I defended my thesis entitled “Design and the (Un)Making of Sacred Worlds” (الحمد لله رب العالمين) and the next day set off for the mountains of southern Spain for the last ten days of Ramadan. Everything that was depleted/drained in me after six years of grad school was restored in ten days, سبحان الله.
It’s one thing to theorize about designing for the sacred, but it’s another thing entirely to experience sacredness in multiple forms first-hand — in the connection to the natural environment, in the land sanctified by the living presence of saints, in the kindness of strangers motivated by love for God and His people, in the remembrances and prayers, in the communal bonds, in the simplicity of it all. Even the people there are a manifestation and reminder of the Real and True. There is no ego, superficiality, phoniness, or pretense; just a deep sincerity and commitment to “ihsan” (beauty, goodness, perfection) that is hard to put into words.
Going there was to have all the theories I read and wrote about validated and confirmed in the most profound way. There really is a life-giving wholeness there that makes you feel whole and nourished in turn, and which, when experienced, brings into sharp relief how incredibly unnatural, empty, illusory, and dispiriting the modern world is. I’m so grateful to have witnessed a sacred world for myself and thankful to know that such balms for the soul exist in reality and not only as an imaginary.
May God protect and preserve that extraordinary place and the people who bring it to life in the most remarkable, beautiful way.
