Languages in Love
11/15/07
I have been contemplating my supplications, the manner in which my tongue falls and rises tracing ancient pathways in different languages. A prayer I chant rhythmically in Arabic is taken around a different bend in Swahili, before I break down and try to get closer to what I really mean in English.
Every time my tongue rises and falls, something in me shifts; my understanding, my orientation towards God and Reality is subtly moved. I feel as if I am sitting at the base of the proverbial mountain and am afforded different snapshots of the sceneries in shifting perspectives.
Swahili is mother earth. It is the tropical heat, muddy alleyways, the sticky sweetness of jasmine flowers. It speaks of paradoxes at home with each other; poverty and abundance, hideousness and beauty, generosity and intolerance, cruelty and love, biting cynicism and the necessity of faith. It grounds me in the way I remember the texture of my toes, heels, and soles sinking into sand; at home with the earth. It grounds me in the way that poor people have very little patience for frivolity.
Maybe because my memories of our time in the Middle East are faded, Arabic remains distant yet near. It’s buried in my bones with my grandparents; migrated the globe with their footsteps, seeped other tongues into its blood. Its purity lies in an exile’s dreams of a small valley called Hadhramout lying beyond the reaches of her fingers. Arabic is laced in the sepia toned photographs of a little girl in undone braids, smiling shyly at the camera. The language that taught me poetry, rhythm, softness. I credit my sapiness to years of crooning to Raghib and Amr Diab (I cringe to admit). My soul was equally shaped by the rich melodies and taste nurtured by Fayrooz, Umm Kulthum, and Abdel Halim (the old people music my mother always played in the background.)
Arabic is the language I seek God with, reverently, humbly, fluidly. Seeking eternity with its pathways, complexity and depth.
I found my eloquence in English, perhaps because I learnt it relatively late in life, and I am still translating myself in it. My language of resistance, inquiry, understanding. The language of my oppressors and valiant heroes, my teachers and fellow seekers. I am most comfortable in this foreign tongue and perhaps this should give you a clue to the unease that resides under my skin. This constant tug of war that pulls me under in long stretches of silence; I am neither this nor that.
The language that has been appropriated by victims turned martyrs and heroes; shaping the fist of Malcolm, bearing the dignity of Ghandi, carrying Holiday’s blues and propelling the pens of Ngugi, Achebe, Farrah, Morrison, Alvarez and many others into chants of global resistance.
Breaking it’s stultifying surfaces to unearth the beauty that my soul needs to hear; this language that colors my dreams, and breaks me into fits of tongue-tied frustrations. This language that taught me to question, challenge, to break apart my own prejudices and re/member meanings.
I really had to struggle through these paradigm shifts, trying to decide which best suited “me” or trying to find “my” self in the midst of all the contradictions and definitions. I am just beginning to understand that I was looking in the wrong direction; my gaze and quest are slowly turning outward trying to decipher Reality and understanding this world we are living in a different way from the piecemeal way I have been “trained” to do.
I feel gathered in this way; the contradictions that seemed so jarring just a couple of years ago, are slowly falling into place, like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
As I place my forehead on the ground under a small patch of blue sky, the smell of earth brings out so much that had lain buried within me. Somewhere beyond the realm of imprecise words and laden languages, lies beautiful All Enveloping silence; I seek its spaces because there’s much healing to be done here.
11/15/07 at 12:06 pm
I wish I had written this! But, then I wouldn’t and couldn’t have had such right and precise words as you. And the insight.
Sawahili: ‘…poverty and abundance, hideousness and beauty, generosity and intolerance..’. This takes me back to the plains, the mountains and valleys of Mount Kilimanjaro. This too, is an appropriate description of Africa - the Africa, that I too love dearly.
‘…a small valley called Hadhramout..’ - it could be small but its history is wide (from Khaldoon to Bin Laden) and its people, wise, brave and adventurous. The same music was ‘always played in the background’ there in Africa; you forgot: the music and voice of the one and only only - Abu Bakar Salim Bilfageeh - no other person that I know of, is as synonymous with Hadhramout as he.
