Category Archives: Blog

While visiting Sufi shrines and mosques in Uzbekistan, I came across this old bus–and liked how it seemed to match the blue mosque in the distance…

I’m a big fan of old car shows–have been going to them all my life. So I was pleasantly surprised when I stumbled upon this classic car show right here in the center of downtown Beirut…

No longer do I need to miss my frequent trips to Shake Shack near my apartment in New York–since now Shake Shack is open for business right here in Beirut…

I have always wanted to shoot in India as I have always felt that both Iran and India have the same cultural sensibilities. The shooting of my current film on the Prophet Muhammad is complete and I am currently in Munich working on the post-production.

— Madjid Majidi

One of my favorite film directors–Iranian director Majid Majidi–will be shooting his new film–“Floating Gardens”–in India. Some of his previous, critically-acclaimed films include: Children of Heaven (1997), The Color of Paradise (1999), Baran (2001) and The Willow Tree (2005). If you haven’t seen his Oscar-nominated film, “Children of Heaven,” I highly suggest seeing it–since it’s a wonderful introduction to the pace, depth, and beauty of Iranian filmmaking–which, in my opinion, is the best in the world (and the awards committees of many film festivals would likely agree)…

Rise from behind the hill, transform the stones
To rubies and the sour grapes to wine!

— Rumi

In a post yesterday, I looked at prayer stones left behind at Sufi shrines in Turkmenistan. But to leave a prayer or wish at the side of a shrine using stones, the stones don’t need to be leaning up against one another–they can be stacked on top of one another too–like in the photo above. When I arrived at the ruins of this medieval madrassa in Uzbekistan, which was nestled in a cemetery of turquoise-domed shrines, I was surprised by the large number of stones stacked at my feet like tiny towers, as far as my eye could see. When I did conservation work this summer in Central Asia, this ritual posed a preservation problem–since stones were being pulled from the very shrines we were trying to protect…

Historically, AUB’s election has been a signal of where the nation is going.

— Dr. Jad Melki, Professor of Journalism and Media Studies at AUB

Amid tight security, students here at the American University of Beirut voted yesterday for their student representatives in an election carefully watched by many politicians and citizens far beyond the university’s walls…

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

— Rumi

After encountering so many tiny doors in Morocco last month, I decided to go back through my photos to see where else in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia I’ve stepped through small doors into Sufi shrines. The photo above was taken at one of my favorite shrines in Uzbekistan–and, as you can see, I had to duck my head a bit to step through its small, white door. I had reached this shrine by crossing on foot from Turkmenistan to Uzbekistan through a truly desolate no-man’s-land. After months of living in Turkmenistan, I had begun running out of clothes–so I designed this outfit by buying some colorful fabric in the bazaar. I got the idea for this strange little hood from the fabric that was left over when the dress was finally done…

We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand…

— James Elroy Flecker

According to this article, the Tajik language (a dialect of Persian) has come under increased pressure in Samarkand in Uzbekistan…

After I had acupuncture yesterday, I was feeling really relaxed when I stepped back out onto the busy streets of Beirut to hail a taxi. Little did I know at the time that the taxi I was stepping into would soon abduct me to a neighborhood that wasn’t my own–and he would have no intention of taking me home. Sadly, this wasn’t the first time–and probably not the last.

Usually, after driving for a bit, I’ll start to notice we’re not heading in the direction of my house. Despite my protests to head the right way–we continue on to some neighborhood I’ve never seen or heard of in Beirut. Soon the driver will pull over, and tell me he wants to take me out for coffee, show me his apartment, or even worse–and that’s when things start to get really weird, and I have to make a run for it. After so many of these experiences, I’ve learned how to get away–fast. Not only is their repugnant behavior deeply unsettling, but it’s also highly inconvenient when my trips home take twice as long as they should–and cost twice as much.

Last night, thankfully, I was helped by a kind-hearted pharmacist, who stepped in to offer me some shelter and find me a better taxi so I could finally get home–after the dangerous and unexpected detour.

“I don’t even know where we are right now,” I said to the pharmacist. After telling me the name of the neighborhood we were in, he offered me a cup of tea.

Unfortunately, a number of my Lebanese female students have told me that they too have had dangerous taxi experiences–including some incidents which in the U.S. would count as crimes. So the acupuncture high I had yesterday didn’t last very long–since I was too busy in the backseat trying to figure out how to survive and get myself safely back home.

When I see your face,
the stones start spinning!
You appear; all studying wanders.
I lose my place.
Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and doesn’t destroy.

— Rumi

While visiting Sufi shrines in the desert of Turkmenistan, I came across some “praying stones” at this centuries-old mosque that was submerged under the sand. You can see some stones “praying” in the distance behind my shoulder–relics of a ritual from the region’s shamanist past. As is the tradition, I set up my own pair of praying stones to show how it’s done by the thousands of pilgrims who visit these medieval mosques and shrines each year–filled with dreams they hope will one day come true…

Love is from the infinite, and will remain until eternity.
The seeker of love escapes the chains of birth and death.

— Rumi

“You don’t need to wear your burqa here,” my driver said, as we entered Mazar-i Sharif–the capital of Balkh province.

On our drive through Afghanistan, we had played a perverse but necessary game of hide-and-go-seek, as I sat in the backseat in my burqa.

“Okay–put it on,” he would say, each time we entered a Taliban controlled area. And when we moved on to Northern Alliance territory, he would flick his wrist and say, “Now, take it off.”

If I’d been wearing my burqa when we arrived at this noble shrine and its adjacent mosque, I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate each detail of its turquoise mosaics from behind the yarn cross-stitched over the thin slit covering my eyes. And I wouldn’t have been able to smile for a few pictures, to remember how excited I was to have reached the shrine in safety–unsure if I would ever make it back home…

You’ve been walking the ocean’s edge,
holding up your robes to keep them dry.
You must dive naked under, and deeper under,
a thousand times deeper!

— Rumi

A public investigation has begun in search of rare Qur’ans and antique swords that were stolen from the National Museum in Yemen. One of the stolen Qur’ans dates back 1,300 years…