“Regarding Babar Ahmed the government has allowed us to create petition entries for ALL members even those without email addresses. So I request that you forward NAMES and ADDRESSES of ALL family members young or old to 07949178942 to submit their entry. This is completely legal. If you want to see the letter from the government regarding this please text your email address to 07949178942 and a copy will be sent to u. Please FORWARD, EMAIL, FACEBOOK to all. Please don’t delay as your reward awaits with Allah. www.freebabarahmed.com.”

wordswoman:

I

In Africa being a mother meant
That our children survived
On just enough to eat
For a family of six.

Mama mixing canjeelo
After fajr salaah,
Crouched just outside
Her too small shack,
Skirt tucked between her legs;
And her children,
So used to the echoing
Sound of beating wheat
Asleep on a makeshift bed
Never wake,
Not once.

II

When our husbands died
We spent three days
In mourning;

Mornings in prayer
And evenings in lament
And our children never cried
Because they were
Too young to know
What they had lost.

Day four, we took our
Son into the soukh
And taught him to trade
And slaughter sheep,
We showed him how
To stuff the front
Of his father’s shoes
With newspaper balls
Until his feet
Were big enough
To fill them.

III

When our daughter
Came of age
We plaited her hair;
Painted henna on her hands
And feet;
And told her that men
Would see her different now;
To never be alone
With a man who was not
A blood relation,
Because that is purer for her,
And us.

IV

In London
Our daughters fall pregnant
To English men
Whose voices and faces we cannot read;
The same men we warned them about in Africa.
And our sons
Have forgotten the comfort
Of their fathers shoes
And how to fill them.

We raised men and women
On the backs of mothers;
Who stayed up through
The night in prayer
And took her children to madrasa
To learn Qur’an by day.

But in London;
We found that being a single mother,
Means everyone knows
What’s best for your child
But you.