Falling Back

By Manzurul Haque, New Age Islam

17 September 2015

The result of a recent meeting of ‘Empower India Foundation’ at ‘Anjuman Islamia’ Ranchi:

To underscore the nothingness of Napoleon’s dictat about impossibility,

I ventured to explore the life and time of the Muslim community,

The occasion was a meet to implore, evolve and grow,

From the darkness of poverty, into prosperity’s glow,

 Starting with God’s glory as a subject compulsory,

The lamentations began with a torrid flow,

The fingers of accusation were no less pointed,

Digging the glorious past, with a deeply held plow,

The contrast of the meet was visible rather early,     

‘Cause the agenda had stated – ‘no reference to history’,

Thus spoke the speakers aplenty,

On to the stage came every Tom, Dick and Harry,

 

They spoke about this, and they spoke about that,

Nowhere though, the spirit of the topic seen caught,

The topic being in the realm of strategic thinking,

'Road-map into the future' of the Muslim underling,

 

Worst of all was the locking of the horn,

Onto a question of which no remedy is known,

Was this life to have primacy over afterlife?

Is a question that can rattle the greatest Muslim born?

 

Where were the Muslim ‘Ulema’ whose existence is denied in theology?

Without whose presence however, talking of Muslims’ fate is blasphemy!

This point came from no less than an aspiring young, Muslim MBBS,

Unnerving oldies like my into a hopeless abyss,

  

Fearing the questions likely to be raised on my ability,

I quietly bundled my papers ‘on the road-map into the century’,

My inviter was kind enough to have ignored me in the crowd,

My soul being saved on the occasion, I thanked my Lord,

 

The greatest fear being my expressing in English poetry,

Attracting an MA in that language, of a Jharkhand University,

Measuring scales and nodes, questing the missing of rhyme,

Dismissing the thoughts overflying, his intellect divine,

 

Reverting back to Napoleon, I question his rationality,

Himself getting routed, by the British Admiralty,

And pushing us idiots, to an optimism, so high,

'I’d rather harken back, to the quietude of living nigh!'

URL:  http://www.newageislam.com/spiritual-meditations/manzurul-haque,-new-age-islam/falling-back/d/104612