This poem highlights the fundamental problems associated with Islamic Sharia thinking. Music, poetry, philosophy, performing arts such as dance and drama, sculpture, painting, free thinking, etc., are all either declared outright ‘haram’, or are ostracized and regarded with distaste and suspicion by mullahs and their followers. Secular education which aims to provide a rounded and modern awareness of the world in which we live, or books (outside of Islamic religious texts), which add to our understanding and enlarge our vision, refine our aesthetic senses and teach us to accept diversity of cultures, are all either ignored or actively repudiated and opposed by people grounded in religion. The word ‘kufr’, which translates in English as infidelity, ungodliness, irreligiosity, etc., is associated in orthodox Muslim minds with sin, and many expressive art forms such as painting and sculpture, and music and free thinking are regarded as outright sins. But my poem lists all the various above-mentioned factors as the bases upon which great civilizations were built in human history. In Pakistan and Afghanistan women’s education is actively discouraged. In many cases girls’ schools are burned down in these countries. In Europe and America, Islamic schools and madrasas are being established to counter what my poem lists as the essentials of education for the development of diversity, dignity and understanding in human life. Kufr, my poem, also lists the global threat to environment, about which general awareness and concern is next to nil in the Islamic world. This, in my view is the greatest sin that anyone could commit. In addition, if music, performing arts, sculpture, painting, dance and drama, books of literature and poetry, are ‘kufr’, then my poem invites all to welcome and embrace it.

Kufr