An Open Letter to the Dunya

I wrote this on my phone while on a flight...

An Open Letter to the Dunya

By: Yasmin Mogahed

It’s hard to explain the freedom. It’s so deep and so real. Looking through the confusion, the empty boxes and hollow images, I saw you – Dunya. You place veil after veil over my eyes. Trying to win me, deceive me, enslave me to your lies. When the truth is you couldn’t give me even a drop of water when I stood at your door begging. I was on my knees before you, desperate for you to fill me.

What I see now is a glimpse of clarity that only the stab of perpetual disappointment could carve. And I sit here surrounded by your henchmen, your army of liars sent to keep me in chains. But I won’t be your prisoner anymore. I will no longer be that little girl lying awake at night thinking of you. I am no longer that heartbroken child wasting her tears on you. My unrequited love can no longer break me. You won’t break me. I won’t bend to your glitter and false promises. I am no longer that faithful subject standing before your false throne. My tears are no longer yours to have. And my heart is no longer your sanctuary.

You can’t live here anymore.

I’ve traveled a long way to come here. Sometimes there were deserts where all I needed was a single drop of water that you couldn’t give. Sometimes storms, where all I needed was a flicker of light to guide my path. But I asked you again and again for what you could not give. For all you have is pomp, boasting and chattel of deception. And so I found myself again and again in deserts without water, in darkness without light. But I am no longer your slave for there was a man who came to liberate me from this. A man who came to liberate me from this slavery to the slave, and bring me to the slavery of the Lord of the slave.