زينب بنت علي

I was very sad today to hear about the deadly blast near the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab in Damascus that killed at least 60 people. When I was in Syria visiting Sufi shrines right before the war began, I also visited the shrine of Sayyida Zeinab — a beautiful sacred space. It’s been surreal to watch so many of the places where I’ve spent significant amounts of time over the past 17 years in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia fall victim to such unspeakable acts of violence.