Category Archives: Blog

I was alerted by a Sudanese colleague here in the Sultanate of Oman to an Arabic article in Al Arabiya about my research on Malcolm X in Sudan. While doing research for my academic journal article “X Marks the Spot: Mapping Malcolm’s Encounters with Sudan,” which was published in a special issue of the Journal of Africana Religions (The Meaning of Malcolm X for Africana Religions: Fifty Years On), I had the opportunity to literally follow in Malcolm’s footsteps in Sudan with his old Sudanese friends in Khartoum. I’m delighted to see this interest in my work about this fascinating chapter of American, Middle Eastern, and African history.

I am happy to share with you my new Huffington Post piece, Sufi Caravan in Sudan, about the time I spent with Sudanese Sufis while excavating an ancient temple from the sands of Sudan. Thank you for any help in sharing this piece/peace with others via email and social media — enjoy!

I am happy and humbled to share with you that I have been chosen by the Coalition for Women in Journalism to serve as a global mentor for female journalists. You can learn more about this important and innovative venture at this link. I am very inspired by their work, and I am looking forward to mentoring female journalists and writers in the region.

I feel very humbled to have received an acknowledgement in Kay Redfield Jamison’s new biography on poet Robert Lowell — one of my favorite American writers (and a confessional muse of mine). I’ve been an admirer of Kay’s work for decades (intrigued as I am with the intersections of the arts and “madness”), and I can’t wait to read her latest work — which is getting great reviews (such as in the New York Times and Washington Post). I was honored and happy to provide her with details and sources on the history of the treatment of mania and “madness” in Islam and the Middle East — a subject which I’ve been researching for several years for a book project of my own. I’m really looking forward to reading this comprehensive study of Robert Lowell’s life (including his psychiatric medical records). In the words of Lowell, “We are poor passing facts, warned by that to give each figure in the photograph his living name.”

I’m very honored to be profiled this spring in the latest issue of Harriman Magazine at Columbia University as an alum of the Harriman Institute (where I got my Master’s in Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian Studies). With the current media obsession with the so-called Russian menace, it’s a perfect time to have my expertise in Russia and the former Soviet Union highlighted and shared — and I’m grateful. Amazing that what began as an attempt to get in touch with my Russian roots became a serious course of study, followed by many grants and experiences of living in every Central Asian Republic. Life is full of surprises.

It was awe-inspiring to cruise through these desert dunes in Oman that stretch to the sea — sand/sea serenity…

It was a surreal experience to explore this salt flat in the desert while traveling around the Sultanate of Oman…

I enjoyed exploring bizarre rock formations in the desert of Duqm — a developing port city in the Sultanate of Oman…

We ran into some unexpected traffic in the middle of the Sultanate of Oman on our long desert drive back to Muscat…

I was inspired by this rock formation to do some morning yoga in the Rock Garden of Duqm in the Sultanate of Oman…

My friends and I stopped for a picnic on Al-Khaluf beach, while exploring sugar dunes in Oman (potato chips included!).

Omg, look what I came across today on the car ferry from Masirah Island to the mainland of Oman — quite a surprise!

My friends and I discovered these turtle tracks today on Masirah Island — home to one of the largest turtle sanctuaries in the world. When I lived in Lebanon, I used to swim every day at sunset with turtles in Beirut — so it’s been great fun to explore turtle life here in the Sultanate of Oman. In fact, four species of turtles nest on Masirah’s pristine beaches: loggerhead, green, hawksbill and olive ridley. Having spent today sunning on the white sand beaches of Masirah and wading in its crystal clear waters, I can now say with confidence from personal experience that I understand why so many turtles pick this tiny remote island in the Arabian Sea to lay their precious eggs — in paradise.

I was thrilled to finally step foot on Masirah Island — a gem in the Arabian Sea halfway between Muscat and Yemen.