Poetry is dead, at least in the West. The Poetry genre barely moves any books each year but one man is an exception – Rumi. But if you have read Rumi in English, chances are high you have read an interpretation of his poetry that has this Muslim saints faith entirely removed.
Shiraz knows no parallel in all of Persia and the world. Sought by all but plucked by none, it remains a mole on the cheek of the most beautiful of Muslim lands. Shiraz has been saved it seems, most certainly by plan, to deliver to the thirsty, hungry and blind of this world – the endless stream of verses that flow in abundance from the lips of its poets and saints.
Join me and Omar in Old Cairo as we discuss the history of Islamic Cairo, from its Fatimid Shia foundations to its rule under Saladin, the Mamluks and finally the Ottomans.
In Cairo is the history and detail of our past. In the old city are the houses with keys in the door left behind, here are the libraries with no custodians to guide, here are the limps unlit and prayer rugs covered in dust, all waiting for its children to return and ask the same questions as those before us, the Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman have done their duty – out of an immaterial love they created the city that became the mother of the Muslims.
He is known by many names. The most famous, and perhaps the most profound is ‘Hujjat al-Islam’ – ‘Proof of Islam’. Abu Hamid Muhammad Ibn Muhammad Al-Ghazali died at the age of 53. It is not an understatement to say he was, and still is, the most prominent Muslim philosopher, theologian, jurist and mystic of Sunni…