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My sub-pages on my independent study of Islamic alchemy (al-kimiyya):

An Overview of Islamic Alchemy
Ibn-Sina
Jabir Ibn Hayyan

al-tariqa   -   the way

I have traveled the Middle East, slept in the desert under the stars, been attacked by foxes in said desert, and broken bread with an imam in a mosque I'd never been to. I've jumped out of an airplane, played trombone for thousands and thousands of people and had a few drinks with my favorite author. I've caught shingles, never broken a bone, and met a wonderful woman (more on that in a minute) who I wanted to spend my life with from the very start. I've prayed with Muslims and Christians, looked out of telescopes at the stars, ridden camels and horses, and climbed into pyramids. I've been threatened by religious zealots on the streets of Philadelphia, watched Buddhist monks create sand paintings, and been able to, in a loose sense, converse with people in their own tongue. I've eaten a lot of pizza, drank a lot of soda, and enjoyed my mother's Indian food. I have never felt bored.

I hope, in the future, to return to the Middle East to learn medieval Arabic to study medieval Islamic alchemy. This will require lots of Arabic training over a long period of time, but I am up to the challenge. To pursue this, I will be attending graduate school in the fall here at Villanova, and I am engaged to a beautiful and intelligent woman named Sarah. By the time you read this, we will be married.

 
Some internal links:

Test Pages for CSC:

Hobbies
Major
Pet
Favorite
My Friends


 

 

Favorite Books

I'm a reader; that's why I'm going to grad school here at Villanova University. Here are a few of my favorite books, in no particular order.

  1. A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin

  2. The Gift, by Hafez

  3. The Human Condition, by Hannah Arendt

  4. The Muqaddimah, by Ibn-Khaldun

  5. Dune, by Frank Herbert

  6. Franny and Zooey, by JD Salinger

  7. Beyond Good and Evil, by Fredrich Nietzsche

  8. State of Exception, by Giorgio Agamben

  9. The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran Khalil

  10. The Zombie Survival Guide, by Max Brooks

The following are a few excerpts from emails from my past summer in Cairo, Egypt:

That is, until someone offered to guide us to a mosque down the street. We obliged, and ended up at a beautiful mosque in the center of Islamic Cairo that shows up on the Rough Guide's maps as being one of the hardest to get to. The man who led us there was most likely either a son of the Imam or something else, but we were led into the Imam's office and ate falafel and eish with them, and drank their water. First time I've ever spoken in arabish (english and arabic) while breaking bread with an Imam, I have to say. My friend mark took my camera up into the minaret while I dealt with an issue in the mosque itself, namely dealing with money. Mark got alot of pictures, I got really good at waving my hands.

You see, in Cairo, its illegal to charge someone for a mosque visit. I knew this, but I was going to pay them anyway because they knew the way to the Suq I was at the previous day, and my map sucked. So I decided to pay them. But one of the Imam's guys backed down and decided I needed to tell the Imam to give our money back. Confusing, I know. I still don't understand it. So I spoke to a Sheik, maybe the only one, I have no idea, who then led me out to the courtyard and screamed at the Imam, who for some reason was on the top of the mosque. The picture is hilarious: I'm 6'2" and I'm discussing fullus (money) with the imam who can't be more than 5 feet tall. So, eventually I narrowed it down to the fact that Mark had to pay for the minaret, but none of us had to pay for the mosque. Okay, fine. So we get directions and get the heck out, but not before taking some pics of this beautiful mosque, called "Muurdaaniyy" which I believe means "blue".

-An email from Egypt, 7/2/06

Al-Azhar park is located in Old Islamic Cairo, a section of town I'm sure I've mentioned plenty of times. It is located on an originally desolate, garbage ridden piece of land, but this hilltop is now the site of a beautiful set of paths, trees and fountains all paid for by the US government (somewhere around 45 million dollars). The view from up there is beautiful, allowing for some awesome pictures and one of the coolest sounds I've ever heard: the call to prayer of over 100 mosques at the same time. Actually, scrap that: it WAS the coolest sound I've ever heard. While at the park, we befriended some Kuwaiti children who spoke a different dialect of arabic, which was extremely cool, but this lead us to new experience for me, namely, the meeting of another egyptian family (yes, we're pretty popular here). But this wasn't ordinary at all, as two of the women were wearing the traditional burka . For those who don't know, the burka is the full body veil that shows only the eyes of the woman who is wearing it, and is considered the highest form of modesty and protection against sin. While an alien concept to us here in the US, only the most pious of families in Egypt will wear this. In a survey of a busy city street, you may see one or two women wearing the burka out of one hundred. Never did I think I'd speak to a woman in a burka, but we had a nice conversation and a great time talking about Cairo, Egypt and the rest. Let me also relay something I learned in talking to this particular family: speaking to a woman in the burka is perhaps one of the strangest, most alien, but most interesting things I've ever done. While you can't see the expression of the wearer, you can see things like a smile, the changes in mood colors of the eyes... the conversation is on a new level that makes no sense to me at all, though I strive to understand it. I'll never forget that evening, not for the rest of my life. I included some pictures of me, my friends and the family, and other skyline pictures from Al-Azhar park.  

-An Email from Cairo, Egypt, 7/17/06

 

 

Author: Will Caverly
Page Updated: 4/25/07

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