Dawud Wharnsby
Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, performer, educator and television personality.
“Eating education is like eating Christmas pudding: Too much can make your stomach sore, too much can spoil your whole Christmas. Learning from a man who learned all he learned from another, can lead you to a safe place, but destroy your sense of wonder. Trapped inside a book, locked inside a lecture, when do you find the time to love and spend your days in forests? And when ideals are fleeting ~ tell me then who do you turn to? They prove to you that God is dead, but to them you’re just a number.”
“If a fist can hold a sword, and a fist can clench a pen, but the points of both are missed, by dull, tarnished pride of men. We must open up our hands, raise our palms up high to see, the mazes of our unique selves, end with similarity.”
"When it comes to "Islam" — I look at the word as the verbal noun it is: an action word. I see Islam as something someone does, not something someone "belongs to". I believe that "religion", as the world commonly knows it today, is a divisive factor in community. When I was about 15 years old, I renounced a belief in the importance of "religion", seeking rather to find answers to life's questions. My spiritual quest has always been to bring me closer to my purpose in life, a better relationship with the force that brought me into existence, and how to relate to fellow human beings. When I was 17, I started reading scriptures from around the world and the more I read the more commonality I saw between them all. When I discovered the Qur'an at the age of 20, it seemed to be the most organic in its message. I got out of "religion" and got into life. To this day, I renounce a trust in the institutions of "religion".
“I saw a dream, Earth safe and green. No hunger no war, water so clean. I’ll work for the world that I saw, set my mind and say insha Allah.”
"Hope as rich and green as the trees of an oasis."
“If we can just be brave enough to be each others mirror, we may finally recognize the face of conscious that we fear.”
“It has nothing to do with age, it's not our languages, religion, gender, coulour of our skin; It’s a soul within a well, that echoes deep beneath the ego’s shell. True life can’t ever start, until we offer up our heart.”
“Pictures of politicians preen across our TV screens, pretensions plaques and posters fill our minds and magazines. Promises a burning match, igniting dreams of straw…”
"But on the day the scrolls are laid, with every word and deed displayed, we we read our account, I know, for one, I’ll be afraid.”
“If he could read a line, just understand one sign. Close his mouth and hear the peace of hope and fear, if he could read a line. If he could keep in time.”
“Only when I smell the earth upon my face, will I ever be free, to fly from this place.”
“All the girls and boys seen preening through school halls, fighting to fit in, games they just can’t win, higher education dumbing down a nation, around the square unsure of where we fit in.”
“Truth has been confused. Simplicity refused.”
“But when it rains, it rains on all our houses, we all get cold when it snows. When a storm rolls in, huddled up against our windows, we all feel the fear when a strong wind blows, While on this earth, we’re all of equal worth.”
“I feel for, and identify with, individuals on their spiritual journeys - whether those journeys are hard or smooth. That is why I write about the young man who parties all night and finds it hard to get along with his parents; I sing about the Muslim girl murdered by her father and step mother; I write about the death of a close relative and the struggle of dealing with that parting; I write about conflict within marriage; difficulties being a good parent; religious hypocrisy; consumerism; sexual abuse; religious narrow-mindedness; these are all struggles that are very real within our community. Even if I have not felt these struggles first hand, seeing others around me experience such tests does effect me… the social repercussions of these struggles effect us all one way or another.”
"We’ve got to take a chance, fly by the seat of our proverbial pants. There’s so much we can do, out in this world, me and you. There’s so much we can improve, if you dig my drift, if you catch my groove."
“I only feel close to you when I‘m under open sky, I only feel guided when I’m free to question why.”
“I began to see that some Muslim women look down on others for not covering, or that many Muslim men judge sisters who wear hijab differently from those who don’t. A sister shows up at the mosque one day without hijab and she is treated rudely; she shows up the next day with hijab and she is treated like a queen. Such a scenario is a blatant treatment of the woman as an object, no different than the judgements we see made in secular society of women’s appearances. In the end, it is not about the piece of cloth. It is about the relationship with God, and I know I don’t want anybody judging me so I don’t think it is right for us to judge each other.”
"Allah made us all a different shade and colour. Nations and tribes recognize one another! ’Cause every single person is your sister and brother."
“Build me a tomb for when I die, build it 50,000 feet into the sky... Build me a boat I want to discover America, build me a boat to take me to the edge of the seven seas, build me a boat and you can sail along with me, we’ll spread our money, power, religion and disease. ...Who are they to say that we own nothing and our lives have gone astray?”