As for English: amazingly, you can write it so well and as well as you do and yet ‘..still translating yourself in it..’. I very much doubt that you can write Swahili or Arabic as eloquently and as powerfully, as you can English. I can’t write neither as I do English. Of the three: I find Arabic the hardest and English the easiest.
Insha Allah you will visit the ’small valley’ in time.
11/15/07 at 1:12 pm
Beautiful! Simply amazing. I just loved it.
11/15/07 at 2:52 pm
Salaam dear Maliha,
As someone who still falls between the stools of three languages I know what you mean. Each language brings its own approach and fragrance to life, something almost untranslatable.
Thank you for this beautiful reflection.
Warmly,
Baraka
PS - My love to YuSufyan!
11/16/07 at 7:51 am
Salamaat,
Omar, How could I forget Bilfageeh! And Muhammad Abduh too…they rocked every single wedding in Mombasa. Of course, I write best in English. I absolutely hated Inshas when I was in school (Swahili prose/writing) and dream of one day regaining enough fluency in Arabic to be able to write just as well.
You are right Hadhramout has an amazing history. Just considering how Hadhramis were probably among the pioneers of globalization and trading (I am biased of course.)
Achelois: Thank you dearheart.
Baraka: I like that “fragrance to life’, take care of you gorgeous.
11/17/07 at 12:50 pm
Lovely reflections, as always. I’m trying to retain my Urdu fluency but feel it slipping away slowly as I become more and more comfortable with English. And its hard to know where Arabic falls in the mix, and my vague understanding of Spanish.
p.s. you’re tagged
http://muslimmusings.wordpress.com/2007/11/17/tagged/
11/17/07 at 4:50 pm
What a lovely post
You write so beautifully of the inner “you” that needs no words to come forth, yet is perplexed by the “training” we all go through. In order to worship with a whole heart, we have to unlearn so much of what we have been taught by rote. It is a blessing to love in three languages, all of them are “you” and you are the best for it.
The language of love has no words, silence, silence, silence.
Ya Haqq!
11/20/07 at 1:08 am
Salamat Ya Habibty
You may ponder upon which language you feel at ease most but I want you to know that there is one ancient language we all possess, that runs through the blood of everyone. It is the language of the senses; the one that describes to us the beautiful cerulean blue of the summer sky, the sweetness nectar of the ripe pomegranate, the intoxicating beauty of whispered poetry, the soothing comfort of a touch and the amazing strength of love. Whether these can be expressed or not is immaterial because they carry Life through our being and we know, as surely our forefathers knew, and they who regarded most “foreign” language as alien
11/20/07 at 10:00 am
No one could have said it better(written)than you. You touched the core of every person who has been *touched* by several languages/places. You know sometimes I have this funny thought whenever I try to explain something in a different language.
11/20/07 at 10:51 am
Assalamu Alaikum,
I’ve recently discovered your blog and I’m loving it. I’ve actually read some of your poetry elsewhere some time ago but never knew that you had a blog, glad that I found it. J
I’ve loved your piece because, I can relate to it so much, you’ve expressed my inner struggle in such a profoundly poetic way. Kudos! Thank you.
Salaams.
11/21/07 at 12:24 am
Wow, how limited do I feel having only English at my disposal? I love how you embrace the diversity of language rather than fear it. When I think of how often people misinterpret their native tongue I’m doubly in awe of you.
11/21/07 at 5:43 pm
You have absolutely slain me with this essay. Surely you have been kissed by the Beloved, for how else would your words be so sweet.
Your “language” is sublime.
11/28/07 at 6:13 am
I got woken up by the wining of a cat in the very early hours this morning and couldn’t fall asleep again.
Instead I read this essay, the meowing made it happen.
Thanks to the cat, and you of course.