MUHAMMAD

What can I say on your day
When every day is your day ?
O Muhammad ! O Taha ! O shafi’na on the Last Day !
From the day you stood to say :
O Man ! I’m but a man
Sent to save you, sent to tell you
The way that’ll lead you away
From the one who led you astray
To the One Who made you ’n the best way
And gave you beauty and bounty in every way
And will yet give you joy where you’ll stay
For ever and ever, as you say !
From that day,
O Muhammad ! O Taha ! O shafi’na on the Last Day !
Men came to you on foot and horseback ;
They said as you said
And prayed as you prayed
And when attacked, they fought back.
You lived in a shack
While your beauty was brighter than the moon ;
You ate with your hands
While one with your beauty would use a gold spoon ;
You sat on the sands
While one with your glory
Would build himself storey upon storey :
And that’s why your story
Has gone as far as Brunei and Zinjibar
And London and New York
Where people eat with a knife and fork,
They too say as you said
And pray as you prayed
And when wrongly questioned, they answer back.
O Muhammad ! O Taha ! O shafi’na on the Last Day !
What can I say on your day
When every day is your day ?
From just a few those who came to you
Filled every hill, swamped every dale,
They made Time stand still till their tale
Made the mightiest kingdoms frail
And brought the Muslim flag as close as Prague !
The Arabian Nights tells of made-up knights
And of Harun al-Rasheed
Whose life the Truth of your Message
Made eed upon eed !
And yet someone came to draw
A pic of a man whose peer he never saw,
And papers and commentators
Seeking cheap money and fake glory
Made every story
Out of the Story of the man whose glory
Defies all Posts and all Tribunes and all Times !
O Muhammad ! O Taha ! O shafi’na on the Last Day !
What can I say on your day
When every day is your day ?
When your name has brought fame
To a Dane who became insane ?
What can I say on your day
When night and day
Souls repeat your words
As if they were songs of jungle birds !
Peace be upon you and all those who followed your way !
O Muhammad ! O Taha ! O shafi’na on the Last Day !