may this find you in Love. welcome to my newest project, The Meccan Openings. the project was created after my brother, Mikaal Sulaiman, and i made our first pilgrimage to Mecca last year. this pilgrimage is an obligation on every healthy, sane, Muslim at least one time in her/his life, if they are able. the Hajj, as its called in Arabic, it is the largest annual congregation of human being in the History of human kind. needless to say, the pilgrimage affected us profoundly. it is difficult to measure how the Hajj has changed us, consciously, subconsciously, emotionally, artistically and otherwise. the reason it is nearly impossible to quantify the gravity of the Hajj is because the Hajj continues to reveal itself to us months after returning home and I am sure it will continue to reveal itself and ourselves for many years to come.
the Meccan Openings is a borrowed title from a book by Ibn Arabi, Al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya (also translated as The Meccan Revelations or The Meccan Illuminations). Ibn Arabi’s is a magnificent work, all of which still hasn’t been translated into English. the breadth of which covers metaphysics, cosmology, spiritual anthropology, psychology, law, prophethood, sainthood, language, and the science of the ninety-nine names of God. it took decades to write and centuries to understand. this album is not pretending to be that. this is but a moment of self realization as any real art is.
mikaal and i did not intend to come home and create this project. he was sending me music as he always does but this post-Hajj music production spoke to something that made me more prolific and lyrically dense than i have every been in my life. Mikaal’s presentation is rare in that it engages the higher and lower stations of Self effortlessly. his soundscapes make the aggressive and progressive, the ethereal and the sensual at home. Mikaal produced the entire album. his work was inspiring my work and my work reciprocated the favor and suddenly we had an album by accident, or by providence.
this, for us, is intrinsic hiphop’s communion with Islamic mysticism. it is Rakim meets Rumi. it is a giant unbroken metaphor of I. every one and every thing mentioned on the project is a personification or anthropomorphism of my self, my spirit, my heart, my ego, my fears, my hopes etc.
the album is coming very soon. i am going to release it via amirsulaiman.com exclusively first, before i release it generally. i appreciate you.
Thanks and Love,
amir