Shelina Zahra Janmohamed is the author Love in a Headscarf, a humorous and irreverent memoir of growing up as a Muslim woman. She was named by The Times as one of the UK’s 100 most influential Muslim women. She blogs at www.spirit21.co.uk

Words are the aphrodisiac of the soul; sweet, ephemeral illusions that flutter invisibly into thin air, leaving a scent of mysterious yet palpable change. Pulsating human hearts cannot contain inside them their universe – they must share it, through the enigma of words. Their microcosm must spill over to those around them, whether that be through whispers into a lover’s ear, or in the calligraphy of declarations of peace and war.

Voices must always emerge to sing the sweetness and the pain of its people, and express their longing and connection to the world around them. Words are the weaponry and the wisdom of the human spirit. But where have the voices and writings of Muslims disappeared to? Has the Muslim spirit forgotten how to speak? Does it no longer feel hurt or happiness? Once, we sang, wrote and recited poetry. Today, we are mostly silent, a morbid, apprehensive absence.

I often wonder if the modern-day Muslim spirit has been cast into the depths of a lyrical void, a black hole whose darkness and despair is too awful to contemplate. What else could explain the almost-barren landscape of exquisite and inspiring Muslim writing in Britain today? Why this reluctance to express extravagantly and beautifully what stems from the heart, but flows from the fingers?

Only few are the oases where we can quench our thirst for expression and communication. A small number of writers – to inspire the rest of us who long to blossom as writers – are emerging. The fragrance of Muslim writing is beginning to scent the air, but the voices are few. What we need is a chorus.

The poetry of scripture such as the Qur’an is no accident. It seduces the human soul through wisdom and eloquence, to move hearts in unimaginable directions. But also to move lips to speak, and pens to write.

My human need is in my writing. I wish you to enter my universe, even though my bodily presence may be absent. I yearn for you to hear my voice, even though its sound cannot reach you. My words will echo inside you and into your future, even though I was never there.

Today, pens have turned into keyboards, and paper into screens, yet the urge to find words for our spirit is still as primordial as it ever was.

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