✦ Writing the Names Into Your Body
Healing What Was Stolen From the Tongue
The Divine Names are not only for recitation.
They are for restoration.
For remembrance.
For reclamation.
They are how we write back what systems erased —
not just onto paper, but into the very cells that forgot how to speak freely.
I think of Africa.
Of lands where rhythm, call, and poetry once rooted entire civilizations in Divine nearness —
until chains silenced tongues,
and sacred voices were forced to bow to foreign gods, foreign systems, foreign scripts.
I think of Afghanistan.
A people so deeply rooted in spirituality, poetry, and prophetic love —
and yet made voiceless under bombs, under occupations, under regimes that mistook force for faith.
I think of the veiled speech of women across the world —
speaking in boardrooms, seminars, religious spaces —
yet still muting their truth to stay safe, professional, or permissible.
We were told we had a voice —
but we were taught to use it only in a way that wouldn’t disturb the system.
It is the same violence.
The same exile from truth — dressed in different costumes.
So when I write Ar-Raḥīm across my chest in ink or in breath,
when I whisper Al-Karīm into my hands and press them over my heart,
when I breathe Al-Mu’min into my spine as I stand tall —
I am not just learning the Names.
I am re-membering what they tried to dis-member.
I am writing freedom back into the body.
And into the ummah.
Comments