March 2018
Issue 21
The UIC MSA Publication
Al-Bayyan
Echoes
saba ali
Aminah Johnson
esraa elkossei
Aminah Johnson
Sumaiyya Ahmed
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Introduction
An echo is a verbal reflection; reaction; response; reproduction; re-whatever. Its existence is contingent on sound waves crashing against a surface and firing right back at the soul who screamed; yelled; swore; cursed; admitted; blurted; expatiated; enunciated; murmured; finally-faced-reality-and-faced-the-selfand-spoke-truth-to-what-is-inside. And perhaps the reflection; reaction; response; re-whatever that is produced is there to remind you. Even the loudest screams, biggest falls, saddest admissions are met by Mother Nature who in return produces its own melody to let you know to keep on keeping on. The laws of physics do not leave room for flatlining. And neither should you. Farooq Chaudhry Editor in Chief
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Poetry Forever A Struggle Sometimes Our lives can be A whirlwind A rush from here To there There are times Where I wonder Where to From here I often think There has to be More to All of this Forever a struggle Between The echoes of The past And the distant rumble Of what lies ahead. For it could not be Should not be Would not be All for Naught Abdul Basith Basheer
Just keep smiling smiles are a means of charity, but why is it that today, they are such a rarity? we’ve grown cold, just doing our daily grind, good people are now gems - so hard to find people that are happy, people that smile people that are willing to go that extra mile that actions you do to help others, speak loud, echoing through the walls, echoing through the crowds you work hard to alleviate the pain of others, seeing strangers as your sisters and brothers you do good for no ulterior reason for you, kindness has no season I applaud you, I respect you, and I hope your smile never disappears, and I hope your actions and your words leave echoes that I never cease to hear Javerea Ahmed
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Silent Echoes
You came on a warm bright day But left on the brightest, coldest day in November Both are days in my mind That I will always remember It feels like yesterday When I was hugging your scent The sound of your voice ringing throughout you As I held you close I think back to the day you left When the presence of angels filled the room As they spread their wings over your body Taking with them all your pain As they prepared you for the land of eternal bliss The wind carried with it, the sound of your voice Caressing my face, my soul Bringing solace in the rendering silence The echoes of prayer were still on your lips Always praising the ever Al-Mighty The hint of a smile permanently etched on your face Tranquility seeped throughout your body As the machines quietly vibrated in the corner Mocking the silence in the room The sound of your laugh reverberates in my mind I look in the mirror And the reflection of your warm brown eyes Stares back at me No words come out Thoughts forever left unsaid The only thing that remains Is the echoes of you in my head Amna Akhtar Ali
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You’re still responsible for what you choose to ignore For every secret you have swallowed For the words caught in your throat that so desperately wish To plunge themselves off your lips For every sorrow you have sat on with closed legs For all the strength you have enclosed within your fists For every time you dreamed of screaming But were told you’re too bold for even existing For every word that has fallen on ears that refuse to listen May the life you bear echo every sound your voice dreamed to make May your children learn to speak from your silence Samirah Alam
It’s 3AM and my thoughts aren’t coherent: a fookin reflection You put your best foot forwards, always. You do everything right, by the books. Incessantly try to cross everything off the “to-do” list of life. It’s consuming. The future is consuming, the paths that we take and where and to whom they may lead us to, overwhelming, at the very least. I’m just as lost as everyone else, but hey when all else fails here’s one fool proof plan: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
Clean your room. Clean your heart. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.
