Lara Gibson participated in the CAWU-Heliopolis University summer school between June 27 and July 6, 2018, and interned with our center between July 8 and October 4, 2018. Lara studied Arabic language and culture at Durham University, UK. In her letter of motivation, she wrote “your programme appeals to me primarily because of the hands-on and demanding approach to research, and CAWU itself stands out to me due to its excellent reputation, high-quality research projects and its dedication to its interns.”Lara became fascinated by poetry from the Islamic Golden Age. “I have become captivated with this complex language and mystifying region.” In 2018 she stated that her ultimate goal is working in the Middle East. 

Lara sent us at the end of 2019 her BA thesis on “The Tribunal of Love: The Four Stages of Love in Ibn al-Fāriḍ’s Poetry.” In January 2020 I presented her paper to Abdallah Schleifer, Professor Emeritus & Senior Fellow Kamal Adham [Kamāl Adham] Center for TV Journalism, American University in Cairo. Abdallah was born Marc Schleifer and is an American New York Jew who had become involved with the American Beat Movement, a social and literary movement originating in the 1950s and centred in the bohemian artist communities in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York. The writers of the Beat Generation sought to spiritually and sexually liberate humanity, decriminalize drugs, and promote a counterculture lifestyle. They can be seen as the precursors to the hippies of the 1960s, larger in size since they were fuelled by the mass media but according to Christopher Kiely the hippies were “stripped of much of its intellectual counterculture firepower.”

Allen Ginsberg one of the founding fathers of the Beat Generation credits the “influence” of the beat generation with the following “effects” on American society:

·       Spiritual liberation, sexual “revolution” or “liberation,” …

·       Liberation of the world from censorship.

·       Demystification and/or decriminalization of cannabis and other drugs.

·       The evolution of rhythm and blues into rock and roll as a high art form…

·       The spread of ecological consciousness…

·       Opposition to the military-industrial machine civilization…

·       Attention to… a “second religiousness” developing within an advanced civilization.

·       Return to an appreciation of idiosyncrasy as against state regimentation.

·       Respect for land and indigenous peoples and creatures…

— Allen Ginsberg, A Definition of Beat Generation, Friction vol. 1, no. 2/3

Christopher Kiely believes that Ginsberg is giving the influence of his movement too much credit but says these statements do clarify the ideology of the Beats. With this background it is not a surprise that Abdallah Schleifer and his long-time friend Shems Friedlander, also from New York, became attracted to Sufism and in particular Sufism in line with the ‘The Tribunal of Love.’ Both converted to Islam in the 1960s and moved to the Middle East. Both found a position at the American University in Cairo. Shems Friedlander as emeritus professor of practice, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication. Friedlander authored several books on Sufism. He described his experiences in Winter Harvest, a Memoir (2015).

Abdallah Schleifer wanted very much to write the foreword to Lara Gibson’s paper since he believes that Sufism is much in line with aspects of what he experienced in the Beat Movement. Abdallah has read Lara’s paper and was fascinated and complimented her for her excellent work. We have been waiting for his foreword for over two years but since he has been struggling with his health, he has not been able to do so.

Lara Gibson became a financial journalist in London and is planning to return to Cairo later this year to work as a foreign correspondent. Lara will also contribute again to articles in Dialogue Across Borders. It is thus time to publish her paper in Dialogue Across Borders, sadly without the foreword of Abdallah Schleifer.

Cornelis Hulsman

Editor-in-Chief, Dialogue Across Borders/Arab-West Report 1997-2022