…

I have read Shakespeare with the children rapt

Then in lunch I have read the Quran resting in my lap

I’m an English teacher bewitched by the words

From the English-speaking literary world

But there’s also something you must understand

I’m an English teacher Muslim man…

Run, run-tell Michael Gove as fast as you can

I’m an English teacher Muslim man…

You may think I’m an oxymoron fiend

The anti-thesis of your Union dreams

I don’t fit in your ‘uz and them’ story

Coz I live the Quran but I teach poetry

I wasn’t conceived and born outside

In the Royal Bucks hospital, I did cry!

Just a stone-throw away from Vernon Scannell

I was raised in Aylesbury near the canal

At school with Catholics I did sing

And performed as the king in Rumpelstilskin

I was good at writing stories-grand

I’m an English teacher Muslim man

You say that Islam does not belong here

But signs of Allah are everywhere

Every breath I’ve taken whilst on this land

I have followed the Sharia, like the desert sands!

I have said my prayers; I have given my alms

I have fasted the month of Ramadan

I have made jihad with my English words

In the local earth are my elders interred

I took unpaid leave to perform the Hajj

But I’ve learned from Tybalt: don’t hold a grudge!

From Inspector Goole to care and share

And from Mary Shelley hubris beware!

And from Dr Jekyll, duplicity

And from Scrooge: goodwill’s felicity

But the Holy Quran is my motherland

I’m an English teacher Muslim man

Run, run, call Trump as fast as you can

I’m an English teacher Muslim man

So Tommey and Katie, Boris and friends

Where do you think this is going to end?

The only thing you can possibly do

Is to throw me out with the vindaloo!

That won’t solve the teacher shortage of course

And there’s thousands more like me in force!

My wife was a teacher, worked in schools

In my tribe, three doctors work, so cool

My brother and brothers-in-law experts

In IT infrastructure they work

There are psychologists, directors, nurses

Mid-wives, lawyers, and taxi hearses!

Some of my friends run eateries

Some run buses and late taxis

We have ripened on these streets right here

Will you throw us all out into the thin air?

Perhaps if you spent some time with us

You would realise there is not much fuss

We are much alike; we have differences

But there is some chance that we all can live

We are bound to Palestine, the free

You are bound to Israel’s dynasties

There is much to hate, but there’s much to learn

The Joker’s the one- wants the world to burn

You seek to be true to the ones like you

We seek to be true to our God so true

So beware things may go out of hand

I’m an English teacher Muslim man

You carry on loving your old St George

Have a good knees up, praise the Lord!

Carry on praising King and Queen

But careful Boris don’t be obscene

We’re not here to possess your ancestral lands

The earth’s is God’s, do you understand?

And Douglas Murray: we’re not weaselling through,

You need us just as we need you…

So, I leave you just in case you’ve not heard

The very first word of the Quran’s World

Read, read, as deeply as you can

I’m an English teacher Muslim man

(See Video on the Video Section)

Remains

For Armitage and Duffy

I’m not a soldier, suffering from war

No poet laureate champions my cause

I’m an Iraqi fellah, or trader

Or a young Gazan girl or baker

I’m an imam or a seeker of truth

Or a spent mother spurned from a camp roof

No special words remark what remains

Of my shattered country and shuddering frame

No empathetic, humanising verse

Speak of the time when our lives got worse.

Fine documentaries, carefully crafted

Fresh books of poetry, with publishers grafted

Capture the war photographer’s pain

And the soldiers who left our dwellings in flames

But none do observe that my heart is cleft

From the visceral horror of my sisters’ deaths

No thoughtful sonnets, nor ottava rimas

Conceive that drones are just terrible screamers

No stirring voltas turn on the lights

When the voltage runs out in the sinister nights

My world’s turning red, and the room grows dark

And nothing remains but my simmering heart

But here’s a secret that exists in lieu

A Nobel prize or a gallery view

Me and my people. we live and breathe

Live and breathe like you’ll never believe

Our soil sings our praise and the skies, they cheer

The ink may dry up, but we will remain here…

(check out Simon Armitage’s poem, Remains, and Carol Ann Duffy’s poem, War Photographer. Both in GCSE English literature anthologies)

Strange Meeting on the Gaza March in London on November 11th

For Owen

It seemed that from the march I escaped

Down some tunnel, with mouth agape

Scooped through the hazy granite of time

Deep into the annals of past years, hopes sublime

Yet there, sleeping soundly as cherubim

Lay men of merit who’d seen times so grim

Those unknown faces who once in the past

Had laid their lives without much questions asked

For country, duty, and for freedom of good

And of them now a line of sleepers stood

Before me, all my grandfathers of yore

Who’d bravely fought in all these Western wars

And at the front there stood a man of charm

My own grandfather an honourable Khan

“Strange indeed it is,” I said, pensive

“That for a foreign land your life you’d give…”

