Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor
I, too, knelt as a beggar
At the altar of Your righteousness!
I, too, consumed the barren nights,
Pining for a singular glance of Your grace.
For hours on end, I incinerated myself
Within the furnace of devotion.
I, too, beseeched You
For a righteous, blessed child!
A saviour who would rise as the Messiah of my people,
Breathing life into the dead,
Dispensing healing to the broken,
A child whose cloak would bear no stain of a mortal father—
A pure manifestation of Your divine majesty!
I, too, nurtured the splendid dreams of Gabriel’s celestial descent.
I, too, kept vigil at the threshold,
Awaiting that unseen, divine knock,
Hoping that the Holy Spirit would be breathed into my womb,
And that I, untouched by man,
Would become the mother of a Messiah!
So that my existence, too, would hold meaning,
The dust of my being would be crowned with honour,
And my flight would transcend the boundless skies.
I, too, could have proclaimed myself Mary,
Revered as the mother of a true prophet!
Then, I would not have sifted through the ashes of the streets,
Begging for a shred of dignity.
The veil of my modesty
Would not have been torn into wretched shreds.
I would not have been dragged into the public square,
Slandered as a victim of this savage, cruel joke!
But what absolute blackness reigns over Your kingdom?
Forget Mary—You deemed me lesser than dust!
Neither was I granted that sacred mantle,
Nor was my child exalted to the heavens.
The penalty for my innocence
Was inflicted upon that guiltless child,
And the bitterest taunt was hurled by the very man
Whose blood courses through the child’s veins!
Are You,
And that ignorant tyrant,
Masters of the same venomous mind?
I will drag You into the witness box
On the Day of Final Reckoning,
When You must stand before me to answer for justice!
And in full public view, I will tear open the collar of that beast—
The one who insulted the sanctity of motherhood in the marketplace,
While You sat upon Your throne, a mute spectator, watching it all!
I will violently reclaim the ledger of my tears from You.
I will scream into the void: what blind judge of justice are You?
Where every passing breath murders my soul and my pride.
I was relentlessly crushed…
Neither exalted as Mary,
Nor afforded the dignity of an ordinary woman!
By what right, then, do You—and he—claim the title of God?
Nayeema Ahmad Mahjoor is an Author and Journalist
