The Rose of God’s Garden
For this project, I was inspired by a poem from “In Praise of Muhammad: Sindhi and Urdu Poems.” Written by Salim Ahmad, this na’t begins with a description of the author’s empty spiritual state before being touched by Muhammad. The author then goes on to describe how one day when “The greeting of life came…for my tongue uttered the name of Muhammad.” After his revelation, the author describes how his soul becomes full, as he is able to see and feel Muhammad in various spiritual capacities.
I was particularly touched by the verse that describes Muhammad as “the rose of God’s garden.” A rose is a lovely and sweet-smelling flower, often considered the most beautiful and romantic of all flowers. This comparison to a rose not only reminds me of the almost romantic relationship between Allah and Muhammad but also of the ideal manner in which Muhammad lived his life. Like a rose, Muhammad was the perfect human being, living exactly how Allah wanted all humans to live. As we have discussed in lecture, Allah created all of Earth’s nature to be beautiful and pleasing to Muhammad, so it is fitting that the rose, one of Allah’s most divine creations, represent His final prophet.
I wanted to emphasize Muhammad as “the rose of God’s garden”, so I decided to rewrite the words of the na’t to depict a beautiful rose growing from Allah’s holy soil. The stem of the rose represents the physical human connection Muhammad had with the followers of Islam. The stem extends up towards the Sun to represent His reliance on Allah as the illuminator and light of the world. The rays of sun embody the Qur’an, which was revealed to Muhammad so that he could illuminate the path on which we could follow back to Allah.