Tag Archives: Muslims

The Road to Diamond, Day 313, Part II: A Resilient Heritage

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Community, Historical, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

October 6, 2025, Sarajevo- The vivacious young lady engaged all her patrons, in a charming yet suitably guarded way. She made us all feel welcomed and appreciated, but remained a bit of a mysterious presence. Her father, nearby in the kitchen, was watching all. Sebilj is a bit of Turkiye in Old Sarajevo. True, there are lots of bits of Turkiye in this city, but Kemal and Harina (not their real names) pack the house, with local regulars, day and night because of their Turkish welcome and the quality of their food.

I was very blessed to enjoy comforting split pea soup-not something I had associated with Turkiye before tonight, but it was golden, especially after a jarring day at Srebrenica. The shish was also well-seasoned and tender.

There is lots of resilience across Sarajevo. This evening, I focused on a swath of the Old City, the area that embraced Islam, the story goes, because the Ottoman Turks had a policy of not taxing those who converted to Islam. That story came from a man who has not embraced any organized religion, so who knows? I thought better than to ask any of the fervent Muslims I encountered here, as to such matters.

Here are some of this evening’s scenes.

Evening at the Edge of Old Town
Minarets light the night. Harina lights our hearts.
The Central Circle of Old Town
Bascarsija Mosque. Here worshipers were still very active, at 9 p.m.

Some streets were bustling; some were quiet. All were safe.

Old Town streets (above and below)
A quiet alley
Contrasting spires
A Mosque courtyard. The Imam only said “no worshipers!”. The empty courtyard was okay to photograph.

Old Sarajevo is filled with beauty-and that includes the lilting voice of the lady of the house, at Guesthouse Yildiz, as she offers her prayers in morning and afternoon. That includes the rug merchants, the shoppers haggling with the vendors, the children squealing with delight at their taste of ” Authentic Turkish Ice Cream”, and it includes people like Harina, who love what they do. Old Sarajevo was the perfect salve for the heart that was broken by what was shared in Srebrenica.

No Stigma

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Posted by on in Education, impediments, Inner Struggles, Personal Values, Social, Striving

March 13, 2022-

The workers in a Russian restaurant, in a large American city, found their place vandalized. There should be no stigma attached to their ethnicity or culture.

A Sikh family still mourns the slaying of their father and brother, twenty-one years after he was “mistaken for an Arab”. There should have been no stigma, even if he were an Arab, or just Muslim.

A well-groomed, well-mannered man, sporting a cowboy hat, enters a funky restaurant-bar, in a trendy West Coast town. The minute he speaks, “open-minded” people at a nearby table begin to snicker and offer ridicule. There should be no stigma, for a person’s life path and the persona that results from where one grows up.

Acceptance of others is a mirror of how each of us views self. Stigma is a mind trap.

Sixty Six for Sixty-Six, Part IV: Raise the Bar

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Social, Striving

January 16, 2017, Prescott-  I spent most of today just being here for my son and a friend of his, so that they got a good breakfast into themselves and didn’t forget any of their gear, from last night’s camp-out.  The other act of service was a visit to my surrogate uncle, Henry “Hank” Alcott, whom I’ve mentioned here before.  He told me I needed to cook for myself more, and so I have a sheet with some of his favourite New England recipes.  He also reinforced my commitment to service, by telling me, again, about his daily regimen of getting up at dawn, making his own bed and going around the VA Hospital, and visiting those who are alone.  Henry is 93, and regards everyone he knows as his family.  I can’t think of a finer way to live fully.

This leads me to the next order of business:  We hit rock bottom, during the last election cycle, in a variety of ways.  Elections often produce winners who seem to be the opposite of what a country needs.  There are eras, as with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, when the elected grows, marvelously, into the position and stands firm, in meeting the needs of the times.

Society could well stand a make-over or, at least, a cleansing.  Here are some suggestions:

  1.  Learning should not be limited to a prescribed pedagogy.  I have a personal dedication to raising the bar for my students, to see knowledge as a tool for personal success- and for myself to not rely so much on cognitive material.  People are embracing the process of learning, and its mastery, a lot more.  Let’s place more stress on analysis, synthesis and application.
  2. Family, as Uncle Hank says, is unlimited.  The possibilities of what can be achieved are limitless, when one does not constrict his/her circle of contacts and sources of ideas.  I said, yesterday, on another medium, that people can be estimable, regardless of their personal politics.  I have not restricted my “family” to the realms of close genealogy, regional neighbourship or even shared pigmentation, national origin or nationality at birth. It would be more than grand, if we were to value the lives of others, as if there were no “Other”.
  3. God is not a four-letter word.  Most of the satisfaction I have had from life has come from a belief system.  I believe each of us has to find our own spiritual center, and that, in doing so, we don’t cast aspersions on the beliefs of others.  I speak of Baha’u’llah and study His Teachings.  That does not mean I hold it against Christians, Muslims or followers of other Faiths, who wish to share their beliefs. Fullness of spiritual knowledge can only make us stronger.
  4. These are three areas, in which I believe the “bar” can be raised.