God, Muhammad, Man and the Mystical Buraq - Veneration of Muhammad

13. God making a point

People always see God making a point,

But they always try to come closer

To study the point.

Forgetting that when God makes a point,

It is like the tip of an iceberg,

Or the twinkle of a faraway star.

Approach at the peril of your mortality.

More than 7 years ago, in this very roadside food stall selling tomyam (Siam) dishes that I shyly passed to my friend Longhair, a copy of a prose entitled "The Buraq, A Dialogue." For a couple of minutes Longhair perused before finally sighing, leaning back and wiping his tears. "Whoah, Canemaker!" He exclaimed (I used to make walking-sticks back then). Well, if the prose can make a grown man with 3 kids cry, maybe prose-ing is a worthwhile endeavour after all. I have stuck to writing and have not stopped since.  

1. The Buraq, A Dialogue

Take me not to the Garden Eternal (asked the man)
To tarry there forever and journey no further
I have not come from a world of distractions
Only to be rewarded with yet another

Take me to him instead, my faithful Buraq
Far from this world, that world and that world
Speed me to him, to the Lord’s Messenger,
Muhammad the Fragrant Rose, Ocean’s Hidden Pearl!

I was not created to carry nothing, o’ man (replied the Buraq)
Nothing were you before Allah and as nothing you have returned
Now nothing stands between you and your pursuit so fair
Ah! Did he not say, “…whereof I shall be, my nation shall also be there…”?

Swiftly off my back, oft-blessed child of Adam!
Your prayers have been answered before it was asked
Do you believe your desire for Muhammad could equal or surpass
His desire for you to be with him at last?

Ya Ahad! Ya Ahmad! Ya Ahad! Ya Ahmad!
Blessed is the Nation of Muhammad!

The funny thing of course is that Longhair is possibly the most hypersensitive man in Damansara Heights, if not the whole of Malaysia. So perhaps it was on a false premise that I started writing prose regularly. But who cares? It has been and continues to be a good trip. The only fly in the ointment is that I have not actually lost my mortality. "Keep it." I hear a voice cautioning me.

So I guess it is beholden on you and me, sunshine, to proceed with our journey to study God's point and challenge the 'voice.' And with a bit of able divine luck, we may still lose our mortality just yet!

wa min Allah at-taufiq.