Sunday Mezze: Eid Mubarak / Happy Eid Al-Fitr 2025 - with corrected link!
Mezze - المزة - a wide selection of small dishes served as appetizers, including such delicacies as hummus, cheese, eggplant, brains, stuffed grape leaves, calamari, and much more
Family, Friends, and Colleagues,
Eid Mubarak!
I wish everyone who is able to celebrate this blessed holiday of Eid al-Fitr a Happy Eid Mubarak! As we together celebrate this blessed time let us not forget or neglect those for whom no such celebration is possible, such as those enduring genocide, ethnic cleansing, and forced starvation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in all other places of oppression and dispossession - including here in the United States.
Stay well, my loved ones and friends.
Resist and stay strong.
Robert
Eid Mubarak
In 1991 I was assigned to photograph a story on an American calligrapher, Mohamed Zakariya, for Aramco World Magazine. The story, beautifully written by Piney Kesting, blended a story of faith and art that I still find compelling.
This world of medieval skills is Mohamed Zakariya's; he entered it through the traditional art of Islamic calligraphy some 30 years ago. Once described by Palestinian-American artist Kamal Boullata as ‘a medieval artisan led by faith and professional expertise,’ Zakariya is an internationally renowned American Muslim calligrapher, with a penchant for handcrafting working reproductions of historical Islamic and early European scientific instruments.
In 2001 the United States Postal Service released what I believe was its first stamp in Arabic - design and calligraphy by Mohamed Zakariya, Eid Mubarak in both Arabic and English - that since that date has frequently been re-released by USPS in different iterations.
It’s a lovely story, a timely one. and well worth reading:
corrected link:
https://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/199201/the.world.of.mohamed.zakariya.htm
Salamaat,
Robert
I found the article fascinating. So glad your shared it, Robert.