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Title:
The Ramadan Sonnets
Author: Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Price: $16.95
(paperback)
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Daniel
Abd al-Hayy Moore explores Ramadhan through poetry
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One
month every year, one-fifth of the world’s population takes a step
forward towards faith. Muslims reach, strive and yearn for a closer
relationship with Allah (SWT). They embark on exceedingly personal
journeys to regain their inner peace, their inner Muslim strength.
They fast - but it’s so much more than the mere act of abstention.
Fasting
is like practicing for death, like “being racked with love you
can’t eat.” Like a revelation of the “direct influence of
Allah on his Creation.” In Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore’s uniquely
imaginative The Ramadan Sonnets, it is all this and then
some. Moore takes us to the ends of the earth, to the ends of
ourselves and to the infinite beautiful facets of Ramadan in his
inspiring book, which chronicles one glorious Ramadan with poems
written for each day.
It
may be about a child’s delight in a half-day fast and choosing his
iftaar (fast-breaking meal), or about rituals of Ramadan
around the world. Moore’s musings comes from all angles, catching
you with his beauty, amusing you with his interpretations and
relating to you with perceptions that were hidden all along in your
own heart.
Better
still is the book’s attraction for Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Muslims will happily recognize Moore’s evocation of those Ramadan
feelings. They who partake in the ritual of fasting know the
privilege of fasting. It’s as he writes in his 5th-Ramadan day
poem, “Ramadan House Guest”:
Ramadan
has come to live with us.
It
is God’s private apartments
moved
into our house
and
taking over.
Where
doors were
are
entranceways into His Garden.
Where
windows were
are
continuous waterfalls.
There
is such imagery and enticing detail in Moore’s poems that it
pierces the hearts of Muslims to reveal the beauty, peacefulness,
solitude, togetherness and humbleness within. Whether he ruminates
on how reciting the Qu’ran is perfectly suited to our mouths and
voices or about the vast repast Allah provides our taste buds
(“This is the taste buds remembering Allah’s Divine Names in
their own way.”) - Moore writes Ramadan in a way we can’t help
but appreciate.
But
perhaps more for a non-Muslim The Ramadan Sonnets is a true
gift of beauty, inspiration and explanation. What drives a Muslim to
fast? Why is Ramadan such a sacred time for Muslims?
Moore
takes us on a journey from the cannons of Morocco to the courtyard
of Cordoba, Spain to the homes of the United States. He offers the
wonder of fasting in a Muslim country where all strive for the same
purpose versus and the personal satisfaction of fasting in a
non-Muslim country - where you fight against greater temptation for
lasting a good. In his 10th
day poem, “It Won’t Turn And Look At Us”, Moore succinctly
explains how Ramadan evokes a sense of love:
…
and if we can
fasten
our hearts only to Him, and at the
very
least let eating and
drinking
go for His sake, and it is like
a
love affair so intense we
forget
ourselves almost completely except for a
general
discomfort, so that really what the
revelation
of Islam is all about is the
physics
of a love-affair of the
intensest
kind outwardly which if we
fulfill
as completely as possible we might taste the
almost
unbearable sweetness
inwardly
as well and so be
thoroughly
consumed.
When
Ramadan comes to an end, Moore mournfully laments it, writing
“I’ll miss its strange intensity.” Then he offers a beautiful
homage to the New Moon and the coming of Eid ul Fitr with such a
combination of adjectives, cadence and rhythm that its bittersweet
existence comes fully into play. For, as Moore says, we welcome the
sighting of the new moon while sadly acknowledging it means the end
of another beloved Ramadan.
Such
a shame then that this book is currently out-of-print. This
journalist took to rare book websites to find a copy (which was
relatively easy). Moore says he is working hard to get it back in
print, and that there are always copies floating around out there.
It’s worth the search.
As
Alan ‘Abd al-Haqq Godlas writes in a forward to the book: “To
read Moore is to journey. … making the Ramadan Sonnets a
pilgrim’s guide to the exploration of intercultural , traditional
and ultra-postmodern transpersonal space.” But more so, it’s a
guide to the poetry of Ramadan - in sight, smell, sound and emotion.
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