Bismillahir'rahmannir'rahim.

Allahumma sali'ala sayyiddina Muhammadin wa 'ala alay sayyiddina Muhammadin wa barik wa salim.

"Oh Kharabsheh....

How can one attempt to describe a thing that is only diminished by words and known through experience? A place that inspires words but can never be encompassed or understood through verse or song? With people w/ the face of paupers and the hearts of princes, mouths aching for food but overflowing with inspiration, where the common man is a poet and the the distinguished man is a saint...i would write poetry of them, but even poetry is an insult for a people whose daily lives living museuems of art....

I would write for your oh kharabsheh, and spread across the world reflections of your beauty, but the overflowing words inspired by this land drowns any attempts of expression, the light of beauty emitted by this neighborhood and its beautiful people blind the wandering traveller who peers down at it from a mountain top like Moses on Sinai. Never have i felt so inspired and yet the pen is dry, maybe because ink would only stain your beautiful landscape, only the silent lover is allowed to enter, the drunk poet is left with the camels

In the eyes of these sufis one sees secrets that their humility tries to hide but their Nur betrays...they toil in the day and find rest at night in beds of prostration, they are awake in the night and the day, so that when others awaken to a horrifying day, these striving seekers of God can find their rest...

A complaint in this neighborhood is a sin and a sin is a travesty...how can one beg at the house of God, holding its door with other hand while with the other hand, push beyond the bounds of the Shariah. This city is a constant circle of dhikr, whoever comes is blessed, whoever accidentally enters and lingers, is forgiven.

The corners speak to us, telling us stories of old scholars, bent over in their honored niches late at night, reading texts over and over, praying to God for understanding, angels encompassing them. The corners seem to eagerly miss them like the bride missing her newlywed, who has gone off to war. They complain of its new dwellers who use their holy ground for sleeping when it was made to prostrate and weep over, the ground grows dry when their is no weeping and angelic presence does not last long on dry land

Poetry is weak, no matter how much i press it cannot pass the surface, the pen break, the ink spills and the meaning is yet to be conveyed
The poet becomes frustrated and exhausted and lies his paper to rest
Only then does he realize the hidden secret, in his submission he reaches the essence of this blessed village, neighborhood
Poetry is analogy and only worldly things contain analogies

When one is amongst the angels, in sacred space, with nur spread over you like the Prophet's cloak, what analogy can suffice

I realize that i am not in Kharabsheh at all, I'm in Medina
And those around me are the closest we have of tasting that city
Bilals adhan, Ali's double blades, Hamza's heroic stance
I am in a village that mimics their Beloved with a lover's passion
No detail is mundane no length excessive

So maybe this beauty i have been trying to describe is a hint of medina
In a world that has forgotten its winding alleys, smiling faces, and overwhelming love
In a world that has forgotten Prophetic peace

Do not expect me back home... "

-Brother Saad Omar (Hayy Kharabsheh 2006)
Allahumma sali'ala sayyiddina Muhammadin wa 'ala alay sayyiddina Muhammadin wa barik wa salim. Rawdhina billahi Rabba wa bil'islaami deena wa bi'Muhammadin nabiyaa, wa akhirud'duana anil'hamdulillahi rabbil'alameen.