Javerea Ahmed
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The Echoes of Our Prayers Dear Ghouta, Syria Your death toll has surpassed 1000 now In merely a three weeks’ time, As history is simply repeating itself And the world sits watching this gruesome, malicious crime Dear Rohingya, Myanmar Your images haven’t desensitized us yet We can hear your pain, your suffering, your cries The faces of those whose faith hasn’t been altered As with each and every day, another innocent soul dies Dear Jerusalem, Palestine We are watching you from afar, Weeping over your stolen blessed land We were willing to fight, protest, and boycott, on your behalf but all that has done, was gotten us banned Dear humanity, Somewhere down the line We have neglected the oppressed United, we once were determined to end this brutality But by the looks of it, we’ve only regressed Dear humanity, You see, we have turned into quite the oppressors We sit and watch as your daily calamities unfold Your tears keep falling, along with the endless missiles As we pray our donations are given, for that is what we’re told Dear humanity, I ask once again, that we do a bit more this time Take in the abandoned ones, and help them rise Intervene, educate, inform, while ignorance prevails Before, one by one, our conscious dies Dear humanity, They maintain this resilience in the face of adversity And as I share this I ought to admit That as for me, I haven’t given, nor said enough For as I speak, I’m calling myself out as a hypocrite To whom this may concern, When it becomes our turn, no one will hear us out No kings, presidents, politicians, nor mayors We’ll pray, and beg for a single soul to intervene But all we’ll hear are the echoes of our prayers My sincerest apologies, Rawan Sulieman
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THE MYSTERIES OF SOZINHO CAVE Atif Siddiqui
“Tenma, I think it’d be best if we stopped here for a little bit.” Dr. Tenma reluctantly turned around and held his oil lamp up to see the state of the rest of the men. As I looked at him, a thin man with a sharp grey beard, I noticed the soft glow of flames dancing on his smudged spectacles, and for a moment, his impassioned eyes and wry smile hid behind the safety of burning kerosene. I was tired. We were all tired. Even Dr. Tenma was tired, not that he’d ever admit to something so absurd. I looked just past Dr. Tenma’s eyes and into the spiraling abyss that lay ahead of us, the oddly compelling darkness that seemed to go on forever. The walls were damp, the air warm and heavy, and while we all wanted to stop for a moment, something deep inside the cave was calling us, telling us to keep pushing, keep going. I looked back at the seven others behind us, all with similarly exhausted looks and dirtied faces, their hard hat lights shining brightly in my direction. I looked back towards Tenma and the rest of the cave behind him as I wiped my brow. After weeks of traversing this God forsaken cave, we’ve hit a narrow tunnel- 4 feet across,
5 feet tall- and the cramped space was making it hard to breath, hard to think. Dr. Tenma was unaffected by all of this, of course. He merely grinned at the thought of stopping and assured us there was a checkpoint up ahead we could rest at, and turned back around to keep walking. That’s when we heard it. The creature. It was the unmistakable collection of spine chilling black noises we’d been hearing for weeks now. The low, heavy scraping sounds and the distinct thump that followed, as if it were dragging its legs slowly towards us. We all knew the drill, and Mark, our designated screamer, yelled “Lights out!” All of us immediately turned off our lights and sat in complete, unmoving darkness. The sound became louder and louder, slowly slithering towards us. Dr. Tenma merely groaned as if whatever horribly grotesque and blood thirsty monster following us was just another silly annoyance delaying him from his goal. This cave, you see, wasn’t like other caves. Discovered many years ago by none other than Dr. Tenma himself, this enigma of a cave suddenly appeared in a remote part of the Brazilian rain forest right before Dr. Tenma’s eyes. What’s more is that
he claims the cave has supernatural and scientific properties not found elsewhere on the planet. After years of research and dedicated spelunking, he compiled all the strange scientific phenomenon into a collection of scientific articles, a collection subtly dubbed “The Mysteries of Sozinho Cave.” (He named the cave himself). The rest of his collected knowledge about this place, the kind of stuff that wouldn’t ever get published, he kept to himself and a select few. “The echoes,” He’d often wistfully say, as if recalling a distant memory. “Sometimes if you’re lucky enough, the echoes will answer you…” None of us believed the good doctor’s stories. That is, until we witnessed them firsthand. The first time was actually during the start of this expedition. There was a sheer cliff that we needed to scale down to get onto the floor of the cave, a climb that Dr. Tenma had made hundreds of times on his own. This time however, he slipped, and fell 40 feet to what should have been his death. When we reached where he fell, however, he sprang up as if nothing had happened, he hadn’t even broken a leg. He laughed it off and claimed it was the cave looking out for him. “Never
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forget, the cave provides!” he mused in delight. A day or two after Dr. Tenma’s fall, the creature began following us. Tenma, however, already knew how to deal with it. “If you hear the creature coming, don’t panic, cut the lights, and sit perfectly still. For whatever reason, the monster can’t see too well.” None of us, probably not even Tenma, knew what the dang thing looked like, but the slow, bizarrely alien sounds of the beast steadily approaching were enough to drive a man insane. So, we all simply stood there, in utter silence and in the pitch-black darkness, waiting for it to pass. But, as with everything in this cave, there was something strangely engrossing about the creature. What was it? Why was it following us? Where did it come from? From deeper in the cave? Were there more? Tenma had little desire to find out the answers to these questions, but I, on the other hand, have found myself inexplicably reaching for my flashlight to see what it was on more than one occasion, all of us had. We all sorta felt it, the hypnotic lull of the monster’s movements. Something was telling me I just needed to see it.
