Adli Yacubi

Tag: Poetry

  • When the Pirates Wear Uniforms

    When the Pirates Wear Uniforms

    When flags become brands and uniforms cloak injustice, we must name what we see: a world where war hides behind legality and theft wears a tie. This blog is a poetic protest against global hypocrisy — from Gaza to gilded offices — and a reminder that resistance still rows quietly below deck.

  • Joburg Remembers Too: From Gaajah to Burdah

    Joburg Remembers Too: From Gaajah to Burdah

    From a family Gaajah in Florida North to the chorus of the Burdah at Houghton Mosque, Joburg’s dhikr carries both intimacy and grandeur. This Rabiʿ al-Awwal, in Heritage Month, I was reminded that memory does not belong to Cape Town alone. It stretches wider — across towns, valleys, mosques and homes — carried in the…

  • In Our Veins, In Our Graves: Mawlud and Memory

    In Our Veins, In Our Graves: Mawlud and Memory

    This reflection flows from my Radio 786 series with Gadija Ahjum — Rooted Light, Series 2. In the month of Rabiʿ al-Awwal and Heritage Month, I write of Mawlud as memory in our veins and in our graves: sandalwood tasbihs from Makkah, rampies leaves cut by children, the riwāyah of Barzanji, and the moment we…

  • The Prophet in Our Veins: On the Scent, Sound, and Song of Cape Devotion

    The Prophet in Our Veins: On the Scent, Sound, and Song of Cape Devotion

    Rabi al-Awwal has entered our skies. In Cape Town, remembrance is not reserved for the minbar — it pulses in the scent of rosewater, in quiet salawāt whispered in traffic, and in songs sung without instruments. This reflection explores three threads of Prophetic remembrance — as a guide in our struggles, a wellspring of longing,…

  • The Stormborne Sisters: A Karoo Creation Tale

    The Stormborne Sisters: A Karoo Creation Tale

    In the Karoo, three koppies rise like ribs from Mother Earth’s chest — storm-sisters who absorbed a comet’s grief and became stone. This is their myth. Their vanishing. Their voice beneath the silence.

  • The Garden of Words

    The Garden of Words

    Before Rafiq ever dropped his first scroll, there was a garden of words — planted in silence, grown in love. This is his origin soil.

  • The Mother Tongue of Tasbih: Afrikaans, Islam, and the Echoes of Resistance

    The Mother Tongue of Tasbih: Afrikaans, Islam, and the Echoes of Resistance

    “Os wiet dat ’n taal is ook ’n houvās.” We know that a language is also a holding — like a salomie wrapped in a roti: not to preserve perfection, but to keep the inside warm. Spiced, sacred, messy, surviving. This blog is my offering — a prayer for our tongue, our tasbīḥ, and the…

  • Comfort of Our Eyes…

    Comfort of Our Eyes…

    In a world where sermons often speak to the youth or about parents, this khutbah speaks for the child. Inspired by the memory of Jayden-Lee Meek — an 11-year-old who died under tragic, preventable circumstances — this reflection draws from the Prophet Muhammad’s ﷺ tenderness towards children and confronts the silence that allows harm to…

  • The Legend of the Silver Tree

    The Legend of the Silver Tree

    “Not brought by botanists. Not named by settlers. But gifted by a porcupine, Planted by Gubi and Nori, Rooted in fire, story, and seed.” A tale passed down through generations — from mother to child, from silence to word. Set beneath Table Mountain, this is the story of the Silver Tree, the river Camissa, and…

  • The Ratib al-Haddad: A Symphony of Spiritual Resilience

    The Ratib al-Haddad: A Symphony of Spiritual Resilience

    Discover the Ratib al-Haddad’s movements, history, and meaning, from slavery to anti-apartheid resistance in the Cape, told as a spiritual symphony.