Book Review : Prayers Are Ageless Even In Times Of Hatred 

Sufism has always been associated with peace. It is spoken about in peace conventions and held close to God. But mostly people forget how intensely the genre is related to protest and anarchy. The peace that comes out as a consequence is mostly glorified since it becomes trendy for those who want to dissociate themselves from reality. Ammar Aziz바카라™s collection of poems The Missing Prayer, is a document that dissents by ingesting darkness and throwing towards us a light which has the capacity to diminish our vulnerabilities. The book underlines various issues which keep on happening around us, but we leave them ignored since they come from the hands of establishment. Here, the idea of peace is vastly different from what is inscribed in the moral textbooks of society. 

In the poem We Burst into Tears, the poet gives us a glimpse of change and how even when the larger picture is changing, the minute parts remain the same due to human actions. The comfort of our lives, the observation of what is growing around us, assimilation of thoughts which can bring significant change in us 바카라“ all of them are evolving to reach a certain point. But then, when the end is reached, we happen to see a conclusion that is dry, complex and devolved. The poet builds a chronology of micro and macro elements of the biosphere and beyond it. He expresses change in many ways only to keep before us how everything goes into a void of nothingness.   

We burst into tears 

because change was inevitable: 

we could sense it emerging 

from the noise 

that muted our ballads 

and the gibberish  

that erased 

the textbooks bestowed 

upon our forefathers. 

 Sufism explores the theme of rationality by either negating everything it says or by simplifying that it is not vast enough to define everything under its umbrella. One cannot tackle love with logic; grief with teardrops; or differences with a few substances of human body. It is rooted in energy which is beyond the human intelligentsia. In the poem Her Science Teacher Tells Her the Properties of Matter, the poet describes the same thought using science and how its usage drops before emotions which are located in the parts of human mind which has not been visited by any researcher. It stems out and becomes appealing for our emotional quotient, but seems numb before human IQ. 

 Her grandmother바카라™s  

wooden prayer beads 

and the broken pieces 

of her slain father바카라™s sitar 

are different things 바카라“ 

they can never be 

the same. 

 Any sacred place belongs to the one who guards it with absolute faith that바카라™s free and open towards all the thoughts. The guard바카라™s duty is to keep faith protected and to introspect on what it says. If the introspection makes one cruel towards criticism, the protection fades since the guard is more focused on the critic and not towards the belief. In the poem The Dargah at Night, Ammar focuses on the mujawar (caretaker of a Sufi shrine) and what he gets to observe during his entire duty. The poem extends itself towards deciphering the darkness of faith and then introduces us to his kindness which springs out of the strength on what he believes in. It is more about putting light towards the interior of the human heart and how it visualizes the external world.  

 If we begin to unveil the society, we will see a statistic of female abuse in almost every second home and it will be a proportionately rising graph. In the poem Nightingales, Ammar Aziz takes us to the atmosphere of abuse on a very elemental and personal level. At the same time, he also provides us with an image of how society normalizes the concept. Those who grow up in a family where the environment is abusive, they either become conditioned to it or they simply confine this trauma in their head. The trauma subsequently turns them into a vulnerable human being or the monster they so much detest. The poem puts us in that situation with its raw and organic language. 

 바카라¦because that바카라™s how 

all fathers treated 

all mothers 

in that town 

where women 

often became nightingales 

disappearing into the stars. 

In the present political climate of India, identity has turned into a factor that decides whether a person should be alive or dead. A group calls it development. The other looks towards it as a dark time of human civilization. With the introduction and implementation of NRC/CAA, the target became evident before the rest of the world. In the poem When They Spot a Muslim, the poet provides every detail of the lifestyle Muslims follow. From the odour of musk they like to apply to their colour of beard, Ammar바카라™s satire lies in placing a mirror before the readers where their general perception on Muslims get reflected. A poem that바카라™s important to understand the roots of hatred and how those who have digested it spread a general image to establish a propaganda. The poet바카라™s faith is shaken, and it is quite obvious to have a disturbed belief system in times when tools which divide people are considered normal. This poem cuts deep to feed us a very necessary truth. 

They have machines  

to inspect his belongings; 

and machines 

to know if he lies. 

But the machines can바카라™t smell 

the fragrant folded prayer mat 

with the embroidered mosque 

and an ethereal gold 

crescent moon바카라¦ 

 Ammar Aziz바카라™s collection becomes important when the time and tide is against freedom, sexuality and personal life. In The Missing Prayer, we get to listen to prayers which are either censored or pulled down from our regular lives. Even then the prayers are going to stay as universal energies just like Ammar바카라™s poetry. An important collection to understand dissent and its many versions.  

(Kabir Deb is a poet and Interview Editor of Usawa Literary Review)