I took Professor Asani’s freshman seminar four years ago which sparked my interest in how Islam is perceived across the globe. After taking his class, I took a course on North African colonialism and other courses on the perceived East, West divide, but these classes did not attempt to address the connections between this divide […]
I have chosen to create a calligraphic interpretation of allah out of photos that I have taken during my (almost) four years at Harvard. I employed a computer program to create this collage of landscapes and portraits. Every day as I walk back to my house, I come across the following Biblical verse carved into […]
The impression where you had lain has long ceased to remain but your enticing scent that I cannot place will remain Like the smooth wind it cannot be grasped in my frantic hand though its potent effect on my mind and thoughts will remain Intoxicated by your fragrance, suddenly hastened relentless memories of your close […]
I have chosen to create a sort of physical ghazal through dance. I have utilized and reinterpreted the choreography of Maya R. and have set the choreography to James Vincent McMorrow’s cover or Higher Love. I chose this song because its lyrics relate very well to that of the Persian ghazal that we have studied. […]
For this project, I have created a thumbprint document, meant to represent the biometric authentication documents required for immigrants upon entering the United States, for Changez from Mohsin Hamid’s Reluctant Fundamentalist. The thumbprint is comprised of Changez’s characteristics and identity markers. While making the thumbprint, I thought about identity formation and broke down the identification […]
For this project, I created a miniature star paper lamp meant to represent the light of god. In this lamp is a cutout of a “lamp” representative of the prophet Muhammad. The lamp and its cutout demonstrate how the light of the prophet and god are not meant to be viewed as equivalent, but like […]
For this project I have utilized watercolors to paint a a shoreline and at the very fringe of the waves, where the sand meets the water, I have drawn whirling dervishes in the middle of samaa. I have placed them between the sand, which represents the billions of people on earth and between the water […]