The four walls of our home in Iran were the limit to cultural education for my sisters and me. What I came to learn about my country's culture and traditions I learned in the West from those Iranian friends I came to know as my family.
Saam Saeed Mackee is my Persian literature teacher. Saam is a Sufi; he follows a form of Islam that explores mysticism. The Sufi believes that peace is one of the 99 qualities that God has placed within the human heart. Sufi meditation and prayer nurture this quality. As peace is carried in the heart, it is transmitted to the world.
Evil acts are condemned by Sufi ideology. A Sufi's war is within—to bring peace to all conflict in himself or herself. According to the Sufi, the better one does this, the more peace will come to the world.
