I’m Muslim and no-one can deny for me that title
Nor can it all the worship I carry out belittle
This, to those who tell me what I believe, my rebuttal
And of an oath toward my beliefs, but a renewal
* * *
I believe in the Lord and to him is no division
Nor can he be multiplied or attributes be given
He who cannot be described by the words of a poem
Neither will do justice to Him a heart in submission
* * *
And in the seal of the Prophets my soul testified
His words embedded as gold within my own heart abide
To each tongue that stands and tells me this saint you have denied
Live in your arrogance whilst I take this saint as my pride
From a heart strung in purity I’ve built all my moral
Mohammed and this heart I remember with each quarrel
Toward morals that want to learn he’s the holy grail
The key to success behind every successful tale
* * *
The crown on my head is the peak of very eloquence
The letters of his name, Ali, welded very patience
For years men study him and yet shrouded is his essence
Whilst we live his lovers and are orphans in his absence
He who taught me ‘speech’ is silver but golden is ‘silent’
And with this speech is shaped to be wise and self-dependant
I learned to drag tragedy in chains by being patient
Whilst men sleep forgotten by time, Ali stands defiant
* * *
The pearl of my heart is the mistress of every woman
A school of lessons and morals toward those who listen
She who taught that a woman’s voice, though it remains hidden
Can level mountains and kingdoms when it fights oppression
She taught me though a woman should be treated like a rose
Beneath its petals lies her valour that streams in her woes
A woman’s voice is embedded in all even her foes
Like a woman’s name from her husband’s heart never goes
* * *
Full of beauty the Master of the youth of Paradise
Even Muhammad’s heart this Hassan’s beauty would entice
Beauty in his hunger, when morsels of food would suffice
So that the poor would be given all that he’d sacrifice
From him I learnt to even at the face of despair smile
To comfort your enemy when he throws on you a trial
To let a clean and loving heart meet with one that is vile
And to forgive one its sins when it walks down death’s aisle
* * *
With the Master of martyrs my very heart-beat aligned
And every path possible to me, toward him I signed
A heart that is not understood by the greatest of minds
An undying flame that can’t be explained nor be defined
He who with his blood upon dust taught every uprising
The voice of the oppressed does not die with the sun rising
Neither does truth falter when for its soul you are fighting
Fighting with your words or with the pen with which you’re writing
* * *
Ali Sajjad the spiritual upliftment of my prayer
Moulded my mind’s perception of my Lord, made it aware
He who shivered before prostration, before he would share
The deepest fears of his heart’s beyond with his Creator
From this surviving son, the prince of all those who prostrate
I learnt that prayer is the factor to every final fate
Words that shape our moral let alone open Heaven’s gate
Prayers that in beings both humility and love create
* * *
Take my hand and let me show you the splitter of knowledge
The fifth of a line of princes, yet where is his coverage?
Ignored is Baqir whilst to unaware he’s leverage
Toward your wounds of ignorance O’ Shia a bandage
From him I learnt knowledge in each soul is a prime factor
It differs between the prestigious and other numbers
Whilst our people are divided into camps and sectors
To each secluded camp I say Baqir is my scholar
* * *
To the truthful the Lord guided this once ungrateful fool
So I kiss the tears of the hand that built that very school
Imam Sadiq, the truthful, each word he spoke was a tool
To craft a university, with God’s word as its rule
I was blessed to study in this school, a minor student
To be called a Shia make’s life worth each precious moment
And what a school, that crowns kings those who are obedient
He who serves this Household unlike any other servant
* * *
And then my eye turns to the companion of a jail
Who held onto hope even when it held to no avail
Even when patience was not a word and weaved in brail
Kathom rewrote the word patience in intimate detail
And from him I learnt that when despite being imprisoned
The ability to worship, one is still conditioned
And when life as a jail the believer has envisioned
His heart and his soul daily for worship has petitioned
* * *
I walk across deserts to find the strangest of strangers
Devoid of his family and living amongst dangers
A stranger in a strange land our Imam Ridha wanders
Whilst taunts this king, silent whispers of a thousand murders
Yet from the syllables of his name I learnt to be pleased
Even when every blessing toward me my Lord has ceased
Even when for whatever reasons I am mocked and teased
Even when between my hands my own heart sits torn and deceased
* * *
From the youth that is Jawad the overly generous
He who taught to give away what to you is most precious
Despite that against him were crimes oppressive, atrocious
He smiled in the face of tragedy, thankful and gracious
As I stand on the final edge of the age of my youth
He taught me each day I age must bring me closer to truth
Whether it’s the adam of my apple or the wisdom in my tooth
I’ve no excuse to not know God with every inch of growth
* * *
I paint to you the defining moment of oppression
When Hadi’s shrine around him in twisted wreck is ridden
They proved their aim is not to guard their view of religion
But to burn love and memory of Fatima’s children
But it does not matter, as his name means the one who guides
And his lovers still flock to him like the sea’s very tides
It’s beyond the title Shia, it’s beyond taking sides
It’s the never extinguishing love that in us abides
* * *
And that is why our beloved Imam Askeri they killed
Because it burns them that within his Shia he’s instilled
To the extent that we would obey whatever he’d willed
It eats them that with his murder, with grief the hearts are filled
It eats them that our children, the hearts of our eyes we name
If it’s a girl Fatima, a boy Hassan or Hussain
That we let the love of Ali flow through their very veins
That we teach them Zainab’s patience, before they know the sky rains
* * *
Our prayer since Zainab with Hussain’s severed head confided
Since Abbas to not quench his thirst before Hussain decided
Since a three-pronged arrow in the baby’s neck abided
O’ Lord return to us Mehdi the guided
He who’d instil in this world justice and prosperity
And remove all memory of any calamity
Heed cries of the oppressed when their cries were once profanity
Give the mind intellect when it knew but insanity
And when from the smoke of death and cries you see him rising
Know that justice embodied has begun his uprising
His mission, from morality he’d be exercising
Of stability to an unstable world comprising
* * *
This is the Household that from strings of Heaven have been thread
When the first is Muhammad and the last is Muhammad
Hearts captured by their trance as their teachings continue to spread
As this Household of gold over the world becomes widespread
I’m Shi3i, and no-one can tell me what I should have believed
Because they don’t know about the names that in my heart are weaved
How can it be that by love of this house one is deceived?
When my heart beats their obedience with every breathe I’ve breathed
* * *
Karbala/London – 19/02/11
seekperfection.wordpress.com 
Written
on September 6, 2012