In Egypt there is a saying: “Haraka fiha baraka – movement has virtue.” It seems to be the motto of my life. I was born in Alexandria and before I knew it or could have a say in the matter my grandmother Leila and my mother Amina went with me – still a baby – on a trip. They had to get rid of me because my very existence was a big “mushkela”, a problem. I was the unwanted result of a passionate night. My mother Amina, a sixteen year old girl had secretly fallen in love with a charming young Italian man, my unknown father, who died in a car accident before I was born. A marriage between a Muslim girl and a Catholic foreigner would have been anyway out of the question even if my father were still alive. Therefore the solution was to go abroad and restore Amina’s virginity and find adoptive parents for me.
Only Allah knows why but Leila had chosen Germany as a destination. In the hospital where Amina became a reborn virgin a German women’s baby born the same day like I had died. She and her husband were more than glad to adopt me and I grew up near Hamburg. Even though my adoptive parents were by all means wonderful people and treated me like their own child I felt I had been dumped in the wrong country, in the wrong climate and in the wrong culture. From my early days on I felt like a misfit, very much at odds with my surroundings. My hot Arab-Latino temper was definitely clashing with the natives. Attempts to turn me into a good German utterly failed – au contraire, it made me even more rebellious. My first attempt to run a way was at the early age of five. Evidently without much lasting success.
I refused to eat pork and in school during religious lessons I was unable to buy into the idea of Jesus as the Son of God or his dying on the cross for the sins of mankind and the trinity dogma also didn’t make any sense to me whatsoever. For me God could only be One. Even though I felt somehow Oriental I did not face my roots at that time to investigate Islam. I rejected Christianity and rigid German culture as much as my Arab-Italian and Muslim origin because at that time I couldn’t emotionally understand why my mother had been forced to give me away. I turned my spiritual interests to Hinduism and Buddhism. Pretending to be nobody, the son of nobody, without any roots. But I felt very much drawn to the kids of Spanish migrants who were somehow more like me in looks and temperament.
At the age of seventeen I realized that I was gay. Coming out with my friends was without any problems but my adoptive parents had a fit and thought it was a mental illness. I was sent to see a shrink. This, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise because he thought I was totally normal and he helped me afterwards to not having to do the military service. I studied art and film making instead and plotted to leave the country to go South as soon as possible. My next destination was Spain. Perhaps I had chosen it since the country was also an Arab-Latino mixture?
I was nineteen when I arrived in the artist colony Deia in Mallorca where my real life began as far as freedom is concerned. It was a small village in the Northern part of the island where Robert Graves lived. He had attracted all kinds of artists, musicians, actors, film makers, writers and misfits from all over the world. It was indeed a paradisiacal and very multi-cultural set up and did more to me than art school in gray Hamburg. Here I felt for the first time at home and I did fit in with the misfits.
Robert had written the introduction to a book which I read in the Spanish translation and which had a most profound impact on me: “The Sufis” by Idries Shah. There are as many ways to God as there are people but I knew with all my heart that the Sufi Path was my way. It was clear as water. Since there was no living Sufi teacher in the neighborhood I considered myself in my youthful folly as an “Uwaysi”, one of those Sufi seekers on their own.
Instead of turning East I was first drawn with my longing to discover new territories in the West. To be precise: South America. My financial situation didn’t allow for such a relocation but my intention was very clear and intense. Therefore it wasn’t such a surprise when a few months later I was able to sell a huge painting to a rich family from Venezuela whose lesbian daughter Puly had become my friend and agent. As a starter I was taken to live for five months in Paris and then I was exported to Venezuela.
My exotic dream expectations were crashed right away. Venezuela was very Americanized and as a gay man I experienced for the first time aggressive homophobia by Latino macho men. Compared to my free bohemian life in Deia and Paris it was hell and I could hardly leave the house without being attacked in the streets. Things got that bad that I ended up with a body guard who drove me around in a car, La Gorda, a rather huge and strong lesbian who saved me from disgrace more than once.
Strangely enough as a painter I was very successful in Venezuela. But I was extremely unhappy. One night I had a dream. A voice said to me in Spanish that I ought to move to Cuzco in Peru and live there for a period of time, while I saw the ruins of an Inca city in the Andes. Since I had money nothing was going to stop me and I took off. I felt I had to listen to the voice in my dream. My grandmother was a descendent of the Bedouins and a nomadic life-style seemed to be in my very blood.
