When the celebrated Muslim poet Muhammad Iqbal (1876- 1938) wrote "pour me the wine which burns the veil" ( "The Wine Pourer"), he sought to inspire himself and his readers to use truth and knowledge to go beyond the "veil" of their comfort zones...to see life, humanity, the universe and God from a multidimensional perspective. One of the obstacles to having an open and informed conversation is a lack of knowing of each other's culture and language.

This is well illustrated in the traditional Sufi story about the 4 travelers and the grapes:

Four men-a Persian, a Turk, an Arab and a Greek, traveling together to a distant place, find themselves out of food and money except for one last coin. They immediately begin to argue about what food to get with that last coin.

"I want to buy Angur," said the Persian.

"No! I want Uzum," said the Turk impatiently.

“Inab is the only food that will fulfill my hunger!" said the Arab.

"No!" said the Greek angrily, "we should have Stafil"!

While they argued, another traveler passing by overheard them and offered to get each of them what they desired with that one coin. At first they did not trust him. But as their hunger grew and they found themselves in an unfamiliar place, they reluctantly gave him the coin. The man went to town and bought four small bunches of grapes and brought it back to the four travelers.

"This is my Angur!" said the Persian.

"No, this is Uzum!" said the Turk triumphantly.

"You’re both wrong, this is Inab!" said the Arab.

"No, you’re all wrong!" said the Greek, "In my language this is called Stafil!"

The man who had brought them the grapes said: "You may call it different names but it is the same thing. But now it’s up to you to draw the wine from these grapes."

Like the four travelers if we too possess a hunger for the truth then it’s crucial to begin with understanding each other's cultural perspectives.