Photographer portrays human side of Islam

Throughout her career, photographer Alexandra Avakian has found herself drawn to dangerous areas, caught up in the drama of revolution and the human compulsion to fight for freedom. In “Windows of the Soul,” she has collected stories and pictures documenting such struggles across the Islamic world, from the Middle East to America.

Avakian aims to tell stories, both in words that evoke atmosphere and in images that show us details without resorting to the rose-tinted lens of exoticism. She goes beyond the familiar to show us not only what daily life is like in many Islamic towns, but also what society means in places where traditions and customs go back thousands of years, and what survival means in places of endless war and desperate poverty.

While far from homogenous, the regions Avakian chronicles are sadly linked by the specter of death and violence. Explosive Gaza, famine-ripped Somalia and battle-weary Central Asia are all backdrops for scenes of heartbreak.

But the image of a gun-toting child’s hard-eyed sneer is juxtaposed with that of smiling boys playing in a wide, sunny river, and that of solemn figures toiling at a huge loom with chatting women enjoying sodas after a shopping trip. The Muslim world is not all conflict and pain, and Avakian highlights aspects of it that might surprise readers — an all-female clothing-optional beach in Iran, desert cave homes wired with electricity and running water, a thriving community founded by African-American Sunni Muslims in the middle of rural Mississippi.

Avakian keeps her focus on facts, not judgment.