Peru was definitely another cup of tea compared to Venezuela. And Cuzco was as magical as Deia. No aggressive machos were making my life miserable, instead there was an interesting scene of hip world travelers and soon I lived in a multi-cultural commune with other artists. A black couple from New York who was passing left me a bag with Rumi books. This was my second impact from the Sufi Tradition. The calling became louder and louder. Yet I was still on my own.
Brazil was calling and me and my new found friends moved on. We settled on the island Itaparika in Mar Grande, just off the coast of São Salvador Bahia. It was almost an African setting. Paradise pure or in other words: a tropical oasis of delight. I fell madly in love with Ulysses, a beautiful young Brazilian boy who moved in with us. I was twenty-three at the time. Brazil was a very interesting mixture of esoteric spirituality and sensuality right next to each other which was very much in rapport with my natural way of being. The island was a center to cure people inflicted with black magic. Right next to our house was a place where they had drumming sessions and trance dances once a week. There I was welcome to watch their rituals. An old black lady in trance called out: “You are one of us, a son of Changó!”
I never wanted to leave Brazil, it suited me very well, besides I had a wonderful relationship with Ulysses. But Puly, my art agent had plans that meant returning to Deia and Paris. Trying to be reasonable I agreed – and that is one of my past actions I truly regret – I went back to Europe, hoping Ulysses would follow later. However, the invisible Master Designer had different plans: Ulysses got lost on the way and disappeared. And Puly’s ideas for me in Paris didn’t work out. I spent another happy and creative period in Deia and moved on to Barcelona.
While struggling to survive as an artist in a new city an unexpected letter manifested from an old Chinese-Australian friend of the South-American commune times who thought I should make my way to down-under. Enclosed was a gift: a plane ticket to Australia. I took it as a sign from Allah and packed my gear. Traveling with a German passport which I had gotten through my adoption was another blessing in disguise.
Very soon it became apparent that I made a wrong move. Colonial Anglo-Saxon culture was really not my thing and in Australia I felt very much out of place. My struggle lasted five months then I gave up and came to the glorious conclusion I should conquer California instead. Another artist from the South American period had invited me to his art commune in San Francisco.
With two hundred dollars and three suitcases full of paintings I arrived on a tourist visa in the USA. San Francisco, the supposed gay Mecca, was definitely more to my liking than Sydney. Nevertheless I had my problems with the gay ghetto, with urban cowboys, clones, the Folsom Street look and the American way of life. To me it was a most materialistic throw-away culture, dominated by categories and labels. Yet I decided to stay and prove to myself that I would find or create my niche. Everything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Soon my tourist visa ran out and I was an illegal alien. It sounded wild and plagued with paranoia to be discovered and deported I tried to legalize my status. An American lesbian friend whom I knew from Deia was now living in Florida and offered to become my green card wife. Therefore I dashed off to West Palm Beach and got married. The day after my interview with the immigration authorities I was on the next plane back to San Francisco.
A British gay guy had given me a good-bye gift, a book about Moorish architecture in Spain with beautiful pictures of the Alhambra and other impressive buildings. On the plane I was glancing through the book. A certain Arabic calligraphy was catching my attention in a most intense way. At that point I couldn’t read or speak a word of Arabic but I instinctively knew that I had to get this very calligraphy as a tattoo on my right arm. It had to be that one. Not any of the others that were equally beautiful. In the back of the book I looked up the English translation of the calligraphy: “Wa la ghaliba illa Allah – and there is no winner but Allah!”
It made perfect sense. First thing after arrival in San Francisco I dashed down Market Street, looking for a tattoo shop. “I can’t do this,” said the guy running the shop. “You can,” I replied with determination, “just copy it – do it slowly.” I used all my Leo pushiness to get my way. And in the end the guy gave it and did a great job. Even though I was born a Muslim it was that very moment on Market Street that I truly accepted my origin and Islam. I had sealed it on my body like a pact with God. Now I had to live up to it and also activate the divine spark in myself. But my path was still slightly curved – not “sirat al-mustaqim”, the straight way. As a matter of fact I knew nothing and was full of Nafs, the commanding self.
