There have been thousands of queens… but there’s one Ummul Baneen
Who can compare to the one that gave all her sons to Hussain?
* * *
I’m ashamed of writing her name with my pen
She gave four sons away, wishing they were ten
Battles are for men, yet though she’s a woman
Her courage embarrasses a thousand men
No man living on this Earth… can touch Ummul Baneen’s worth
Queens come and go but thirteen hundred years and this queen remains
* * *
They say women in Islam are not equal
They’re right, she’s not worth one man – she’s worth them all
They say veils oppress, but with her veil
She’d unveil a moon called Abu Fadhil
Whilst their hair would flow freely… she’d raise the sons of Ali
They wanted beauty but she saw beauty in Ashura’s pain
* * *
Some side with the son of she who ate livers
She sided with the son of Kawthar’s rivers
Some would choose the mother of the believers
Yet she chose the mother of Hussain’s lovers
One fought and lost at Jamal… one won Karbala’s battle
We believe in women whose status no others can attain
* * *
I have not seen a Queen who serves her own prince
She met Hussain and fell in love ever since
She’d perfume herself with Karbala’s fragrance
When he’d leave her side she’d lament his absence
She would teach her son Abbas… don’t ever let him feel thirst
If she kept having more sons she’d give them again and again
* * *
The queen of Muharram is Ummul Baneen
She’d mourn him before our eyes had even seen
If she had never lamented her Hussain
The majlis and mourning would never have been
Shed tears until your eye aches… strike your chest until it breaks
Like her love, you have a love that only our hearts can contain
* * *
Ummul Baneen dies and closes her eyelid
Abbas with severed hands can’t cradle her head
She can’t see the arrow from which his eye bled
He has no head as Abbas they would behead
They may be reunited… yet she drowns in tears she’s shed
Ummul Baneen on Judgement Day with Fatima you’ll complain
* * *
(London – 26/03/16)