How people and communities change.
I study how a community forms a person, in old texts and in living communities, and write about what I find.
My current research is on Sufi communities and contemporary Islamic thought: how the spaces that are not the state form people, and what they do for the well-being of everyone around them. I’m a graduate student at the Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego.
Where the work lives.
Latest essays
- Ibn ʿArabī and the Law: on Samer Dajani’s Sufis and Sharīʿa12 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- Jawdat Saʿīd and Nonviolence in Islam7 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- Cloud Atlas: The Sojourn of Erōs5 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- Sīdī ʿAlī al-Jamal of Fez3 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab)
- The Optics of Wayfaring1 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Read and follow
- SubstackEssays on the thinkers, texts and traditions that shape how we live. (opens in a new tab)
- InstagramFreediving, Plato and Persian poetry, for an audience of 65,000. (opens in a new tab)
- YouTubeNarrated documentary films, and the podcast conversations. (opens in a new tab)
- The compendiumThe thinkers, talks and readings behind the posts. (opens in a new tab)
- WhatsApp channelNew posts and essays as they go out. (opens in a new tab)
- LinkedInCareer and engagements. (opens in a new tab)
Mashraba
Writing projects
The Green MantlePlato and Islam: how the Platonic tradition found a second home in Islam. Manuscript in revision.
Born AgainThe human rite of rebirth. Manuscript complete.
UpstreamForming human beings in the age of the machine. Manuscript complete.
Fate of the Middle WorldThe daimons, angels and intermediaries the modern West emptied out. In draft.
EudaimoniaThe good life, and the word we flattened into happiness. In draft.
Nomadic UniversalismWhy small groups at the edges sometimes overrun the world. Working title, in development.- EssaysEssays on formation, change, and the traditions that understood it first, including the longer reference pieces.
Anthropologist by training. My first research was fieldwork on music and trance in Candomblé, in Salvador, Brazil. Since then the reading has moved to Islamic philosophy and Sufism, and to the poetry that carries them. I’m studying Arabic and Persian to read them in the original.
English · Portuguese (fluent) · Spanish (fluent) · Arabic (intermediate) · Persian and Greek (reading)
M.S. Conflict Management and Resolution, Kroc School of Peace Studies, USD, candidate, 2027 · Graduate coursework in theology, Boston College · B.A. Sociocultural Anthropology, UC San Diego, cum laude, Mel Spiro Award · A.A. Arabic, Grossmont College · San Diego
More about me →I also work with people directly: one-to-one coaching in San Diego and on Zoom, and, through Tertium, development work with scholars, authors and organisations.
Good conversation is the point.
