Why I'm Going to Iran

I am going to Iran because of a conversation I had with my 80 year old, lifelong Republican father last spring. He had no compunction about expressing extremely racist views on Muslims and Islam in a way that wouldn't be socially acceptable if he were talking about any other group. He accused all Muslims of being complicit in terror attacks like 9/11 and stated that it was a religion of war and aggression. Shocked, I made a half-hearted attempt to point out that most of the world's religions have a history of not following their prophets' teachings ("Remember the Crusades, Dad?") and that ordinary Muslims abhor acts of terror. But the conversation had degenerated to the point where neither of us was listening to the other and nothing productive came of continuing.

What made the conversation personally painful was that for the past five years, I've been serious student of Sufism, one of the mystical flowerings of Islam. Although initiates in my particular order aren't required to become Muslim and there are interfaith dances and services in which all faiths are honored, most of our practices, prayers, and teaching stories have Islamic roots. I've read histories of Islam and biographies of Mohammed, and immersed myself in the poetry of Kabir, Rumi and Hafez. On a 2007 trip to India, I spent much of my time meditating in the tombs of Sufi saints and admiring the splendors of Moghul architecture. I 'm grateful for the insight and joy that's come into my life through Sufism,and appreciate the Islamic faith and cultures from which it evolved. It was hard to hear my father out of ignorance trash something I treasured so deeply, and to know that if he felt that way, so did many other Americans.

After that conversation, I felt compelled to do something to combat the Islamophobia rampant in this country today.

Like most of us, I've alternated between between rage, dumb amazement and profound despair at the arrogance and inhumanity of US policies in the Middle East and at the media disinformation that feeds it. I'm going to Iran replace this so-called "axis of evil" with human beings and come back and tell Americans about them. I am going to Iran to make heart to heart connections with ordinary Iranians; to eat and speak and pray with them. I want to have firsthand knowledge about the beauty of Iran's mosques and monuments and landscapes; about the courage and hospitality of its people. As my Muslim friend Nur Habib puts it, I'm going to Iran to "show the world the beauty of the rose of Islam."

What strikes me about the Quaranic Mohammed, like Christ and the Hebrew prophets before him, is his deep commitment to peace and social justice; to sharing resources and defending weaker, more vulnerable members of the community. I hope in some way that this trip to Iran helps me to follow in all of those illustrious prophetic footsteps.