Mercy and the End of Hell

If it is not merciful, it is not Islam. If it is not beautiful, it cannot be Islam. If it is not conscionable, really, how can anyone say it is Islam? Yet, there are some people who …

If some people had their way
We would be on our hands and knees
Looking for stones to throw.
They would divert Allah’s Mercy
So that to the Ocean
No river shall forevermore flow.

(the Dam, No. 11, from ‘the Dam.SunSun.Ana’)


I cannot bear their ways, nor do I find my journey bend to their sway. They are familiar to me, such men. Yet we are different, for we may recite from the same verse, but what they bring into their reading, and what I take from mine are opposites. It is sad. Yet it is fated.

For you see, I am told of this Shepherd of a faraway desert city. The verses came through him like reverberations of a mighty bell …

Who was this kindly shepherd
Forced to leave his Mecca Home?
Mercy flowed from his hands and words
With patient fury of raindrops upon a stone.

(the Shepherd, No. 18, from ‘the Dam.SunSun.Ana’)


This was his beautiful way. And I am in love with him and the beauty of his merciful nature. For above all else, how shall we conduct ourselves, if it is not to be merciful to one another. A transaction entered without contract, but recorded by a presence that you cannot sense, save perhaps for the gentle flapping of their wings. It was at such a place called the Secret Hollow that I was taught the value of a secret charity ...

In the Gardens of Paradise,
There is a Secret Hollow,
Where Huris and other distractions
Of Heaven do not enter.

Therein dwell the givers and receivers of Mercy
Who had conducted their transactions in secrecy.

Those who hid in the deepest well of their hearts,
Their charities, prayers and salty tears.

Those who gave and received Blessings in the Name of God;
Hiding their virtues, which they themselves consider ignoble,
From the all-consuming eyes and ears of common people,
Keeping their deeds, like the bride in her veil,
Only for the Eyes of the Groom.

With their God, they never barter,
Seeing only Him, and no other.

(The Secret Hollow, No.14 from ‘the Dam.Munir.Ana’)


My seekers! My troubled readers! We are together, you and I, brothers and sisters in the commonwealth of mercy. And to forgive ourselves? Where and how? To whom do we ask? Prophet said, "ask Hu…"

O’ self-abhorring and self-absorbed man!
Others you may forgive,
But you can never forgive yourself,
For your needs are Mine to Attend To.

Learn to forgive your brother,
And see just how your Lord treats the wanderer
Who exhibits My Attributes,
And who in My Mercy despairs never!

Hah! Are you not glad that your demerit
Is not in the purview of someone other than Me?

(Remorse II, No.59 from “the Dam.Munir.Ana’)


So I leave you in happy communion with your Lord God. As for me, I will continue to chill at the edge of reason, licking my holypop, waiting for the End of Hell. The Closure of Dante’s Purgatory. It is gonna be quite a show, I am told…

We lie across the chasm,
Our eyes gazing into the abyss
A bridge over the inferno,
The black fires from black coals.

We lie across the chasm,
As others walk upon our backs,
Across the abyss they stride
High above the black fires for black hearts.

We gaze below and our eyes are tearful
In dread and sorrow for the lost sheep
Destined to wander the land of despair
Through the black fires of black desires.

We are those heard by the Lord
Who commands that our tears do fall,
Like mercy rain upon the plain of desolation
As white snow consumes black halls.

We are those graced by Time,
And see beyond the pale of Memory,
To a day shall come when watercress shall grow
In the deepest abyss of black fire and woe.

(The Bridge, No.1 from ‘the Red Baron’)