Ramadan is Poetry in Thought and Motion

Daniel Abd al-Hayy Moore explores Ramadhan through poetry

One month every year, one-fifth of the world’s population takes a step forward towards faith. Muslims reach, strive and yearn for a closer relationship with Allah (SWT). They embark on exceedingly personal journeys to regain their inner peace, their inner Muslim strength. They fast - but it’s so much more than the mere act of abstention.

Fasting is like practicing for death, like “being racked with love you can’t eat.” Like a revelation of the “direct influence of Allah on his Creation.” In Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore’s uniquely imaginative The Ramadan Sonnets, it is all this and then some. Moore takes us to the ends of the earth, to the ends of ourselves and to the infinite beautiful facets of Ramadan in his inspiring book, which chronicles one glorious Ramadan with poems written for each day.

It may be about a child’s delight in a half-day fast and choosing his iftaar (fast-breaking meal), or about rituals of Ramadan around the world. Moore’s musings comes from all angles, catching you with his beauty, amusing you with his interpretations and relating to you with perceptions that were hidden all along in your own heart.

Better still is the book’s attraction for Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Muslims will happily recognize Moore’s evocation of those Ramadan feelings. They who partake in the ritual of fasting know the privilege of fasting. It’s as he writes in his 5th-Ramadan day poem, “Ramadan House Guest”:

Ramadan has come to live with us.

It is God’s private apartments

moved into our house

and taking over.

Where doors were

are entranceways into His Garden.

Where windows were

are continuous waterfalls.

There is such imagery and enticing detail in Moore’s poems that it pierces the hearts of Muslims to reveal the beauty, peacefulness, solitude, togetherness and humbleness within. Whether he ruminates on how reciting the Qu’ran is perfectly suited to our mouths and voices or about the vast repast Allah provides our taste buds (“This is the taste buds remembering Allah’s Divine Names in their own way.”) - Moore writes Ramadan in a way we can’t help but appreciate.

But perhaps more for a non-Muslim The Ramadan Sonnets is a true gift of beauty, inspiration and explanation. What drives a Muslim to fast? Why is Ramadan such a sacred time for Muslims?

Moore takes us on a journey from the cannons of Morocco to the courtyard of Cordoba, Spain to the homes of the United States. He offers the wonder of fasting in a Muslim country where all strive for the same purpose versus and the personal satisfaction of fasting in a non-Muslim country - where you fight against greater temptation for lasting a good. In his 10^th day poem, “It Won’t Turn And Look At Us”, Moore succinctly explains how Ramadan evokes a sense of love:

… and if we can

fasten our hearts only to Him, and at the

very least let eating and

drinking go for His sake, and it is like

a love affair so intense we

forget ourselves almost completely except for a

general discomfort, so that really what the

revelation of Islam is all about is the

physics of a love-affair of the

intensest kind outwardly which if we

fulfill as completely as possible we might taste the

almost unbearable sweetness

inwardly as well and so be

thoroughly consumed.

When Ramadan comes to an end, Moore mournfully laments it, writing “I’ll miss its strange intensity.” Then he offers a beautiful homage to the New Moon and the coming of Eid ul Fitr with such a combination of adjectives, cadence and rhythm that its bittersweet existence comes fully into play. For, as Moore says, we welcome the sighting of the new moon while sadly acknowledging it means the end of another beloved Ramadan.

Such a shame then that this book is currently out-of-print. This journalist took to rare book websites to find a copy (which was relatively easy). Moore says he is working hard to get it back in print, and that there are always copies floating around out there. It’s worth the search.

As Alan ‘Abd al-Haqq Godlas writes in a forward to the book: “To read Moore is to journey. … making the Ramadan Sonnets a pilgrim’s guide to the exploration of intercultural , traditional and ultra-postmodern transpersonal space.” But more so, it’s a guide to the poetry of Ramadan - in sight, smell, sound and emotion.

Dilshad D. Ali’s writing reaches across the United States to address lifestyle topics pertinent to Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Ali has covered movie premieres, film festivals, art exhibitions, concerts, and numerous other cultural stories, including the effect of September 11 on New York’s cultural landscape for IslamOnline. Ali is a 1997 University of Maryland journalism graduate. You can reach her at artculture@iolteam.com