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Burning Man v. Zaatari

Posted August 6th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

zaatari camp 2Burning Man campPoet and writer Tamam Kahn had the wit to contrast these two aerial photos of temporary cities — the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in northern Jordan, and the Burning Man encampment in the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.  The desperate on the left, the Dionysiac on the right (below).

She also had the fortitude to use the Zaatari one as her screen saver for the past two weeks.

Zaatari, she writes on her blog, is “miles of boxed lives,” with each box a caravan, a prefab shelter, or by now simply a tent.  By last month, the population of the two-year-old camp was 115,000, including 60,000 children.  It is now Jordan’s fourth-largest ‘city.’

Tamam quotes Angelina Jolie on the Syrian refugee crisis, speaking in June: “1.6 million people have poured out of Syria with nothing but the clothes on their back, and more than half of them are children… Every 14 seconds someone crosses Syria’s border and becomes a refugee.”

And she ends her post with this:  “I’m struck with the surreal thought that this is the time Burning Man begins to come together as a desert city — half the size of Zaatari — a celebration of life, way out in the Nevada desert. Two cities: one a sudden city of survival, the other — an enormous party of freedom and excess. Hold them both! I tell myself. May all beings have what they need. May all have shelter, food and clean water, be well, safe, and happy.”

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File under: existence, Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: Angelina Jolie, Complete Word, Jordan, Nevada, refugee camp, Syria, Tamam Kahn | 4 Comments
  1. mary scriver says:
    August 6, 2013 at 2:58 pm

    I wonder what the Rainbow Family encampment would look like from the air. It is dis-assembled and the site restored afterwards. I’m curious to know what the average income for Zataari is, compared to the average income for Burning Man and the Rainbow Family. It would be fascinating to convene a panel of representatives.

    Prairie Mary

  2. fatmakalkan says:
    August 6, 2013 at 4:57 pm

    Hi Lesley, Forgive my ignorance about this event. First time I heard about it. Why 50.000 people goes to middle of the dessert in hot August? Syrian are fleeing from Brutal Assad Regime to save their life’s. Obviously, Burning Man participants life’s are not in danger. They live in a best country in the world for many categories. If they are paying for this event they are not poor. How they spend their week at that camp? Is it religious gathering? Is it social event? Or they don’t have any serious problems, they are bored, just looking for adventure? Or nudity, drugs, etc. living crazy life with no moral code is provided at that camp. Sincerely

    Fatma Kalkan

    • tamam Kahn says:
      August 6, 2013 at 7:14 pm

      Burningman is an amazing experiment in communal living. Aside from the initial cost, there is generally no money exchanged there. I went several times, took an old RV and was part of a group camping there. One evening a bicycle rider brought our camp a hot pizza in a box, delicious and free. Our neighbor hooked up a bicycle to an ice-cream maker and gave out cold treats. The infrastructure is admirable in that a responsible number of people hold the energy for 50,000 people to celebrate and visit the art and music that is available 24/7. On one level it is a “party” but on another it is so much more. Ritual actions — like honoring the dead of the last year and writing their names on a beautiful sculptural temple for 5 days, then celebrating the “burn” as it goes back to dust. And the clean-up takes a month or more until nothing is left in that pristine desert. You bring in what you need and leave with it all. It is so colorful that everyday life — when you return— seems in black and white. It was started by the dot com-ers back in the 90’s. I went just after that. Everyone I brought there had a memorable time. The “wildness” is just a small part of the picture.

      Someone just suggested that Burningman could contribute to the refugee camp — helping purchase water. I think that’s a great idea!
      Tamam Kahn

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      August 7, 2013 at 8:50 am

      Fatma — There are so many ‘compare-and-contrasts’ involved here. So many ironies I don’t think I can count them all. A few:
      East v. West. Wealth v. poverty. Choice v. no-choice. Freedom v. no-freedom. Indulgence v. necessity. One week v. indeterminate time. Desperation v. partying. Survival v. art. Danger v. safety.
      These multiple ironies are what made the twinned photos so powerful for me.

The Act of Reading

Posted January 7th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

tamambookIf only all books were this well read!  This is author and poet Tamam Kahn‘s galley copy.  (Galleys are softbound uncorrected proofs, sent out for early review before the hardcover has gone to the printers — thus the banner across the top saying it’s not for distribution.)   And I love this photo because it’s such a vivid expression of the act of reading.

Yes, the act of reading:  nothing passive about it, but an engaged interaction of reader, writer, and subject.  (I read with a similar intensity, though I prefer a pencil to tabs, marking the margins with lines, exclamation marks, and perhaps a brief Yes! or an abrupt No!, but sometimes getting carried away with extended comments crawling up the side of the page to spread out along the top.)

Tamam posted the photo alongside her review of The First Muslim today.  Here’s how it begins:

There is much that is wonderful about this book! I opened the manila envelope, slid the book out, opened it and began reading. Two hours later I was calling to my husband across the room, saying, “Listen to this…”

This is what it meant to be an orphan: the ordinary childhood freedom of being without a care would never be his… At age six, he (Muhammad) was now doubly orphaned, his sole inheritance a radical insecurity as to his place in the world.

Accurate instinct on the basics. In all the years that I studied Muhammad’s life, I never gave much thought to him as an orphan. This fact is often mentioned by historians, but none make us feel the alien landscape in which the boy finds himself in the way this telling does. A certain wariness crept into the corners of his eyes and his smile became tentative and cautious; even decades later, hailed as the hero of his people, he’d rarely be seen to laugh.

