Box

We live in Boxes!
I wake up in my bed -box
entombed in duvet
In my bedroom -box
And head for kitchen -box
I eat cereal
poured from cereal box
or eggs fried in a pan
taken from an egg box
laid by hen
in pen -box
put in egg box
to lorry -box
to supermarket big box
to trolley box
to car boot box
to fridge box
to fry boil poach scramble
to my stomach box,
which all ends in the end in bog box!
So we're off in the car box
train box
to work box
boxed in by our lifestyle workstyle
boss box
take pills for stress box
and drink coffee to keep us awake
from the coffee jar in mug box box
file our work in file box
in / out box
back on car/train box
to home box
and shattered sit on front of
THE box.

Comments

[Waranga]

That was excellent! I especially liked the last line about sitting in front of the tv shattered. It reminds me of that airwaves advert, where two aliens come dowm from outer space to live on earth and it shows them doing all the typical 'earthly things' like being squashed on the tube in the morning and all sorts, and then at the end they're running back to their spaceship to get outta here!!!! It was hilarious, but they don't show that advert much anymore, I tried to find it on you tube but it wasn't there, it was such a real snapshot of how depressing life can be, but because we're so in the thick of it, we don't notice, unless your muslim of course!!!!!!!!

[awggreen]

I came to think of the idea for this poem as I was travelling home last night. Shattered as I was I just had to type it out before it left me.
I couldn't help but notice as the snow slowed train trundled past flats and houses the fact that people seemed to live in boxes. The more I though about it the more boxes there seemed to be. We seem so comfortable in boxes. That precious place we call home which we yearn to return to is really a box or collection of boxes.
I suppose we begin life in our mother’s womb, surrounded, boxed in. So there is of course that sense of comfort. Yet we are also desperate to be free of these boxes, at least some of us!
I was discussing all of this with a brother on the train after a tiring day of being filmed by ITV for a documentary they are doing on the Muslim Jesus and musing how we seem obsessed by these boxes, and sit at the end of the day, square eyes glued to the TV. All of this compartmentalises us, isolates us, individualises us, egotises us! So we live here in our material world almost disconnected from reality.
We spend so much time and money on things we mostly don't really need and mostly oblivious to those who are desperately in need, the poor, weak and oppressed! Perhaps we throw them some crumbs and think we have done good!
I recalled a moment in my life when I really felt out of the box. It was a moment during Hajj when I descended into that court yard as hundred of thousands of humans were making tawaf, strangely around a box, the Kaaba! Perhaps there is in fact some huge significance to this! Here, at that moment although I was squashed and bustled by the throng around me, the ego, the "me" seemed nothing. I was just one of millions, and at that moment I knew that there was nothing about the "me" that was really special. Being white, having a British passport, wealth, fame, good looks and designer clothes and fast cars and children...all these matter not before Allah. Only, only my faith and my deeds are important before Allah. I felt at this moment truly “out of the box.”
It comes to me as I write these words that this was in fact something close to the idea of “nirvana”, which does not mean bliss but in fact “annihilation” of the self. It is not paradise, but part of what you need to get there. Most of us need to be a lot more concerned with others, and less with ourselves.

[Umber]

Its like that nasheed by Dawud Warnsby Ali which is about how we live out lives in boxes... good lesson how we are so caught up in our own imediate world (box) that we neglect and forget others sometimes encasing ourselves in our boxes that we fail to learn new things and open our eyes to whats going on around us! I liked your poem its very thought provoking masha'Allah! One thing you could have added is that our end will be in a box...Our coffin in th grave!

ARGcomment: Very good point! There was a subtle reference to death though...entombed in the duvet, sleep also being the sister of death!

[Umber]

The People of The Boxes by Dawud Wharnsby Ali

There were once some people who all saw their lives like empty boxes.
They looked all around the world, collecting up the things they liked.
They filled their lives and empty boxes with the goodies that they gathered
And they all felt in control, content, and they all felt alright.
Then they climbed inside their boxes and they settled with their trinkets.
They neither looked, nor learned much more and closed their lids up tight.
Once they’d fastened up their boxes they smiled there inside,
and they all thought in their darkness that the world was clear and bright.
But the world is not a box.
There’s no lid, no doors, no cardboard flaps or locks,
and everything in nature from the clouds to the rocks
is a piece of the puzzle of the purpose of mankind.
It's a piece of the peace that we’ll find.

Along came a wondering wise man whispering such words of truth,
who stumbled on these boxes, so separate side by side.
He knocked upon the first one saying, “Please come out and feel the day.”
An answer came from deep within, “You’re not of us please go away.”
He approached the second box and tapped thrice on the lid saying,
“Peace to you inside, shall I show you a new way?”
Someone peeked out from a crack and said, “You may just have a point,
but it’s so comfy in my box, in my box here I will stay.”
But the world is not a box.
There’s no lid, no doors, no cardboard flaps or locks,
and everything in nature from the clouds to the rocks
is a piece of the puzzle of the purpose of mankind.
It's a piece of the peace that we’ll find.

He stood before the final box, a hiding face peeked out to him,
and much to his surprise, he said “I recognize those eyes!
I see you and you see me so why not come out and be free?
Faith and flowers wilt and die if they are hidden from the sky!
`Cause the world is not a box.
There’s no lid, no doors, no cardboard flaps or locks,
and everything in nature from the clouds to the rocks
is a piece of the puzzle of the purpose of mankind.
It's a piece of the peace that we’ll find.”

