At the Grand Mosque of Skardu, a Ghazal

Sara Zahidi In this ekphrastic poem, the poet presents her musings upon seeing a mosque.

Grand Mosque of Skardu, captured by Sara Zahidi

I stand with my camera at the entrance of Skardu’s grand mosque today.

The sun has passed its zenith at midday, its Zuhr o’clock today.

A muezzin’s call to prayer rings out of the sole white-washed minaret

and the mosque’s courtyard drumbeats to the march of walk today.

Worshippers assemble in neat rows for Friday’s congregation—

under a Persian indigo-blue dome, the shepherd meets His flock today.

An elevated place in ‘a lowland between two high places’—

this ‘high’ land will drive out each worshipping soul’s dark today.

I gaze at the holy verses inscribed in the tile and mirror work.

My reflection beckons, there’s a door there you must knock today.

Rumi said “the faithful are a mirror to one another”, nearby an angel 

lovingly whispers, “Sara be careful, you might melt a rock today”.

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Sara Zahidi is a keen traveller, photographer and writer who enjoys the great outdoors, which features frequently in her writing and photographs. More than a decade of living overseas has also made her reflect on themes of identity, belonging and equality. Sara holds a BSc degree in Computer Science from LUMS and an MSc and LLM from the University of Dundee, Scotland. She has had her poems published in Lakeer Magazine’s Chowk and TWS Publication’s 146th anthology. Sara is currently based in Islamabad, and displays her photography, writing and poetry at @strangerinaland on Instagram.