2 - Once Upon a Moonlight in the Merry Month of June

Summary

In this chapter I recreate the earliest memories of the birth of a child into a faith that defines their character and culture. With the birth of every child, the world is recreated and repeated anew, and the myth of origin is reenacted. God of every Holy Book comes to revisit humanity. I am drawn to the story of the first creation of our humanity in the Qur’an and its sublime rendition by Najam Najm al-Din Razi in his Mirsad al-Ibad, for in it I imagine my own birth, the birth of my brothers, cousins, our parents, and grandparents, all the way back to the birth of every child on this earth; all the way back to Adam and Eve as we imagine them in our Qur’an. We were all born with that breath of God breathing life into the body of Adam. To be born into Shi’ism is one such birth; thus, to be born into a passion, an epic, a moral imperative, a deeply inflicted wound, a martyrdom, a guilt. I was born to Shi’ism, long before a gang of revolutionary reactionaries kidnapped my love and passion and happy, healthy, and robust Shi’i childhood to build a gaudy and reactionary Islamic republic with it. I detail this birthing of a humanity anew in this chapter.