The WISE conference is finally over after 3.5 days of a whirlwind of workshops and presentations all facilitated by me as the MC! I am thrilled to have had the opportunity to serve this network of amazing women who moved all of us by their courage, their intellect and wisdom and their spiritual beauty!
The WISE team met on Thursday morning, Thursday night and all day Friday to make final preparations for welcoming the guests and organizing the final details. It was fun to watch all the young interns, fellows and some paid staff managing everything for this international conference. I opened our session on Friday evening followed by Nimah Nawwab, a poet/scholar/activist from Saudi Arabia whose powerful, throbbing poems kicked off our session, followed by the sweet 22nd generation granddaughter of Hezret Mevlana Rumi, Ersin Celebi Bayrou, who touched our hearts by her remarks. When asked why Turkey is such a great model for Muslims, and why this is so, she said it is Rumi’s heritage of focusing on right behavior and not wrongdoing, so that people would not run from God’s love. Our Turkish host, TURKAD is an amazing Sufi organization headed by a shaikha Cemalnur, who is the most humble servant of God, and touched everyone with her and her staff’s amazingly selfless and loving hospitality. Thanks to them we ended our 3.5 days with 2 back-to-back evenings of Sufi jam sessions at 2 different Sultan’s palaces along the Bosphorus – imagine that for someone like me who loves sufi music and zikr!
Our first day focused on spiritual and religious leadership, and we heard from spiritual women leaders, like Seemi Ghazi of Canada, Aisha Rafea of Egypt and the first Palestinian sharia judge, a woman named Judge Kholoud Al Faqeeh. Then the Shura Council updated us on their amazing work, and we found out that their paper on Female Genital Mutilation has been circulated at African conferences on FGM – how wonderful to see the work being applied on the ground! We also heard from a Hindu yogini, a woman rabbi and a Christian minister who shared their journey of becoming spiritual leaders and how similar the challenges are across all faiths. And finally, the Turkish group put on a panel about the Sufi view of the world, and how it helps women transcend barriers by seeking common and higher ground with all. Sabah and I decided to hook up with 2 Americans I knew and Abida Malik, an old acquaintance I met after 40 years, from Pakistan to go out to dinner to a famous kebab place along the Marmara Sea. Even though the taxi allowed only 4 people we pleaded with the nice but stupid taxi driver to take us there. He agreed, to our later regret, as he could never find the place, and after over an hour of driving around Istanbul’s Asia side, we asked him to just drop us back at the Marriott – please! We had so much fun in the car as the 4 people in the back cracked up with laughter, and possibly to hide their pain of sitting on each other’s laps and legs, while I distracted the poor taxi driver and thanked God I was sitting in the front! I did not tell them that I actually thought the driver was partially blind or illiterate – I don’t know which – since he often stopped to ask directions and could not read the card that had the restaurant’s name. When we got back to the Marriott we ate in the restaurant and had a good laugh about our adventure in the rainy night, and thanked God we returned to the safe and dry and posh hotel.
Our second day was the political leadership day – another amazing day with stories from Afghani women leaders who fear for their life every day and night, and home school their children for fear; from Pakistani lawyer/activist Shahina Akbar and Turkish and Kenyan women at the forefront of change. Sophia Abdi Noor is a Kenyan woman who is actually involved in framing the new Kenyan constitution! And the most emotional event was the Arab Spring Panel, which I facilitated and which featured brave activists from Tunisia, Libya, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The Egyptian women had been detained by their government, so we only saw the U-tubes. There was not a dry eye in the hall, as we heard the painful stories and Nima Nawab asked why we call it the Arab Spring, when so much blood has been and is still being shed?
In the evening we were supposed to go to a Bosphorus Cruise, but TURKAD wisely decided to make it a dinner at a palace along the Bosphorus on the Asia side, called Beyler Beyi Palace. As we sat along the windows, there were fireworks – by chance- on the European side under the beautiful bridge which looked like the Golden Gate bridge. As the evening progressed, a Sufi band started to play Sufi music, and after a few numbers, the TURKAD people went up to the stage to join them in zikr. I could not resist and joined them, and next thing we knew, the whole crowd was up and had joined. Soon after, Asmi Sadiq sang Allah Hu to represent the Subcontinent, and Arab women sang some naats, and the Imam Saiqal from Afghanistan sang a beautiful melodic poem from the Mesnawi of Rumi, that truly moved the Turkish Sufis. We were so happy to be in Turkey, in Istanbul, with Sufis sharing in food, song and music, and the air was filled with love and hospitality. We went back to the hotel for the final day of the conference, which I will share tomorrow, alongwith some movies of the Sufi dancing. Allahismaladik!
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