Heroes of Human History - LowKey, Mai Khalil

Al-Khwarizmi estimated the circumference of the globe

At a time when Europe thought the earth was flat

And couldn’t tell the time of day, the astrolabe paved the way

For the clock now I’m about to turn it back

Was the medicine of Ibn Sina perceived as backwards

When Oxford scholars deemed bathing a heathen practice?

History from Aristotle to Al-Kindi as we gather

Innovations of Ibn Haytham to da Vinci and the camera

Ask Roger Bacon, Galileo and Adelard of Bath

Ibn Shatir before Copernicus, century and a half

House of wisdom, books weight in gold, answers to conundrums

Zheng He sailed the sea before da Gama and Columbus

You are not who they say you are, you’re blessed with a choice

Here since the 700's, look at King Offa’s coins

You can do whatever it is that you wanna do

There’s a crater named after Al-Ma'mun on the moon

So fly

Are you all all alone, only you in history?

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Civilisations build on each other, not each to their own

My question: If people are equal like the teeth of a comb

Were Jahiz, Mansa Musa, Malik Najashi;

Abeed?

I didn’t think so but it seems shaabi nasi wa aneed

Check yourself, check Raphael’s depiction of Ibn Rushd

Think twice, study history, give it a different look

Curriculum’s literally littered with pitfalls of ridicule

Fatima al-Fihri founded one of the oldest still-existing schools

It’s deeper than some rhymes I’m providing for the listener

No surprise for a spitter, the word cypher came from ṣifr

Is the next Younis Mahmoud among four million orphaned babies?

What if Yusra Mardini wasn’t able to swim to safety?

It could be Steve Jobs is starving under hisar

It would be Zaha Hadid just died in an infijar

Through your veins flow Gilgamesh and Abu Nuwas

Your future’s bigger than the pain of your present and your past

Just shine

Are you all all alone, only you in history?

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Condemned as the wretched of the earth, we strive to be free

Fanon struggled for independence he wasn’t alive to see

The countrification, alienation, souls left so scarred

Idarat altawahish decapitations on postcards

The occupier left behind all forms of stigma

Insidious settlement of the mind is more malignant

From the ashes of war, no phoenix, that human is lost

They learnt idarat altawahish from ensuing the cost

We learnt resistance from Morheeba Korshid and Lela Khaled Learnt about Jamal

from Bu Azza, Abu Basha and Bouhired

If Abdelkader was reburied in Al-Jaza'er that’s the

Proof return will come for the diaspora of the Nakba

Not the first or the last to break free from the guillotine

Yesterday Aljazair, tomorrow Falasteen

Not the first or the last to break free from the guillotine

Yesterday Aljazair, tomorrow Falasteen

Are you all all alone, only you in history?

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