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wanted to be.
"My mom, although she grew up in Damascus, was the first
female in her immediate family to wear the head scarf," Safi
ow_ said. "(My parents) were very encouraging that we be people
who practice the faith ... but I think as we grew up, as we
became in our teens and later on, I think it was really up to us
to make those decisions."
In 1997, when Safi was 13, his father died from complica-
tions due to hepatitis. The years that followed were difficult.
To be close to family, his mother relocated Safi and his sisters
to Damascus for nine months, where Safi said he was not wel-
comed by the kids his own age.
"The Syrians never saw me as Syrian ... they saw me as an
other," Safi says. His experience in Syria was not unlike simi-
lar prejudices he had confronted growing up Syrian in the
United States.
Upon returning to the United States, Safi began to fill the
role that once belonged to his father. "He had to man up,
become the man of the house," his sister Leenah said.
And yet, Safi refrains from calling his father's death the
"trigger" that put him on his spiritual path.
For him, religious enlightenment came only after years of
self-discovery and traveling.
These travels would take him to the University of Michi-
gan (both the Dearborn and Ann Arbor campuses), return
him to the Middle East and, ultimately, the desert of Yemen.
Fork in the road
A year and a half out of college Safi was at a crossroads.
He'd been living in Egypt, studying Arabic, and his next step
wasn't clear. Many thought his decision should be easy: pur-
sue a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago.
But Safi had other ideas on his mind.
A close friend, Omar Mahmood, had just returned from a
school in Yemen with a focus on studying Islam from a more
spiritual, eastern-style approach. After much deliberation
and reflection, Safi knew this was what he needed.
The name of the school, Dar Al Mustafa, literallytranslates
to "Home of the Chosen One." Located in the secluded town
of Tarim, it's a place that fits with the stereotypical image
Westerners might have of Yemen.
"Very, very sandy, brown," Safi says.
Founded by direct descendants of the Prophet Muham-
mad, Tarim is built around religious scholarship, like a college
town with a spiritual twist. Safi said the idea is for students to
leave the school "embodying prophetic character."
The school is based on three disciplines: "Calling to God
and his messenger," "Religious Knowledge" and "Purifica-
tion of the Soul." For one year, Safi's days were consumed by
the studying of religious texts, assisting the needy and calling
people to prayer and worship.
Safi laughs when I bring up the decision to move to Yemen
over Chicago. Departing from his typical professorial tone, he
fixes me with a stare that's boyish in its sincerity. For the first
time, I feel like I see the man others have lauded over the past
few months, ever since he took the chaplaincy back in Janu-
ary.
"I was going through kind of a spiritual search ... I wanted
to find what my heart was looking for," he says. "And I really
did find that in my trip to Yemen."
Uncrossing his legs, he takes a deep breath and continues.
"I think humans all have a void in their heart that they try to
fill ... I think that void is put there by God on purpose because
that void is God. To fill it you can only fill it with God, right?"
His voice wavers, as though he's asking me, like he's not
quite sure of the answer.
I'm reminded of an encounter I had one year ago while
studying in the woods of Maine at the University's New Eng-
land Literature Program:
For one day, Credo Day, the instructors told us to think
about how belief affects us in our lives. I quietly scoffed.
Because belief equates to faith, and faith translates to reli-
gion. And this was something I've always found unsettling.
I spent that whole day avoiding prayer circles that had sud-
denly sprouted up around our camp. I sought out Jono, the
only other student who seemed to find our day's task as ridic-
ulous as I did. He was smoking in the gazebo when I found
him, reclining on a wooden bench, legs propped up on a log,
his typical state of nonchalance. I was looking for solidarity.
But Jono didn't appear disgruntled. When I asked why Credo
Day wasn't bothering him, he merely smiled, took a bite from
his apple and lit another cigarette.
"Because," he began, "I'm not a religious person or any-
thing. But I do consider myself spiritual ... I don't know if I
believe in God. Honestly, I don't know what I believe. But I
think it's important to be open to something that's, I dunno,
above us, I guess, ya' know?"
Jono wasn't planning to duck out of that evening's talk-
ing circle, where a Quaker-style meeting was scheduled for
people to openly discuss faith, as I was. Nor was he agonizing
over what to believe in. He seemed content.
. Both Jono and Safi seemed to have opened themselves up
to misunderstanding, to confusion, to not knowing how to fill
the void.
A discussion
My feelings about spirituality and religion begin to feel
increasingly misguided the longer I speak with Safi. I inquire
as to whether he has any thoughts on the matter. Citing
Islam's teachings, he explains what he views as the dichoto-
my that's emerged between the two in modern times.
"In modernity there's this common distinction between
the crude, legalistic person and then the wayfarer spiritual
person who throws out the law," he says. "And that's not in
Islam. In Islam, a person can't be spiritual if they don't seek
to apply what God wanted of them ... Islam preaches a bal-
ance between theology and law and spirituality."
Maybe Safi's appeal, the reason some refer to him can-
didly as "spiritual," is because he radiates this balance. It's
comforting. The wayfarer mixed with the traditional con-
formist.
"He's been in the world," Blauvelt tells me. "Tayssir's
been in the world of the Muslim that comes to Ann Arbor
who believes in Islam but isn't super adherent to it. It's not
a part of their identity. And they decide that they want to
make it part of their identity. He's been through
that transformation. I think that helps him talk
to a lot of people who are trying to go through it
themselves."
Before I leave my final interview, Safi leaves me
with a verse from the Koran he's committed to
memory. "The Koran says, 'Indeed in the remem-
brance of God, do hearts find peace.'"
Tranquility comes when one remembers and
returns to their creator, he says. Maybe that's what
my instructors had wanted us to understand all
along back in Maine. Not remembering God, but
remembering how to talk about what God repre-
sents: faith, the lack thereof, something deep in our
souls that lies vacant, restless, waiting to be filled.
I went in search of a holy man. I found him. And
in some ways he did fit the image I'd had in my
head - he journeyed away from society to a remote
part of the world; he references the Koran to better
clarify his points; he believes true peace comes the
closer one moves toward God.
Safi has called himself a "circuit," someone
who sparks connections between people. In many
ways, he exemplifies Karen Armstrong's advice:
The authority he carries doesn't really derive from
a greater knowledge of his religion or of God. It
stems from an openness to listen, to humble him-
self before whomever he sits with.
Maybe my discussion with Jono wasn't too dif-
ferent from the discussions Safi has with Muslim
students in his office. After all, while neither Jono
nor I were "believers," we had, whether we knew it
or not, opened ourselves to the discussion of belief.
And the discussionI think, may suffice.
the leaders and the worst
by zach bergson and kaitlin williams
LEADERS
IvSir, I'm sorry.
"Ive found somephone
new.
* A Rabbi encouraged young Jew-
ish followers to text during a
Rosh Hashanah service, he then
put the texts up on a screen to dis-
cuss. Next step: Gehatting God.
a week of daily stories
* Clint Eastwood told T MZ on Monday
"There is something about the aging pro-
cess that makes you give a crap less" in
regard to his RNC speech.
University President Mary Sue Coleman held her annual open house at
her South University Avenue residence last Thursday. Students were
allowed to roam the rooms while eating cookies and drinking apple cider.
* Twitter unveiled a new background
image feature for profiles Tuesday.
We're annoyed with the change right
now, but we'll be over it by next week.
MUSLIM RAGE
* Muslim rage, it's all the rage.
* Romney doesn't care about
47 percent of the popula-
tion. And we didn't even
need Kanye West to tell us
about it.
WORST
Last Thursday, Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey spoke at the
Chrysler Center on North Campus. Nearly 200 students showed up
for the event.