Many converts to asceticism were educated men who found in the desert- or in the idea of the desert- a simplicity on the other side of great sophistication.
-The Challenge of the Desert, Peter Brown
You might say we were all educated men, if you think that Harvard or Princeton has anything to teach about the desert. A Psychology major, a Chinese major, a History major, and a Visual Studies major. Nothing there to know how to hobble your riding camel so he doesn’t run off at night and leave you on foot in the morning, or how to season a millet cake with hot pepper flakes so you can choke it down forty days straight. It was the idea of desert that attracted us, not its actuality, because we were graduates of school not sand.
The Psych major said, I’ve found that riding a camel is an effective aversion therapy for treating OCD. The Chinese major said, quoting Confucius, It is Man who is capable of broadening the Way, not the Way that is capable of broadening Man. The History major said, midway on his second trip up the Way, He who forgets the past is condemned to repeat it. The Visual Studies major said, I should have learned from Las Vegas. Yusuf said to KhairAllah while pointing at Bilal, Lucky is he who learns from the misfortune of others. We all had finally earned our diplomas.