Seema Golestaneh came to the study of Sufism – a form of Islamic mysticism – in a roundabout way. An assistant professor of Near Eastern studies in the College of Arts and Sciences, she was initially interested in musicians and artists in contemporary Iran, and the intersection between aesthetics and meaning-making in everyday life. When she got to know some of these musicians, she learned they were Sufis, and she became fascinated by some of their ideas concerning Islam.

Soon she found herself falling down “the rabbit hole of studies of modern mysticism,” she said.