The Hospitality of the Sufi

Sept 11 20010
Always step across the threshold on your right foot, never put food to your mouth with your left hand, and never show the bottom of your feet to another person in your presence. Dinner with the Sufi's had a complex list of rules and traditions that needed to be respected. Coming from a tradition of Islam that believes that all aspects of life should embody the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur'an this house of learning has chosen hospitality to all comers as a way of living the message of the Prophet. After countless cups of Sahara style tea, peanuts, some kind of bread baked with egg and nuts, and a chicken tagine, I will say that their acts of hospitality truly honored Islam's greatest traditions and values.
To get to dinner we walked through a complex series of old corridors and entryways that have come under varying stages of disrepair over the last century, felt like the opening sequence of some kind of thriller or film of international intrigue and adventure.


Once inside the main part of the zawiya, Islamic religious school, making sure to step in on my right foot, we were welcomed by the men of the house, as women customarily remain upstairs. Sitting down along the edges of the room I made the fortuitous decision to sit where one of Morocco's King Hassan the Second sat some thirty years ago. After sitting down, brief introductions were made, using the limited Arabic that most of the students knew, Far Rah and Noor both acted as translators for those of us who knew only how to introduce ourselves. For the next several hours we were welcomed with food, poetry, music, and a passionate description of the beauty of Islam and the hope of this zawiya for understanding in faith.