Category Archives: Blog

I still believe the only chance for the human race to survive
is to give up such pleasures as war, racism and private profit.

— Pete Seeger

While members of the Commission to Determine the Instances of Criminal Content (CDICC) in Iran have expressed their disapproval of high ranking officials using social networking sites, politicians like Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are still using Twitter and Facebook. Even religious authorities in Qom have been busy issuing different opinions on the matter. The ongoing political, religious, and social debate in Iran about whether Facebook should be allowed, prohibited, or censored by filters is expected to intensify, as sanctions begin to ease…

Come, my beloved; let us walk amidst the knolls,
For the snow is water, and Life is alive from its
Slumber and is roaming the hills and valleys…

— Khalil Gibran

In the distance, you can make out some snow starting to melt on the mountaintops–which means the sea in Beirut is still a bit too chilly for a leisurely swim…

My journey to Fez began at the Sufi shrine of Shaykh Ahmad el-Tijani (سيدي أحمد التجاني), whose tomb I’d been longing to visit since my last trip to Mali–where this revered Sufi teacher is just as popular. Last month, while I was excavating a Nubian temple in Sudan, I ran into Tijanis every step along the way–and was humbled by their hospitality…

Below is a video of a Tijani dhikr taking place in a Sufi lodge in Algeria. To get a feel for the rhythm and sound of it, tune in around the one minute mark…

Carry your baggage towards silence, when you seek the signs of the way…

— Rumi

Because no cars are allowed in the old medina of Fez (the largest car-free urban zone in the world), luggage is wheeled through the city’s narrow streets in large carts, like the one above…

Eventually the chickpea
will say to the cook,
“Boil me some more.
Hit me with the skimming spoon.
I can’t do this by myself…”

— Rumi

Here’s my new Huffington Post piece: “Cooking Cous Cous in Fez.” I hope you enjoy the cous cous as much as I enjoyed making (and tasting) it…

In the vast city of my body, grief is on one side,
I on the other, water on one side, I on the other.
With the bitter I am bitter with the sweet I am sweet.
Hundreds like me are dancing…

— Rumi

The trailer above is for Asghar Afarhadi’s new film The Past. His celebrated film A Separation won the Oscar for “Best Foreign Language Film” two years ago.

Today, while I was volunteering at St. Jude in Beirut, an Arabic children’s book in the middle of the bookcase caught my attention. Written on its cover was “Ibn Battuta”–the name of the 14th century Muslim explorer in whose far-reaching footsteps I’ve been following for ten years through the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. It was a delightful surprise to run into him in Beirut.

In his impressive travels through 44 modern-day countries–a journey which lasted almost 30 years–Ibn Battuta encountered a number of Sufis along the way. In his epic travel memoir (تحفة النظار في غرائب الأمصار وعجائب الأسفار‎), he mentions meeting dervishes on the road in places like Egypt and Turkey. In the excerpt below, he mentions Sufi schools in Cairo:

There are a large number of religious establishments [“convents”] which they call khanqahs, and the nobles vie with one another in building them. Each of these is set apart for a separate school of dervishes, mostly Persians, who are men of good education and adepts in the mystical doctrines. Each has a superior and a doorkeeper and their affairs are admirably organized…

In the video below, Tim Mackintosh-Smith, a renowned expert on Ibn Battuta, follows Ibn Battuta’s path through Turkey–and meets up with dervishes from the Mevlevi Sufi Order–the whirling dervishes who follow the pious path of Rumi…

Iranian films have long been strong and favored competitors at international film festivals, and this year at Sundance was no exception. Last week, three Iranian films generated a great deal of buzz in Utah.

The photo above is from the film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night–a “Middle Eastern feminist vampire romance” that was filmed in Farsi but shot in California. The sound track for this unusual and haunting film includes underground bands from Iran like Kiosk and Radio Tehran.

The trailer below is for Sepideh (or Reaching for the Stars)–a documentary about an Iranian girl who’s hooked on Albert Einstein and the stars. Though she dreams of joining the young men who journey deep into the desert to gaze at the sky, her conservative family members try everything they can to keep her home.

The last film is Appropriate Behavior, which is based on the life of its director and star–Desiree Akhavan, a gay Iranian American living in New York. In the video below, she introduces her hipster-style coming-out comedy that takes place in Brooklyn (naturally). The film is similar to her web series The Slope…

As you can see, the three “Iranian” films that were shown this year at Sundance are really diverse in topic and tone–and they present different angles of Iranian culture than the one-dimensional portrayal we usually see in the news…

Here’s a music video from the underground Iranian music band Kiosk. All of their albums are illegal in Iran…

If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.
Then he becomes your partner.

— Nelson Mandela

The former head of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, is currently in Iran with a group of former world leaders known as the Elders–to “advance the new spirit of openness and dialogue between Iran and the international community.” The group, which includes Desmond Tutu, was established in 2007 by Nelson Mandela to promote peace, justice, and human rights. The three day trip is being hosted by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. This historic visit will likely foster even more opportunities for dialogue and exchange–though many more obstacles still remain…

Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.

— Desmond Tutu

Lovers find secret places inside this violent world where they make transactions with beauty.

— Rumi

Religious leaders in Pakistan came out this week to protest Taliban attacks on Sufis and their shrines, after several Sufis were murdered earlier this month in Karachi. When I was surveying Sufi shrines in northern Afghanistan, members of the Taliban were no longer stopping Afghan pilgrims from visiting shrines like the one above–however, in other pockets of Afghanistan and Pakistan, it’s an entirely different story…

I must have been either a simpleton or drunk or mad that
fearfully I was stealing from my own gold.
Like a thief I crept through a crack in the wall into my own
vine, like a thief I gathered jasmine from my own garden…

— Rumi