When asked by a scribe what he considered the most important of God’s commandments, the Book of Mark (12:29) quotes Jesus as replying: “The first of all the Commandments is, Hear, Oh Israel, the Lord our God the Lord is One.”
When I first read the Qur’an systematically after 9/11 I was amazed by the compatibility between the Qur’anic revelation and my beliefs as a non-Trinitarian monotheist. I was especially impressed by the Qur’anic emphasis on the messages revealed through Abraham, Moses and Jesus; messages I had believed for decades. On the other hand, I knew nothing about the Prophet Muhammad and the message that he seemed to bring to the Arabs. I began to read and study with the aim of learning whether Muhammad revealed anything new, whether the emphasis of this revelation was consistent with or different to those of previous prophets, and whether Muhammad himself lived a life, as Jesus had, worthy of emulation.
The eventual conclusion I reached after years of intellectual enquiry through in-depth study was life-changing. After methodically reading the Qur’an twenty times in seven years I accepted that God’s revelation through Muhammad was identical in every way to that revealed through former prophets. God is one! His oneness cannot be divided! He is worthy of all praise and He asks us to enjoy lives of willing submission. Moreover, unlike previous prophets, Muhammad – absolutely worthy of emulation – revealed a calling not just to the children of Israel, and not just to the Arabs (as I had initially thought), but to all of humanity.
What was I to make of my inescapable intellectual conclusion that the Qur’anic revelation was logical, coherent, consistent and persuasive, especially as I then had no emotional desire to embrace a “different” religion? The answer is easy for me to give. I submitted. On the basis of my rational investigation, I decided to take a step of faith knowing that my heart would probably quickly catch up with my head. I chose to become a Muslim. My heart has since caught up and now both mind and heart are in unison.
Throughout my years of spiritual exploration I continued to write poetry, much of it dealing with these very issues, but also, of course, with everything else I experienced or observed. Throughout creatively fertile periods I wrote one or two poems every day, while during barren phases I wrote far fewer, sometimes only one per week. My eventual conversion – which occurred after I saw four or five hundred Indonesian shoppers praying their Zuhr prayer together in a Jakarta convention centre and I knew I ought to be kneeling with them – ushered in a fertile period that has, thank God, remained right up until the time of finishing this book. Hundreds of poems have arisen from within me: most in praise of Allah but many also to capture moments of curiosity, wonder, joy, frustration, and disappointment at things I have observed occurring within or affecting the surprisingly disunited ummah.
In many ways I became a Muslim at an unusual and difficult time, with relations between Muslims and non-Muslims severely strained by various factors. These include 9/11, the so-called War on Terror, 7/7 and other bombings, bans in European countries of minarets and burkas, Qur’an burnings, the rise of anti-Islamic groups like the English Defence League (the loutish and hateful protests of which I have twice observed first-hand) and a flood of new books which erroneously condemn Islam as brutish and backward. I have experienced anti-Muslim hostility myself, including a savage and highly dishonest tabloid attack and a steady trickle of unpleasant emails from anonymous people who claim I have betrayed my western values, and rendered myself unfit to hold senior posts, by embracing Islam. Some of the poems in this collection respond to those foolish and unenlightened views.
As a poet my changes of religious affiliation and outlook could not have occurred at a more exciting time. Everything seems intense; everything feels intense. I therefore thank Almighty God that he let me come to Islam after having observed it from outside for four decades and then, in an era bursting with dramatic things to write about, he opened my eyes to the majesty of the Qur’anic revelation. I am a very fortunate poet and I pray insha’Allah that my poems have captured at least some of the colour, verve and pathos of today’s Islamic world.
Joel Hayward
September 2011
I wanted to write a poem
Of You
That does not
Include me
But my first word here was
I and I
Want to say I’m sorry
But that’s also about me
You Oh Lord
Are beyond words
Anyway
Even the prettiest
Are shabby
Compared to Your heart
Of love
Even words that sound
The same
As their meaning –
Scrumptious, Graceful
Sweetheart –
Are clumsy and ugly
Compared to
Your name
Words as fragrant
As their flowers –
Carnations, violets,
Goldenrods,
Dahlias –
Wither as weeds
When Your warmth
Radiates as midday
From the pages of Your Book
A poem of You
Needs only one word
Or ninety-nine
And it is finished
On the day that paper clips and files
And memos snowed upon a city
I opened an unfamiliar book
To see what had brought that storm
Each night I brushed back dreams
By turning pages of profundity
To learn what had placed death
In the eyes of passport photos
The heavens opened for
Forty days within my mind and
Soul in a Noah’s flood of
Confusing certainties
The willing dead were absent in
Every word but my forty days
Left greater questions buoyant
And
