Category Archives: Blog

I’m a big fan of Question Box–a non-profit initiative that helps those living in rural areas find answers to everyday questions related to agricultural prices, health concerns, education opportunities, and entertainment. By just pushing a button on a simple telephone intercom, a Question Box user is put in touch with an operator–who finds and translates the answer back to the user in the local language.

According to Question Box’s innovative founder, Rose Shuman (who was my dorm-mate in college), Question Box wires individuals and communities for social, political, and economic change. Back when we were undergrads at Brown, it was clear that Rose was going to keep dreaming big after graduation–and dedicate her creative mind and kind heart to helping those in need. It’s been inspiring to watch how Rose and some of my other college dorm-mates, like Chris Hayes, are helping to open minds and change the conversation–both at home and abroad. To find out how you can get involved with Question Box, please click here.

Today, my students and I were back to reading and discussing al-Ghazali in Beirut…

It became clear to me, however, that what is most distinctive of mysticism is something which cannot be apprehended by study, but only by immediate experience (dhawq– literally ‘tasting’), by ecstasy, and by a moral change. What a difference there is between knowing the definition of health and satiety, together with their causes and presuppositions, and being healthy and satisfied! What a difference between being acquainted with the definition of drunkenness–– namely, that it designates a state arising from the domination of the seat of the intellect by vapours arising from the stomach– and being drunk! Indeed, the drunken man while in that condition does not know the definition of drunkenness nor the scientific account of it; he has not the very least scientific knowledge of it. The sober man, on the other hand, knows the definition of drunkenness and its basis, yet he is not drunk in the very least. Again the doctor, when he is himself ill, knows the definition and causes of health and the remedies which restore it, and yet is lacking in health. Similarly there is a difference between knowing the true nature and causes and conditions of the ascetic life, and actually leading such a life and forsaking the world.

I apprehended clearly that the mystics were men who had real experiences, not men of words, and that I had already progressed as far as was possible by way of intellectual apprehension. What remained for me was not to be attained by oral instruction and study but only by immediate experience and by walking in the mystic way…

— al-Ghazali

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?

― Mahatma Gandhi

In between taking a Chinese quiz early this morning–and teaching an al-Ghazali seminar this afternoon–I spent some time on the streets of Beirut with a group of young Syrian refugees. While taking a break from shining shoes, they told me a bit about their families and life back home. “May God rest his soul,” one of the boys said, when telling me about the death of a close relative in the war. As they spoke about the death and destruction they had seen, they used their hands (along with sound effects) to act out noisy gun battles and the explosion of bombs. What, I wonder, does the future have in store for these four friends?

Earlier today, like almost every other day here, rockets from Syria were fired into eastern Lebanon. This evening, Syrian warplanes fired missiles at Arsal…

You are afraid of me, because I talk like a sphinx.

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Since my Egyptology students and I discussed Tuthmosis IV’s “Dream Stela” (which stands between the paws of the Sphinx) in class last week, I was interested to see this video on the same topic posted on the website of the Smithsonian…

I also walked by this graffiti today on my way to the Children’s Cancer Center of Lebanon/St. Jude…

In my friend Isma’il’s excellent new article, “Reviving Sudan’s Love of Cinema,” he mentions the short-feature film Faisal Goes West–about a Sudanese immigrant family living in the United States. Shot in Texas in both Arabic and English, this award-winning independent film about identity and dignity revolves around a young man from Khartoum–who tries his luck working on a Texas chicken farm…