Category Archives: Blog

Did you hear that winter’s over? The basil
and the carnations cannot control their

laughter. The nightingale, back from his
wandering, has been made singing master
over the birds…

— Rumi

Coinciding with the Spring Equinox, Nowruz is being celebrated today around the world–in countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, India, and Iraq. The customs of Persian New Year–rooted in the religious tradition of Zoroastrianism–include jumping over fire, and decorating a ceremonial table with symbolic and festive foods.

In my ten year travels on the Silk Road, I’ve celebrated Nowruz in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. The photo above is from my Nowruz visit to Mazar-e Sharif–the “Noble Shrine”–in Afghanistan. Each year, hundreds of thousands of people journey to Mazar-e Sharif to celebrate this popular holiday. When I pulled into the city at night–past an image of Rumi chiseled into the highway wall–this turquoise shrine was shimmering under the small white lights strung above it like pearls. The day before, the police had arrested a number of Taliban fighters who had been planning to blow up the shrine. Similarly, today in Afghanistan, security forces have been on high alert–working overtime to ensure that today’s spring festival is celebrated in (relative) peace…

Being in the company of one’s spiritual friends in this world
is the consolation for being in the abode of materiality…

— Umm Abdullah

For tickets to this upcoming event at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, please click here.

Love strummed a tune on my heart’s lute
turning me into love from head to foot.
In truth, for ages I will never emerge
from paying what’s due for a moment of love…

— Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm

Today in Beirut, my students and I discussed the “Decisive Treatise” of Ibn Rushd (Averroes), a revered 12th century Muslim philosopher who lived in Cordoba and Morocco. While contemplating his argument that Islam and ancient philosophy are compatible, we analyzed relevant verses in the Qur’an (59:2 & 7:184-5) in سورة الحشر and سورة الأعراف. It was exciting and inspiring to see my students debating the philosophical ideas of Ibn Rushd, Ibn Sina, and al-Ghazali with such insight and passion–what more could a teacher ask for?

From this it is evident that the study of the books of the ancients is obligatory by Law, since their aim and purpose in their books is just the purpose to which the Law has urged us, and that whoever forbids the study of them to anyone who is fit to study them, i.e. anyone who unites two qualities, (1) natural intelligence and (2) religious integrity and moral virtue, is blocking people from the door by which the Law summons them to knowledge of God, the door of theoretical study which leads to the truest knowledge of Him; and such an act is the extreme of ignorance and estrangement from God the Exalted…

— Ibn Rushd (d. 1198)

I just got home from shopping at a lovely Farmer’s Market in Beirut, where I bought some amazing organic chocolates, and a container of cranberry-fig-date-apricot-walnut bars…that are out of this world…

Poles apart, I am the color of dying, you are the color of being born.
Unless we breathe in each other, there can be no garden…

— Rumi

The colorful photos in the Huffington Post of the Nasir al-Mulk in Shiraz are breathtaking. While entering this mosque in the daytime is like stepping inside of a kaleidoscope, I tend to prefer the mosque at night–when the stained glass windows are asleep, and all of the visitors have disappeared…

This past week-end, while I was doing a creative arts project with young Syrian refugees in Beirut, I asked them for a theme to guide our project.

“Syrian kids who want to go back to school,” they said, without hesitation. As I listened to them talk about their classrooms back home, I couldn’t help but wonder if their schools were still standing.

“What subjects are you missing the most?” I asked.

“All of them!” they replied. For kids without an opportunity to go to school, saying that one subject is better than another is a luxury.

According to UNICEF, nearly half of Syria’s school-age children — 2.8 million and counting — are currently unable to get an education. Consequently, the war in Syria may end up producing a generation of illiterate children. As for my young Syrian friends here in Beirut, I’m hoping that their wish comes true–and they get the chance to return to a classroom someday soon…

The skirt of Love’s wealth is pure, pure,
of the stain of need for a handful of dust…

— Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm

Yesterday–and how remote yesterday is, yet how near–I went with my soul to the great ocean,
to wash away with its waters the dust and mire of the earth that had clung to us…

— Khalil Gibran

For my lesson I took all of engendered existence
and reviewed it page after page.
In truth, I saw nothing there and read nothing
but the Real’s Essence and the Real’s essential tasks.

How long this talk of bodies, dimensions, directions?
Until when this discussion of minerals, animals, plants?
Only one Essence is realized–not “essences.”
This illusory manyness comes from the tasks and the attributes…

— Displaying the Concealment of the Real Realm

Know that this reflection and this wave are that very Light and Sea, for here duality is impossible, impossible.
Look at the travelers on the Path of Love, how each has a different spiritual state.
The one sees in each atom of the world a Sun radiant and imperishable,
Another directly witnesses in the mirror of existence the beauty of the hidden archetypes,
And a third sees each one in the other, without veiling or defect…

— Jami of Herat (d. 1492)