I promise I'll have a real blog post for you soon - explaining everything from why I missed the pyramids to the beauty of the Mediterranean to the horror of language placement exams and the thrills and chills of Egyptian hospitals - but for right now, I have homework, so I'm leaving you with a quote that inspired me today to just keep on keepin' on.


My professor, Ustaz Sayed, said, by way of an introduction to our classical arabic class:


"One million Arabs speak this language.  But also you know one and half million muslims take care of this language.  It is the language of their holy book, of Holy Qu'ran.  They use it when they pray - when they speak to God.  So they take care of this language."


And as old Leonard would say, "There's a blaze of light in every word, it doesn't matter which you heard, the holy or the broken hallelujah!"


"If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless momentIs England and nowhere. Never and always. "
           -- T.S. Eliot, "Four Quartets"


Words are holy here, and tongued with fire.  Language is a struggle and I'm learning quickly the humbling fact that my current knowledge of arabic is essentially useless.  But I learned today that I've come to the right place.  They do not just worship words here - words are the pure path to god.  Speaking with the earthy taste of falafel and mango juice on my tongue, and the mangled grammar of 'arabi on my lips, I'm praying every day.