“To be sane in a mad world is madness.” I resonate with this as a Muslim. My religion is what allows me to see through worldly illusion and still have purpose.
I’m Muslim first before anything.
I have Allah to thank for that.
Alhamdulillah.
I know myself but society doesn’t.
My beliefs and I are strange to society,
but society is actually strange to me.
You see . . .
There’s race—this thing defined by black or white,
or funny enough by the land you come from if you don’t fit those two colors.
‘Something—ish’ . . . ‘something—ian’ . . . ‘something—ese,’
for those who aren’t black or white.
This thing called race, pits black against white in an uphill battle, involving the whole world, which almost seems to revolve around it . . .
Then there’s ethnicity—which actually helps us to be familiar with one another as humans, and gives us culture . . .
yet there’s this certain darkness of human nature that oozes in like poison and attacks our hearts.
Because funny enough defiantly dividing ourselves by our own ethnicities and the cultures they produced just wasn’t enough.
We had to go further . . .
causing division even with those we supposedly identify with, bringing about high and low status, or tribes,
and fair skin vs. skin that isn’t so,
which presents itself in almost all things.
And the fairer and richer are always more valued.
Says who?
Hate, jealousy, greed, disagreement and the angst that trails behind . . .
It’s all on us—
we are the human nature.
So you see, race and ethnicity and all these other social constructs just don’t matter all that much to me,
because they’re either made up or messed up.
Time is money, money is time . . .
Money makes the world go round.
It’s so sad it’s funny, then sad again when you realize . . .
How did we get here? . . .
How did we make up these constructs?
No—why did we—have to?
Where do these things get you?
I wanna know—really.
You take nothing when you leave this place,
So why get attached to it?
Black vs. white,
sexism,
one person, one group, over another,
any oppression . . .
why feed into it?
What—is—your—point?
We’re all the same—in the same exam room.
Placed onto Earth where the test is life.
But I’ve seen for myself what the bad of human nature can do . . .
In those stares that try to burn through the hijab that encapsulates me.
The hijab that is more than a scarf that I wrap around—it covers my being and soul, protecting me . . .
in my look and talk and from any harm.
And again I’ve seen for myself what human nature can do . . .
In those stares that try to undermine the brown skin that is just another part of me, a black girl in hijab—but skin doesn’t define religion.
My hijab is more—Islam is more.
So never mind the stares and sly remarks and ignorance of some . . . never mind the fear.
Those, they fear the truth . . .
but they’ll never know it as long as they let all the bad of human nature take over them.
And as for me,
a stranger it is.
I’m Muslim first before anything.
Unfazed by those who class me with terrorism at the instant of their eyes meeting my hijab,
and my skin with less worth at the instant of seeing its brownness.
Unfazed by those who disregard other humans
at the instant of seeing
that they don’t meet the standards put forth by those who abuse the bad of human nature . . .
the human nature that should tip more toward good on the scale, should it be what’s best for you.
Those see me as strange,
but we’re all the same.
Because when we leave this place we take nothing.
YOLO.
No.
You only live twice.
There’s something better coming—
Insha’Allah . . .
It’s that eternal peace we all strive to achieve in everything we do, unknowing that we can only reach it after we leave this place.
That can come to you.
Proud to be a stranger in this ironically strange world.
It isn’t home and things are just messed up—made up.
I don’t know how everything has come to be so far gone, but I do know something.
I’m Muslim first before anything.
I have Allah to thank for that.
Alhamdulillah.