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‘A Crown of Sand and Blood‘

Written by Ahmed Sheikh, originally published on Medium

Published on May 13th 2025

Sometimes, I sit in silence and think about the man who stepped out of the desert 1,400 years ago —

Dust on his cloak, steel in his eyes,

And a god on his tongue.

He did not find Allah.

He invented Him.

He looked upon the chaos of tribes,

The thirst for power, the ache for meaning —

And he carved order from it with myth.

Not peace, but submission.

Not love, but obedience.

Not questions, but decrees.

I have no hatred for the man.

Only a bitter understanding.

He did what many men dream of doing —

He wrapped his will in holiness,

And made it unchallengeable.

What better way to rule

Than to speak in the voice of the divine?

What better mask for blood

Than the veil of prophecy?

He claimed to be the last.

The seal.

The final word.

And in doing so, he buried doubt beneath centuries of fear.

He crowned himself with revelation,

And made blasphemy a crime against eternity.

What genius.

What cruelty.

I imagine him in the stillness of the desert night,

Not receiving revelation,

But forging it —

Like a blacksmith, hammering myth into chain.

He must have known.

He must have seen what power tasted like

When it was offered not as sword, but scripture.

He made the word sacred

And filled it with war.

He cleaved tribes with promises of paradise,

Built empires on the backs of trembling men,

And took women not as equals,

But as rewards.

They call him mercy.

But I see only the machinery of domination,

Polished and perfumed with prayer.

What man needs a god

If he can become one in the eyes of others?

And still today, his shadow stretches over continents.

His words repeated like spells,

His violence justified in whispers and wars.

I was born into that shadow.

Taught to bow before his name,

To weep for him,

To love him more than life itself.

But how do I love the architect of my chains?

I do not.

He was not divine.

He was not chosen.

He was a man —

Brilliant, brutal, hungry.

And he built a god in his own image:

Jealous, wrathful, insatiable.

A god who commands submission,

Not understanding.

A god who rewards belief,

But punishes thought.

What kind of god needs defending with the sword?

What kind of truth must be shielded by violence?

I reject it.

I reject the desert tyrant who called himself final.

I reject the religion of conquest wrapped in revelation.

I reject the god of submission

And the prophet who dreamt him into being.

If he stands in heaven,

Then heaven is a slaughterhouse.

And I would rather walk alone through hell

Than kneel beneath a god made by that man.