Puzzle 11: But...

Our heart is like a clear water. Don't contaminate it with impurities.

They want to advise us -

But they are scared -

For their advices would be rejected -

And they did advise us -

But using the harsh words -

Totally difficult - to be absorbed by the heart -

They want to preach us -

But they are worried -

If their preaching would not be accepted -

And they did preach us -

By showing off - their good deeds -

With no sincerity - full of pride -

They hate to see us living in darkness -

But they keep insulting - and backbiting - about our sins -

Never show us - the clear path to God -

And they did show us the path -

But the way they showed us is too rigid - and firm -

Islam is a way of life -

Isn't its teaching - ease its followers? -

They attempt - to change our lifestyle -

Which is too 'western' -

But they never - give us the guidelines -

Only want us to follow their traits -

Although they are not always right -

They tell us to do this and that -

But they don't realise -

That they're also doing the same thing -

Only with different approaches -

They say we are musyrik -

For not following the right teaching of Islam -

But don't they notice - that they are munafik? -

For carrying out services - to seek human's pleasure -

They say they love us - as their brothers -

But they call us pelacur - sesat - kafir - ahli neraka -

Is this what they learned

From the Prophet's teaching -

They blame others - for not bringing us to God -

But they forgot - that they didn't do anything -

To make us closer to God -

They think - they are the chosen ones -

But they forgot God only picks -

Those who have pure heart -

They might look noble - holy - alim - warak - 

Whatever they name it -

But they forgot the two keys (only) -

Will lead us to His paradise -

Ikhlas - and mardhatillah -

In this case

Who are to be blamed?

Note 1 (A bit info about Emily Dickinson): Yesterday, I learned about one of America's greatest poets, Emily Dickinson. She is different from other American or English poets that I know. Her style of writing poems is very unique and unusual which is very rare to find in other poets. She never puts a title for all the poems that she wrote and although her poems are very short compared to others', the message that she tries to reveal to readers are very clear. Some of her poems that I learned mostly are criticism of her religion, Puritanism (one of Christianity sects). Even she herself is quite religious in her own way but she does not satisfy with the way how her society treat their religion as they are too rigid and firm about carrying out services to God. Furthermore, if I'm not mistaken, she's the only poet who likes to use punctuations in her poems. The usual punctuations that she uses are dash (-), comma (,) and capital letters. In this poem, I borrowed her style of putting the dash symbol in each line for each stanza. Emily uses dashes to create a pause while readers reading her poems and the pause is to make them think and ponder about the meanings hidden behind each word written in the poems.

Note 2: Last two days, IIUM have been shocked by an article posted by a post-graduate student in Facebook. The article titled "UIA Bakal Jadi Sarang Pelacur" has created contoversy among the IIUM community (staffs and students). From what I know, most of them totally disagree with the way he gave his opinion about IIUM, including me. Ok, although I admit that some of his sayings are true but this isn't the right way to preach (or to make da'wah) to others. Isn't our beloved Prophet s.a.w. had tought us the right and beautiful way of preaching Islam? As many blogs updated their posts to reply his 'kind' criticism about IIUM, I also thought of doing the same thing but through a very short prose.

Note 3: The speakers of the poem are those who experience what I have experienced throughout my life. We know how does it feel to be preached by those kinds of people. It totally hurts and only He knows how much painful our heart is.

Note 4: So sorry if the language I used in the poem is too harsh but that's the reality. But, please pause when you reach the symbol dash while reading my poem titled, "But..." There are specific meanings hidden behind those verses and I want you to keep pondering about it. Later, you decide whether you agree or disagree with me.

Wallahua'lam.