My grandfather, he looked me in the eye

“My son,” he said, with a knowing, wistful sigh,

“My own father, my cousins and my elders

We served so that our families would be sheltered,

And we fought hard and firm for the British Raj

Not fleeing from a skirmish or barrage

And so eventually I settled in England

I wore my medal ribbons and I mingled

I bore a family in old Birmingham

And now you stand here with a plate of jam!

But listen here, these words, I speak in truth

Never would we fight for this, forsooth,

For selling the poor soul of Jerusalem

And purging that land of Bethlehem

Never would we stand with such disaster

As bleeding dry the children of young Gaza

The enemy they kill are young and free

Who now lay cold, were loath to leave early

Alas us men at arms we had no such choice

So for those children indeed raise your voice…”

VOICES FROM THE SMOKE AND BLOOD

Terrorist! Devil! Barbarian!

Thieving Occupier! Felon!

Son of a killer, murdering fiend!

Son of a coloniser supreme!

Your fighters slew our kids in bed

Your snipers shot our children’s heads

We will avenge your shameless crimes!

We will resist your vile designs!

80 years we have had no peace!

80 years our lands decreased!

The rockets you sent they killed our dreams!

Your bombings blew us to smithereens!

From you, we do fear our security

Before you, we lived in our country, free

We were fleeing persecution and death

But you exiled millions of us in a breath

We returned to this land, our clear birthright

You usurped all our lands; we will always fight!

We settled right here in the holy lands

By stealing our houses and tying our hands

When we came to this land, we established law

And you spurned our rights and international law

Can’t you see all we want is to live in peace

Can’t you see all we want is our pain to cease

We are here to stay; there’s no turning back

We are of this land; we will grow right back!

Dear English Tongue

My dreaming language, dear English tongue!

Through Shakespeare you’ve enthralled the old and young

But through imperialism and technology

You’ve left a trail of pain and lethargy

So let me boost your lexis and your art

By using you to praise the Prophet’s heart!

Dear English tongue, Muhammad, peace on him

His miracle was light that shone within

So brilliant and fine his inner light

That Aisha found a needle deep in the night!

Dear English tongue, Muhammad, peace on him

His character was pure, beyond the whim

His miracle was the eloquent Quran

Whose verses still the soul, protect from harm

Dear English tongue, Muhammad, peace on him,

You may ask us, why do we love him?

As when he was accosted by cruel words

He was loving despite the hate he heard

Dear English tongue, you may think this rather odd

But through Muhammad, you will reach The Only God

The Only One, that people in the West

Think is a myth and their English tongue knows best

But English tongue, know this I do beseech

That every word exists through Allah’s speech…

And Peace and Blessings on Muhammadan!

From Edinburgh, and Cardiff and London!

I’m Better Than Him

I’m better than him

It’s in the genes

Khalaqtanee min naarin

Wa khalaqtahu min teen

I’m better than him

It’s in the genes

He drives a bus

I got a PHD.

I’m better than him

It’s in the genes

He hails from the third world

I’m related to the Queen.

I’m better than her

It’s in the genes

She grew up in a flat

I was raised with prestige.

I’m better than her

It’s in the genes

Her father is a guard

My father’s a marine.

We’re better than them

It’s in the genes

We’re a civilised folk

Their culture’s obscene.

We’re better than them

It’s in the genes

Our race has evolved

Their race is naive.

I’m better than him

It’s in the genes

Khalaqtanee min naarin

Wa khalaqtahu min teen

(Chorus based on Quranic verses: Suratul A’raf/Chapter of The Heights- 7:12: The devil’s explanation to Allah about not bowing to Adam (as): “I am better than him; You created me from fire, while You created him from clay.”)

Never Again, They Said

Never again, will it happen, they said

Never again, will the Nazis purge, they said

Never again, will the children of Israel grieve, they said

Never again will we sit by

While they use their poisoned words, they said

While they call them vermin, rats and traitors, they said

While they spread their hate and theories, they said

About their faith and about their intentions, they said

While they say the Jews are treacherous, they said

While they prepare the ground for the gassings and rapes

While their poison works through the public’s veins, they said

While their headlines and stories purvey the hate, they said

While their propaganda blinds the masses, they said

Never again will such hatred breed, they said

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