Ma'a Salamah, Syria

Sorry for not taking more pictures... I ment to spend my last day in Syria taking pictures, but I got sidetracked. However, here is a strictly against-the-rules picture of the inside of Sayyida Zaynab.

I got on the IranAir flight from Damascus with a mixture of satisfaction and sadness. After all the effort it took me to acquire a visa, I actually enjoyed the surprised glances from the border guards ("You're American? And you're going to IRAN?"), and I sat through the various sorts of bureaucracy at Iranian customs with a smirk. But I felt sad to be leaving all of the wonderful people I had met in Syria. On my last day at the hawzah, the women had all gotten together and taken money from their pockets and offered it to me. I was speechless. I absolutley positively did not want to accept (especially since most of them are much poorer than I am), but they insisted. That truly is the akhlaq of the Prophet of Allah. And then, as I was leaving, my downstairs neighbor -- who is so shy that he always used to ask permission to speak to me -- pulled out a hundred dollar bill and told me that life was hard in Iran and I should take it. That I managed to refuse, saying that rather than giving me money, he should pray for me.

(He's single by the way. I tried to find a nice girl in America who wanted to marry him, but no one seemed interested. Well, if anyone would like to marry an extremely polite, kind, thoughtful, and not bad-looking man from Karbala -- 33 years old, degree in electrical engineering, descendant of Imam Husain (as) -- email me, and I'll see what I can do)

What do I miss in Syria? I miss the hospitality and helpfulness that even strangers showed. I miss the openness in conversation where no question was too personal. I miss being able to talk to anyone -- man or woman -- and not having people think that I was after the man. And of course I miss being able to sit in Sayyida Zaynab. But now I am in Qom Al-Muqddasah. I am grateful to God to have reached my destination, and I will let you know where I go from here.