Five poems by Mozibur Rahman Ullah

We arrived late for Friday prayers from a meeting in the city centre. Carried on a warm May breeze, the sermon droned over the little loudspeakers of the dome-less, minaret-less mosque to an audience of motorcycles, chained handcarts, and an avalanche of footwear.

There is a deep affinity between travelling and telling a story. Put in the simplest of terms, both activities require a starting-point, move through a sequence, and, as conclusion of the activity, aim at an ending, a destination. Travel is a lived experience; telling a story is an expression of lived experience.

Questioning the imposition of meaning given to certain Arabic words appearing in the British lexicon, such as fatwa, jihad and mujahid.

There is a book, published in 1892, written by the Hon. Lady Inglis, entitled The Siege of Lucknow. It is a first-hand account of the defence of the Indian town of Lucknow, written by the wife of the general in command of the Residency when the fort was attacked.

Rawabi, the newest municipality in the West Bank, has been the steadfast goal of Palestinian-American entrepreneur Bashar Masri, and is known as the biggest private development project of the Palestinian Territories, and one of its most significant employers.

In March 2017, students of Edwardes College in Peshawar won admiring reviews for their production of Antigone by Sophocles. The young actors enrolled at this late-Victorian foundation – now affiliated to the University of Peshawar – live in a province of Pakistan where the tragedy’s backdrop of fratricidal strife, family division and murderous combat between clashing sources of authority could hardly feel more urgent.