God is The Light

“God is the Light, Everlasting”

How great the wonders of the heavens
And the timeless beauty of the night
How great - then how great the Creator?
And its stars like priceless jewels
Far beyond the reach of kings
Bow down for the shepherd guiding him home.
But how many eyes are closed to the wonder of this night?
Like pearls, hidden, deep beneath a dark stream of desires.
But like dreams vanish with the call to prayer
And the dawn extinguishes night - here too are signs
God is the Light
God is the Light
How great the beauty of the earth and the creatures
Who dwell on her
How great -- then how great the Creator?
As it's mountains pierce the clouds
High about the lives of men
Weeping rivers for thousands of years
But how many hearts are closed
To the wonders of this sight?
Like birds in a cage, asleep with closed wings
But as work stops with the call to prayer
And the birds recite - here too are signs
God is the Light
God is the Light
How great the works of man and the things he makes
How great -- then how great the Creator?
Though he strives to reach the heavens
He can barely survive
The wars of the world he lives in
Yet how many times he's tried, himself to immortalise?
Like his parents before him in the Garden of Eden
But like the sun sets with the call to prayer
And surrenders to the night here too are signs
God is the Light Everlasting
God is the Light Everlasting
God is the Light Everlasting
God is the Light Everlasting

by Yusuf Islam:
When my brother came back to UK in 1976 there was a Festival of Islam taking place in London, everywhere were books about Islam. He saw the Qur’an in the bookshop and he said ‘That’s the Bible of the Muslims’. So, he decided to buy it and give it to me as a gift.

When I started to read the Qur’an, the first thing that I did was to try and keep an open mind because there were so many preconceived images already built up within me. Many are the times I’d visited my favourite spiritual bookshop in LA, called the Bhodi Tree, but never had I even bothered to look at the Islam bookshelf before. Perhaps that was because my father belonged to a Greek-Cypriot culture and, therefore, anything connected to Muslims was hostile to me.

But the more I read the Qur’an, the more it struck me, deep down. This was not quite that foreign religion which I had come to expect. First and foremost it was talking about belief in God, the Master of the universe; talking about humanity as one family. It mentioned many prophets, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad included, being brothers equally teaching the same message of unity to mankind, and all of us being the offspring of Adam and Eve.

"The innocent are here"

In the daytime time for celebration
No use looking down if it's over here
It's a world a new creation
And the golden light of the morning
Makes it easy to comb your hair
And the love of a child
It's the time of the year
In the daytime you can move a mountain
With a blink of your eye
Now it's over here now it's over there
It's a world with no complications
And the curtains on the window
Start blowing like your hair
And the love that I feel
Cause it's the time of the year
Mysterious moon found me crying in the dark
Heard my footsteps on the stairs
Mysterious moon found me crying
But the sun dried my tears
Showed he cares
In the daytime time for celebration
No use looking down children open your eyes
It's a world a whole nation
Now the white boats have landed
And the innocent are here
So dream for the child
Cause it's the time of the year

After a while I read the chapter called ‘Joseph’ (Yusuf). My life seemed to melt into a mirror of this story. Up to then I too, like Joseph, had passed through many stages and been sold in the market. The section of the story that really shook me was when his brothers, who had thrown him down the well, were face to face with him. Unaware that Joseph was in front of them, they were talking badly about him, slandering him. But he kept it within himself. God! Something resonated inside me, perhaps it was those words I wrote in Father and Son: “All the times that I’ve cried, keeping all the things I knew inside”. At that point, I wept. That chapter opened my heart.
On a winter Friday in 1977, I took that dramatic step and walked to the Mosque in London’s Regent’s Park to declare my faith. Out of the greenery of the trees, there shone this golden dome which was never there before. That was in a way the epitome of everything that I was now discovering: suddenly it was there – where it wasn't there before.

“Yesterday Has Past”

Don't you feel a change a coming
from another side of time
breaking down the walls of silence
lifting shadows from your mind
Placing back the missing mirrors
that before you couldn't find
filling mysteries of emptiness
that yesterday left behind
And we all know it's better
Yesterday has past
now let's all start the living
for the one that's going to last
And we all know it's better
Yesterday has past
now let's all start the living
for the one that's going to last
Don't you feel the day is coming
that will stay and remain
when your children see the answers
that you saw the same
when the clouds have all gone
there will be no more rain
and the beauty of all things
is uncovered again
Don't you feel the day is coming
and it won't be too soon
when the people of the world
can all live in one room
when we shake off the ancient
shake off the ancient chains of our tomb
we will all be born again
of the eternal womb