Then Lesley Hazleton takes the reader deeper. At age five, he is returned to his estranged blood mother Amina; abruptly, a child between two worlds. In that same year, after the two of them visit relatives in Medina, several days journey north, she dies on the return trip.  …now doubly orphaned.

The whole review is over at Tamam’s blog, Complete Word.  She ends it with this:

This humanizing of the man, Muhammad, is the thread running through the book. Often, in the media, what is written about Muhammad or the word “Muslim” is overlaid with dramatic and political innuendos to support a variety of loud viewpoints.

Here, it’s like she begins by talking to us in a quiet tone on that noisy street. Come inside where it is calm, and listen to Lesley Hazleton tell about a man who became The First Muslim. It’s a good story.

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File under: existence, Islam, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Beduin, Muhammad, orphan, review, Tamam Kahn, The First Muslim | 8 Comments
  1. Zarina Sarfraz says:
    January 8, 2013 at 4:42 am

    Very well thought out & Very TrueZS{ref: the act of reading}

  2. Abid Hussain says:
    January 8, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    Hi Lesley,
    I just checked Amazon UK – It seems to suggest that the book is not going to be available on the Kindle. Do you happen to know what the deal is in terms of digital distribution. I have been looking forward to this book for months, but reaaallly would prefer to read a digital copy…. Kindle…even iBooks.
    Good luck with the launch,

    Abid

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 8, 2013 at 1:45 pm

      Thanks for good wishes, Abid. Don’t know what’s happening with amazon.co.uk (thbbft!), but it’s definitely available for Kindle pre-order at amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/First-Muslim-Story-Muhammad/dp/1594487286/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1357681198&sr=1-1&keywords=the+first+muslim+the+story+of+muhammad

  3. Megat Merican says:
    January 9, 2013 at 12:34 am

    Sadly, still can’t pre-order the book from iTunes Malaysia.

    Anyway, wishing you every possible success on the launch.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      January 9, 2013 at 8:11 am

      Thbbft! So sorry about that. Distribution seems to be an infuriatingly mysterious process.

  4. Zvi & Dorothy Pantanowitz says:
    January 9, 2013 at 11:29 pm

    what a great review, you and she both deserve hugs

  5. shah says:
    February 14, 2013 at 7:44 pm

    hi lesley! I am so eager to read this book , when will this book come to india?? please talk to your publishers and let me know!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      February 15, 2013 at 9:48 am

      Shah — A timely question! I just forwarded this India Times piece to them — http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hyderabad/Western-scholars-take-on-Islam-drawing-Muslim-youth/articleshow/18490788.cms It’d be great if Indian publishers responded. Meanwhile, UK rights have been sold, with publication date later this year. — L.

Channeling Khadija

Posted September 14th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Occasionally – okay, rarely – the first time you meet someone is indelibly etched on your mind.  Meeting Tamam Kahn was like that.  It was a few years ago at the Ghost Ranch in northern New Mexico (once the haunt of Georgia O’Keeffe and D.H. Lawrence) at the all-women AROHO – A Room of Her Own – writers conference, where I was teaching, taking a break from working on After the Prophet, and generally high on being in high desert.

That morning I was stretched out on a table, doing some Pilates exercises between sessions (on the table, because nobody was going to stumble over me that way, I guess;  stretching, because I’d hiked further than I’d intended before breakfast) when Tamam appeared, long blond Rasta locks and all.

She didn’t say hello.  She didn’t say her name.  She just stood there and began to chant, and I sat upright immediately.  This chant commanded attention.  It took me a moment to realize whose voice this had to be:   that of Khadija, Muhammad’s first wife, the woman to whom he fled in terror after his first encounter with the angel Gabriel, who held him and assured him that he was not crazy and that this really was a divine revelation, and to whom he stayed married in a monogamous and extraordinarily close relationship until her death.

“You wrote that poem?” I asked when Tamam fell silent.  And I mean silent:  all the buzz and chatter around us seemed to have fallen away.  She didn’t answer — just kind of half-smiled and began chanting another, this one in the voice of Aisha, the youngest and most controversial of the nine women Muhammad married after Khadija’s death.

It wasn’t just the rhythm.  These poems had a fierce, elegant energy, an urgency and passion that seemed to bring these women alive.  When I’d written my ‘flesh-and-blood biography‘ of Mary, many people had asked me if I’d felt like I was channeling her.  I’d said no way — I’m not into channeling or any of that New Agey kind of stuff.  But that morning at Ghost Ranch, it honestly felt as though Tamam was channeling these seventh-century women.  By the time Tamam/Aisha had finished, I was officially blown away.

Those poems have now been published in Untold: a History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad – just two of seventy poems in all, embedded in a prose narrative.  Here’s me on the back cover:

In a sustained act of spirited research and imagination, Tamam Kahn brings Muhammad’s wives out of the shadows and into the light.  The women of ‘Untold’ have at last found their perfect teller, in voices so gemlike and clear that one wants to chant them aloud, dance to them, celebrate with them.

And yippee, publication brings Tamam to Seattle for the next few days, doing readings and a Sufi retreat weekend.  So if you’re anywhere near, check her schedule here (I’ll be at the Thursday reading in the chapel of the U District’s United Methodist Church on 43rd between 15th and University), and prepare to be blown away.

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File under: art, Islam | Tagged: Tags: Aisha, Khadija, Muhammad, poetry, Sufi, Tamam Kahn, Untold, wives | 1 Comment
  1. Mary Johnson says:
    September 15, 2010 at 8:18 am

    What a terrific story, Lesley. I can picture you and Tamam at Ghost Ranch, together with Khadija and Aisha.

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