Features

My faith journey

The journey towards faith can involve a literal, as well as a spiritual journey. Profound, immersive experience of faiths in their lived environments can have huge impact.

Augustus Della-Porta Senior associate T: 020 7551 7750 [email protected]

Augustus advises charity and social enterprise clients on commercial, contractual, governance and charity law matters. He works with a broad range of not-for-profit clients, including Muslim and other faith-based organisations and organisations working in the Arab region.

Augustus Della-Porta shares his I went on to study theology at university. Having personal road to previously focused on Christianity, here I was studying theology in its widest context, from Jungian psychology and religion, mysticism and madness, to The story of my faith really has been a journey. I Hindu philosophy. It was also the first time I had the have been privileged throughout my life to have had opportunity to study . opportunities to explore many faiths and meet some fascinating people along the way. I spent 10 years at As part of my degree I spent a year in , a boarding school run by Benedictine monks where studying in West Jerusalem but living with a faith was a key part of everyday school life, including, Palestinian family in the West Bank. As well as the as a 17-year-old, spending a weekend in the mind-blowing experience of wandering around some working and praying alongside the monks. of the , Judaism and Christianity, all within a few minutes’ walking distance of each I took a gap year and volunteered with the Sisters other, being welcomed into a Palestinian Muslim of Mother Teresa, first in Zagreb during the Bosnian family and the wider community allowed me to war (including crossing front lines with a handful of experience Islam as a living, breathing faith. Alongside other hardy pilgrims to visit the site of Hebrew, I started studying and was fascinated Medjugorje in Bosnia) and then in Calcutta working by the script and how it is incorporated into Islamic in a home for the dying and a street school. The days art and architecture. There was something so simple started with prayers attended by Mother Teresa, who and so pure about how the profession of faith or the inspired and humbled in equal measure, and involved name of could be intertwined into the decoration working alongside her sisters, the epitome of faith and architecture of a . in action.

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After university, I decided to continue my Arabic studies and went to Damascus, , another city rich in religious significance. Living in the , I was next to the chapel of Ananias near the street called Straight Street and the awe inspiring seventh- century , with a shrine dedicated to , venerated by both and alike. I was lucky enough to meet some amazing individuals – from the leader of a Sufi order at a traditional ceremony, to the world-renowned Islamic scholar Shaikh Al-Bouti, to my fellow English teacher Kareem who later taught me how to pray.

I also lived at one point close to the tomb of great Sufi mystic Ibn Al Arabi, who has written some of the finest Arabic poetry, one my favourite quotes being ‘I follow the religion of Love: whatever way Love’s camels take, that is my religion and my faith’.

As my Arabic improved I was able to appreciate Arabic poetry and listen to recitations of the . My decision to convert to Islam was a culmination In my work at BWB I have been fortunate to be able of a number of events: conversations with Muslim to work with and support many Muslim-led charities friends – including friends in Palmyra; large and small, including those carrying out life- reading the Quran for myself in Arabic; experiencing saving work in Syria. Their staff and volunteers work the faith in daily life – Ramadan, in particular, with in extremely difficult circumstances but each of them its month-long fasting and communal breaking of the embody that humanitarian principle set out so simply fasts, even the musaharati, who wakes people up to and beautifully in the Quran: ‘whoever saves the life have their last meal before fasting begins; and the of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all of central role of charity in daily life. One moment stands mankind’ [Quran 5:32]. out: waking up one morning in my Arabic house in the middle of the old city of Damascus to the call to prayer coming from the half a dozen around me, each with their own distinctive muezzin whose voice I had come to recognise.

I married my wife in Syria and lived there in total for four years, no longer just a foreigner but part of a Syrian Muslim family and an honorary Syrian. These past few years during the Syrian conflict have been tough for my wife and her family. Losing a brother, with the rest of her family surviving in a besieged suburb of Damascus, and uncles, aunts and cousins fleeing as refugees; faith has been what has kept our family strong.

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