Now centuries lie between all the prophets and you and I.
Civilizations are born and die each and every day.
We see good and bad and happy-sad and mad mistakes
we wish we hadn’t made in our attempt to try and live up to their way.
But if we hide ourselves away, afraid to grow and learn,
we might wake up in the flames of the ignorance that burns,
and we’ll never be much more than only casualties of war
in a struggle we can’t win if we have no faith to begin.
We’ve got to tip the lid and let some sunlight in,
`Cause the world is not a box.
There’s no lid, no doors, no cardboard flaps or locks,
and everything in nature from the clouds to the rocks
is a piece of the puzzle of the purpose of mankind.
It's a piece of the peace that we’ll find.

[Fatima Barkatulla (Umm Yusuf)]

You noticed boxes everywhere. But I noticed this when we were studying atoms in Science GCSE: have you noticed that 'tawaf' features in the creation in a staggering number of ways:

1. In the heavens is al-Bait ul Ma'moor directly above the ka'bah on earth. And around it the Angels do tawaf continuously. 70 000 angels visit it every day never to return.

2. The ka'bah on earth has people constantly making tawaf around it.

3. The planet Earth and other planets spin on their axes.

4. Earth has a moon that rotates around it. Other planets also have moons which rotate around them.

5. The Planet Earth orbits the sun as do the other planets in the solar system as well as comets.

6. The solar system is going round and round in our galaxy: The Milky Way, which also has a nucleus.

7. Galaxies are bound by gravity to form clusters of about 20 - a few thousand. Galaxy clusters often have a concentrated central core.

8. The Universe's matter (at least all visible matter) at the tiniest scale, with its most fundamental particles as we know them are made up of electrons moving around the nucleus of an atom!

I find that breathtaking!

You've made me ask myself 'when have I really felt outside the box'. Definitely whilst making tawaf. But I think once was when I went on Mount Noor in the Cave of Hira. We went at a time when there was hardly anyone around, in summer. And I was a child and it was the first trip outside the UK that I remember. Climbing to the top and imagining the Prophet (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) climb all that way made me put myself in his shoes...how was he feeling, how must he have felt sitting in the cave? What must he have thought about. I was looking down on Makkah, and then imagining the Angel Jibraeel fill the horizon....I was so lost in the experience and in the Prophet's times and life story. I used to say to my dad: 'I wish we lived in the Prophet's times'.

ARGcomment: When someone said to Umar that he wished he had lived in the time of the Prophet, Umar admonished him, and told him that he would not have been able to take the trials and difficulties, and that he should be grateful that Allah had made him Muslim in the time that he had.
I don't mean that to belittle your love for the Prophet, but I though that I should mention that point.
There are other times when one feels somewhat out of the box, like walking/biking in the hills, skiing etc (aka Dawood's poem/nasheed)...but in many ways that is still inside the box. Hajj, Umrah, even a perfect prayer though are really out of the box.
By the way this is the second time you have mentioned the benefits of ziarat. Is this actaully permissable? I'm sure I've read an athar in one of Sheikul Islam ibn Taymiyyah's books about this.

[Fatima Barkatulla (Umm Yusuf)]

By the way I really like those words by D.W. Ali.

Nice da'wah poem.

[Fatima Barkatulla (Umm Yusuf)]

With regards to wishing that one lived at the time of the Prophet...you are right about the trials...but I was a child when I wished it and children rarely notice the trials...they notice the adventure and the importance of events and people...so I wasn't thinking of the trials of course!

The sentiment I was echoing was one of wishing to have been a companion of his (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam), to be in his company and to defend him.
Interestingly I heard Anwar al-Awlaki quote a scholar as having said: "Do the Sahabah think that we will allow them to have all of the Prophet Muhammad (sallallahu 'alaihi wa sallam)? They defended the Prophet with their physical bodies (in battle) but we will defend his honour with our words."

So we in our times have been given the opportunity to defend him (sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) ma sha Allah.

With the Mount Uhud thing: good point! I don't know if it is a problem to visit it....I think my dad took us there because living in the West we were so cut off from our history and the Prophet's life that he wanted to make it all real for us. We didn't think of it as a virtue. Simply as visiting a historic site, just as someone might visit the Muhammad Ali Mosque in Cairo or Al-Azhar Mosque or something. I will find out if it is a problem to visit it insha Allah. Maybe it is a problem because it might lead to bid'ah.

[NB]

"It's a piece of the peace that we’ll find" - I'm pretty sure it's "It's a piece of the peace of Islam".

[Umber]

Even the first time we are ever seen these days is.... 'On The Box'.... ultra sounds!

[anonymous]

I love that poem mashaAllah. About homeschooling, my children are still very young but when I think about putting them in school I feel sick. I love being with them, watching them grow, spending every milestone with them. So the only option is to homeschool them,but am I being selfish, too protective, depriving them of their independance? Another thing I worry about is will I be able to teach them as well as they do in schools, because I'm not exactly a brain surgeon. If anyone whose homeschooled please inspire me.

[iMuslim]

Salaams ARG,

An Egyptian blogger has been arrested for blogging against the government & insulting Al-Azhar. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6385849.stm

It reminded me of the pro-hijrah vs stay-in-the-West issue that was being discussed here.

I asked a question on my blog: Can Muslims in the West help to improve matters in Muslim countries, when the inhabitants of said countries cannot? It's easy to criticize, but how can we change things?

Any ideas?

Wa'salam

[saeydah]

assalam alaikum,

This is for my sister Umber, whom wanted inspiration on home schooling her children. My dear sister you say you love your children to bits, there young and your not quite sure whether you would be able to teach them, but sis YOU already are teaching them in ways you dont even think about.And just think, all without a text book too!!! Have belief that you are the best person to teach them.I am homeschooling my son and I am certain that no teacher in any school will have the patience and love for him as I do, and that in turn will result in a happy child, Inshallah.

p.s.

Good Luck!!!!!