And that’s when it happened. Just as the creature was about to pass us, bright light suddenly flooded the tunnel. It was Mark, he turned on his flashlight as if he’d gone insane. All of us shot him a desperate look, and in return we saw his wide eyes and delirious face, as he screeched “I’M SORRY, BUT I NEED TO SEE IT! I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT IT IS!” We all panicked and turned our lights on as well, if we were going to die we at least wanted to see what took us all out. But nothing happened. There was only silence. The movement had stopped, and there was nothing around, no creature in sight. After a very tense moment of waiting, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone except Tenma, that is. I had never seen the old man so angry before. He screamed a screamed so shrill and loud that the sound bounced and reverberated around the tunnel walls for what seemed like forever, assaulting our ears. “LIGHTS OUT! YOU TRYING TO GET US ALL KILLED?” As the echoes reverberated down the tunnel, we heard the creature approach, this time much faster than before. There was no stopping it. We heard
it rush from in front of us and stop right as our lights would have revealed it. Then, it slowly crawled into view. What we saw shocked all of us. Standing in our view was an emaciated and hunched over man who looked exactly like Dr. Tenma, with a makeshift splint holding together what appeared to be a broken leg that looked like it probably came from a pretty nasty fall. “There you guys are!” He breathed out, exasperated. “I finally found you! I’ve been following you guys for weeks since I fell but I couldn’t hear you, all I could see were your lights and the…” But he never finished that sentence, because he realized there was another him standing right in front of his crew. And that’s when we heard the echo. An echo that seemingly came from deep within the cave, as if it were responding to us, answering a question none of us had the courage to ask. What it said was unmistakable. “Run.”
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Good Human Being Ali Nasaruddin
The meaning of life is to be a good human being to yourself and to others. On the path to becoming a better human being, God gives us tests for us to challenge ourselves and grow. So, we’re tested over and over and over again on the same things, with the tests being just a bit more challenging than the last. Old situations and old friends and old enemies all
come back into your life to teach you what you need in that point in your life so that you can grow and build upon what you learned previously. This life is not just a bunch of “random” and “awkward” moments. Everything in this universe aligns together to help you orchestrate the most beautiful self you can be. God bless you.
Coming out of the Cave Sarah Basheer
Imagine being stuck in a cave for the entirety of your life. First of all, you wouldn’t have much to do living as a cave-dweller. It would be nearly impossible to see in the pitch black surroundings and you would be alone. Every sound you make and every word you vocalize would ring again and again moving farther away from you changing slightly in tune and pitch. As I near another milestone in my life, I think of all the people who came
before me. My mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother and how I’m an echo of every one of them. Not exactly the same but similar as every echo moves deeper and deeper into the cave. It seems like every additional branch on our family tree is just like an echo passing farther into the darkness. Life is full of echoes, reoccurring people and moments and mistakes. Sometimes it feels like we’re doomed to repeat
the same mistakes over and over, never actually learning from them. But we don’t want to be cave dwellers forever. The past repeats itself and we find ourselves in similar situations or people calling back at us again. But learning from these mistakes, we can stop the echoes ringing in our ears and finally leave the cave and walk into the sunlight.
mimic all my thoughts. I remember Brian telling me about how he went out with a girl where she sat on her phone half the time. He said, “What? Am I just boring? Sorry I’m not interesting enough to talk to.” I completely resonated with him in that moment. There was a dash of salt, a sprinkle of insecurity, and a whole lot of disappointment in how people communicate with each other - exactly how I feel when the same thing happens to me. Each time we began speaking about a new topic, Brian would say exactly what I was thinking. I was so amazed; it’s as if we had the same mind.
To some, it may sound like I’m in love with Brian. Rather, I’m in love with something that is entirely all too absent in today’s world. I’m in love with being completely in someone’s presence. I’m in love with meeting people who remind me that we’re all made from the same clay. I’m in love with feeling so connected to someone in this big and lonely world. I’m in love with resonating with someone so much that I can hear the echo of my thoughts in a stranger’s words.
Brian
Nui Waris
It’s so easy to feel alone in this age where people have left making real connections to forge virtual ones. Going out with people often consists of sitting together but not being together. Among the bustle of city life last Friday night, I had the honor of taking an Uber ride with Brian. Throughout the course of the ride, Brian and I talked about a million things - gun control, the NRA, greed as a disease of the heart, modernday interaction, diversity, ignorance, and scapegoating. The topics aren’t as important though. What’s important is that for EACH topic, without fail, Brian seemed to
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Editors in Chief Farooq Chaudhry Nuha Abdelrahim Ghost Managing Editor Ibraheim Mohammad Staff Writers Ummesalmah Abdulbaseer Sarah Basheer Safa Shameem Nahian Saed Samirah Alam Nui Waris Ali Nasaruddin Javerea Ahmed Staff Artist Saba Ali
Doodles Sumaiyya Ahned Creative Direction Noor Abdelrahim Interested in contributing to Al-Bayyan? If so, email submissions to albayyanuic@gmail.com
Cover Photo Courtesy of Aminah Johnson
Meme Masters Aleena Haider Manal Qadeer Not Kareem Jabri