Art of Seeing: how it all started

Around the year 2000 I came across photos by Peter Sanders that caught my attention. I saw people and places I had never seen before. Back then it was hard for a little teenager living in The Netherlands to follow Peter Sanders' work.

In 2005 I saw Peter at the Uniting for the Prophet conference in Wembley, he was busy with his photography. I did not have the courage to step up to him and say hi. This was the event where Peter shot the photo of Martin Lings, who passed away ten days later — a photo that really does him justice.

Five years later I was back in the UK for the Al-Hidayah conference by Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri in Coventry. This is where I finally met Peter and Hafsa, his wife. I asked whether I could travel with him and learn. I realised then that it would be much better to create a platform that would give other people like me the same opportunity to learn from him. This is where the idea was born to organise a journey that people could join.

Peter agreed.

A year went by but I didn't really do much, until I moved to Istanbul. The day I landed I called Peter and asked him for a date to organise our first event there. It became May 2012, and we named it the Art of Seeing journey. It was a huge success — about 30 enthusiastic students flew in from all over the world. I feel comfortable saying it was a life-changing event for everyone.

A few years later my wife Francine-Aicha joined the team, and together we have kept developing the format. Now we have smaller groups, different locations and more instructors — but we have never stopped.