One of the things that made me feel OK about flying to Damascus in November of 2003 was the assurance that we were under the protection of the Grand Mufti of Syria. He had received the Pope on a recent visit, and his son, Dr. Salah Kuftaro, was director of the largest Muslim social service organization in the country. Once in  Damascus, we learned Dr. Kuftaro had invited us to be guests at the Abu Nour Mosque. I rushed off to the souk Thursday night to buy some elegant head scarves for the women in our group. We were told to dress as if we were “…going to church”.  Not so easy. Our peace pilgrimage was all about travel to a remote desert monastery for interfaith dialog. We were asked to bring just what we needed. Lowell came up with a blazer and tie. Shabda wore his silk Indian shirt. Elias dressed in a dignified black mock-turtle neck sweater and a jacket, and the women scrambled for lipstick, city shoes, and a skirt.

We filed into the VIP area of the very large mosque where our host greeted us with affection: “I can’t say you are welcome here, because you are in your very home! There is a lot in common between each of us. I think the most important thing that joins us is the mysticism of Sufism.”

From my seat in the high gallery where the women sat behind a glass wall and listened with headsets to the simultaneous translation from Arabic, I could see the men way below. My husband and Elias, our leader, were seated next to the elderly Grand Mufti. More than one thousand men sat before them.  After the Friday prayers and a short talk, Elias spoke:

“We have come to break through this wall that is being built between the people of the West and the people of the Muslim world. We have been welcomed with kindness & hospitality even though my country has not been kind in its policy toward Syria. …The simple fact that you receive us with such generosity is a great strength of soul and character that is stronger than any weapon of war. Please know that your kindness is… evidence of living Islam”. (The word Islam comes from salaam, and means, “the way of peace.”)

I looked into the faces of the Syrian women near me. They smiled back and nodded. Many were in tears. I was stunned to be part of this brave diplomacy.

“To conclude… to protect our children we must do everything we can to break through the masks that are being painted on our faces.  When we truly meet each other, we will have Peace. Let nothing stop us from getting to know each other.  Shukran. (thank you).”

It was as if the great mosque had become a table of a thousand candles and the women of East and West kept lighting and re-lighting one another as our group of seven were swept into the reception room. Elias received an engraved plaque. I once learned in Morocco the common gesture among women who have prayed together, so I began kissing warm cheeks and quietly repeating: as-Salaam Alaikhum. They seemed to appreciate the contact, even though Syrian Sufi women tend to be reserved.. Wa’laikhum as-Salaam, they whispered back.

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“Before the tongue can speak, it must have lost the power to wound.”
– Peace Pilgrim

Tamam’s caravansarai blog entries:

caravansarai: an inn, usually with a large courtyard, for the overnight accommodation of caravans

a guesthouse in Delhi
The whole thing was a hair away from being canceled by order of the High Court of India. Shabda and I had flown to India to host and offer workshops to our 74 travel companions before the Hazrat Inayat Khan 80th URS (Wedding Celebration, as the death anniversary is called). If that sounds like a logistical nightmare, it wasn’t. The visit went smoothly thanks to a brilliant organizational team. We stayed at our favorite guesthouse, where the two of us always stay, and this time the owners turned over the entire hotel (and three others) to our group. They went so far as to create a meeting hall and dining area on the lawn outside. Pale lavender cloth was stretched over bamboo scaffolding. The final touch was a carpet of white sheets pulled tightly over a dozen rugs and secured to cover the lawn. The entire front yard and driveway of the guesthouse vanished! We walked out the front door into a glowing pavilion decorated with shadows of outside leaves and birds, as morning light fell on the walls. A shiny green vine wound up an inside tree. For evening, light bars illuminated the white ceiling. A small sound system appeared and a few chairs. Shabda stood in the center with his guitar, Gayan with his djembe (African drum). The travelers circled up, familiar faces and new ones, the India celebration team, seventy-four strong.

We sang zikr and engaged in Dances of Universal Peace. Every morning an early music class was offered. Our Tibetan teacher gave a talk. He had such a good time he came back and gave another one. Breakfast and dinner appeared in the side room on white tables cloths paired with white canvas covered chairs. We ate naan and mixed vege with dahl and rice, raita and butter chicken. We drank chai and told each other stories, planned quick trips to the tailor and Cottage Emporium. We laughed a lot.

Our program was ambitious and full-out. We were host to several hundred more Europeans, Americans, and Indians who felt the connection to Hazrat Inayat Khan, the Chisti Sufi classical musician who brought the Message to the West in 1910. We were here to celebrate. Shabda had designed a three-day classical music program. My favorite event was Shri Bahauddin Dagar playing rudra veena accompanied by the pakawaj drum late into the night. Because I am studying the drum, I listened closely to the pakawaj with its refined and haunting tones. It seemed to play deep inside my body.  There were eight master musician concerts in two days. The day of the big celebration, the Dargha was packed with people. For the first time in 80 years, women led the procession, carrying the tomb cloth from one tomb to another – Taj Inayat, Zuleikha and myself and other women joined in.

A week later, the remaining five of us were invited to the beautiful home of the Hemant and Nalini Ahuja, owners of our guest house. Nalini Ahuja offered us a spectacular meal. We were joined by her daughter, Namita, the one who facilitated the tent, the group accommodation, and created the menus. They were there every day to check on how the staff performed.

As we sat down to pre-dinner refreshments a remarkable story unfolded. It seems that the High Court recently handed down an order to limit the sprawl of shops and businesses through the residential neighborhoods in New Delhi. Unlike America, where such new laws apply to new licensing, sparing the old legal contracts, the government appointed officials began to target shops and small hotels and guesthouses that had been in existence for decades, for closure – with just a few hours notice. Never mind that it was peak tourist season in Delhi and rooms were at a tremendous shortage.

On January 24th, while Shabda and I were in the air on our way to India, Hemant received notice that our guesthouse was targeted to be sealed within 24 hours!  As President of The Association of guesthouses for New Delhi he was the one in the hot seat. What would happen to the hotel, and the other guesthouses we used? Where would the 74 people stay? Delhi hotels are as expensive now as those in San Francisco.

Hemant went on, “The Secretary of the association even had his own guesthouse sealed. We removed the computers and important things from the office, preparing for the worst. The other owners were calling, distraught. They told him, ‘We can do nothing, help us. They just come and seal!’ ”

“We were all so nervous,” said Namita. The story continued. Hemant swung into action. Armed with the sarai (as in caravan sarai) documents which granted him permission to run a guesthouse, issued by the government in 1980, he went to see the officials in the afternoon.

Nothing was said about this the entire time we stayed at the hotel. Now each of us sat there contemplating how the URS festivities could never have manifested without our home base, or for that matter, housing – in the oh-so-tight tourist room market. It was unthinkable.  Pleading his case, demonstrating his constant goodwill and sound business practice, and an appeal on what to do with the 74 people arriving who had made reservations nearly a year ago and had paid their stay in full in advance, finally the High court relented asking that appropriate taxes be paid (hmm, taxes or bribes?). He paid ten and-a-half laks (about $25,000), and was back in business. He saved the guesthouse from closure on the day we arrived! He also saved the two other small hotels we used.

“I had so much faith that it would turn out well”, he told us.