The Beginning Ten days of mercy For those fasting and sincere A gift from above The Middle Forgiveness arrives Repentance to cleanse the soul Emerge pure once more The End A protective robe Giving freedom from the heat Paradise awaits
The story behind the poems
This set of poems, written in the style of haiku (the very basic 5-7-5 syllabic form taught to children in primary school), is inspired by a hadeeth (saying) of the Prophet Muhammed, upon him be peace, in which he described Ramadan as consisting of three parts: ‘It (Ramadan) is the month whose beginning is mercy, whose middle is forgiveness, and whose end is emancipation from the fire’.
The poems actually started out life many years ago as a group of messages sent to our local Ramadan Radio station. The morning show presenter liked his audience to be interactive and, for some strange reason, that was my idea of participation! I then published the poems in the 10th anniversary special edition of the local Ramadan guide, as mentioned in the previous blog. The poems have gone through a little more editing since then (because it isn’t often that I can look at a piece of work after some time and not find something to change about it) but the essence remains the same.
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