THE MINARET AND THE MICROCHIP

To the living, I am vanished—
not with fanfare nor trumpet’s cry,
but like the scent of oud in the wind—subtle,
momentary, and yet impossible to forget.
To the sorrowful, I am an echo that won’t echo back.
I shall not return, not because I will not,
but because your world cannot bear me anymore.

To the angry, I am theft—
like Al-Andalus carved into Christian hymns,
a people painted as shadows
and charged with the burden of history they did not write.
They say I was cheated—
and I was—
of place, of peace, of narrative, of name.

But to the happy, I am solace in sujood,
a cup of Arab coffee unmixed, unsweetened,
still warm in the hand of someone who remembers
the name of Allah between each heartbeat.
And to the faithful, I have not gone anywhere.
I am the hush between the ayat,
the throb in the wrist before Fajr,
the sigh of a widow who still sets two plates
though the grave has long grown grass.

I cannot speak—yet I witness.
I cannot be seen—but I watch.
In the Qur’an’s breath, in Hafiz’s wine,
in the stare of a refugee child who has lost
more than the West has words to say.
I am felt—like war guilt in the throat of Europe,
like hunger in Gaza behind shattered glass.

So when you stand upon a shore—
not Brighton’s, perhaps Jaffa’s—
and watch the sea that once bore
Prophets, now bear murmurs—
do not just admire its beauty,
know its blood.
Know that beneath that surface float
more dreams than pearls—
more bodies than boats.

And when you behold a flower,
see not just the petal’s curl,
but the soil that feeds it—
and ask: who buried whom
that this garden might grow?

Remember me.

In your grey matter’s graveyard
where dead hopes rattle their bones.
In your neuroplastic hymns
that loop sorrow like a Spotify track.

Remember me—

In your synapses,
where the dopamine failed to fire
because the job never came,
because the visa expired,
because your name
scared the HR algorithm.

Remember:

The times we loved—
like Majnun did Layla,
mad with purity in a world
that feeds on the profane.

The times we cried—
like Musa before the sea,
not knowing whether it would split
or swallow him.

The times we fought—
with hearts not hands,
with words, not weapons,
though they chose to remember the latter.

The times we laughed—
in defiance of power,
like a child in Aleppo
chasing a ball through rubble.

If you keep me in your bloodstream of thought,
I am not gone.
I am the cognitive dissonance of your century—
the holy paradox,
the smiling man in the security queue
chosen for a random check
every single time.

I am Muslim, and I am modern,
which means I am exiled twice—
once by my own
for daring to ask,
once by yours
for daring to breathe.

They call it a Catch-22,
but it’s older than Heller.
The Prophet was stoned in Ta’if,
and he still prayed for them.

I am caught—
between the East that mourns me
and the West that mistrusts me.
Between tradition’s beard
and TikTok’s dance.
Between Jalal ad-Din and nihilism.
Between the minaret and the scheme.

Philosophy?
Ask Camus if exile makes a man.
Ask Arendt if statelessness
is the new original sin.

Art?
Ask Banksy why his doves wear flak jackets.
Ask Edward Said why every painting of us
is either a sword or a slave.

Literature?
Don Quixote tilted at windmills.
We tilt at whole systems.

Psychology?
Tell Freud our traumas are not dreams,
they are policies.
Tell Jung: the shadow archetype wears a keffiyeh now.

Film?
They tell our stories with actors
who can’t pronounce our names.
Then shoot us with camera and drone alike.

So no, I am not gone.
I am merely displaced—
like logic in politics,
like reason in war,
like God in the secular age.

I am here.
In you.
Still.
Bleeding
but breathing.

Remember me—
and I will haunt your silence
with truth.