Islam in a trench

People understand religion as a set of commands and prohibitions, and punishment regulations, and the limits of the forbidden and the permissible, all of which are worldly matters.. As for religion, it is something else, deeper, more comprehensive, and farther; religion in its essence is the old love that we brought to the world and the constant longing that fills the depths of our hearts to the original homeland from which we came, and the spiritual thirst to the spring from which we were issued, which fills every part of our being with longing and nostalgia, and it is a longing obscured by the veils of worldly life, its preoccupations, and its temptations. We do not wake up to this longing except at moments when ugliness, injustice, absurdity, chaos, and disorder surround us in this world, and we feel that we are strangers to it, that we are not from it, but merely visitors and passersby. At those moments, we yearn for that original homeland from which we came, and we lift our heads in longing and spontaneity to the sky, and every part of us whispers.. Oh God.. where are You? Authored by: Dr. Mustafa Mahmoud A poetry collection for publication