Controversial Poem by San Francisco Poet about Islam Warns How The Muslim World Has To Change

Peter Reynosa has written a poem that warns the Muslim world how it needs to change. In his poem “Sons of the Prophet” he writes about how the West and the Muslim world are colliding and what he believes this means. “It is a poem that tries to explain how the West and the world of Islam are clashing and what this ultimately means,” Reynosa said, in describing his poem.

And while the poem is often praising of the Muslim world and very critical of the West’s imperialism toward the Muslim world, the essence of the poem is a critique of the Muslim society more than anything else. “The poem is very critical of some social aspects of the world of Islam,” Reynosa explained. “The hardest part of the Muslim word to change is its religion; and it will have to do this if it is to advance into democracies and free societies.”

And what change is Reynosa referring to in the poem? “Islam has to change from a religion for society to a religion for the individual. Basically, what happened to Christianity has to happen to Islam.”

The poem also discusses the need for women to achieve equality, the necessity for democracies to be established, and the fact that all this change will have to come from within the Muslim world itself. “The West can aid in the transition, but Arabs must be the catalyst for this change themselves.”

Reynosa is 47 years old and is a poet and a painter who lives in San Francisco. Reynosa had the poem put on Youtube and the poem is also show below.

SONS OF THE PROPHET

Sons of the Prophet──

    Heed this poesy, be aware of this strife:

Our civilizations are colliding──clashing

    As winds from the West meet

            The Holy Quran’s way of life.

Yet only one query arises:

    It overshadows all others in thought:

For it is the Muslim question

    And how it is to be wrought.

Sons of the Prophet──

    Glory be the great civilizations of thy people’s past!

From Babylon’s Hanging Garden and Pyramids of awe and wonder,

    To the Tigris and Euphrates valley’s procreation’s vast,

          To the tomes of Alexandria’s knowledge amassed.

And when ages of darkness befell Europa,

    Moslems rejoiced in an era of gold, with courts of splendor:

Artists──poets──saviors of our classics rendered:

    Cairo! Baghdad! Córdoba! Without any contenders.

Sons of the Prophet──

    Beware the Western imperialism of yesteryear;

For the threat of hegemony and exploitation

    Is always of near;

         As the ghost of Napoleon’s Egyptian army

              Longs to rise──domineer.

Mandates, colonial borders, and dictators made gods──

    Cultures with age-old traditions raped and plundered:

This be our legacy of might and blunder

     ──Yet one forever threatening new eras

             Of lightning and thunder.

Sons of the Prophet──

    Primitive savages of bigotry and hate and fear?

──Or, beauty and unimaginable compassion and love?

    O Prophet! What be sincere──and what be veneer?

Do jihadists with steed and sword

    Mirror the Crescent Moon’s core?

Or does the green from the Indus Valley

     And North African sands to the

             Spanish coastline be more?

Sons of the Prophet──

    Reforms of the sacred waters of Nile a must:

Let there be no compulsion in religion;

    Let there be but toleration and trust.

And the River should be a most personal joy:

    One not of all, every and society entire,

Else Mohammedanism shall come to aspire

    Ottoman’s destiny of doomed empire.

Sons of the Prophet──

    Fear not things from others’ seashores;

Seek Wisdom from lands both unseen and unheard,

    As they too learn of your mores and legends and lores.

Know the heretics of Greece;

    And the ungodly of Rome!

For Western ways are not but pleasures and trinkets

    Of the godless alone.

Sons of the Prophet──

     Infidel invasions there shall never come:

For charioteers of Mars proselytize none

     As victory eludes campaigns of such might therefrom.

So if not by another Hundred Years’ War──

     Nor if by vassal and fief?

Then ye be the exalter:

     Both mother──midwife.

Sons of the Prophet──

    Once our land was also desert most dry;

All thinking but handmaiden to theology──

     Separation of State and Church impiety most high.

Christendom: religion by flogging:

     Conversion of heathen and pagan by sword:

Witch burnings! Dogma by divine revelation!

     Spreading faith by intolerance──

             Knowing truth only by horde!

Sons of the Prophet──

    A renaissance is needed!

And enlightenment must be unyoked!

    Where knowledge is not simply learning

             Ancient texts by rote.

Let the mind think on all things unknown,

     Allow Newton’s science of inquiry

            To travel all roads;

Hold nothing forbidden or left in the dark──

     Permit an age of reason yet told,

              And Copernican revolution to embark and unfold.

Sons of the Prophet──

    Monarchs and soldier-politicians must the Bedouins depart

As the body politic falters and rises

    To freedom of expression and to

           Freedom of thoughts in their hearts.

Social tolerance of opposite views,

     And speeches without fetters must roar:

To keep authoritarian traditionalism at bay,

     And for government by the people to soar.

Daughters of the Prophet──

    Ye must attest most of all

How Khadija’s betterment and deliverance

     Shall despise forced veilings and seclusions

            As mere patriarchal  law.

Be neither a shadow nor silhouette,

      For authentic lives of liberation await!

But bathe in prideful garments if that be thy wish

      ──However, scream and howl if subjugated,

              Or ignored of Arabian societies created!

Sons of the Prophet──

     I will not be cowardly and meek──

But tell of the most unholy of wars inevitable

     That Martyrs in waiting do seek.

For if totalitarian theocracy be without hope,

     Then all of Islamdom shall hang by self-rope;

──Or, a cursed wasteland of conflagration

      Of only poison──flies──and scorching breath

              Foretells our future in a world

                  Damned to unending torment and death.