Where we
come from.

The Name

Diwan of Nasir Khusraw · Ismaili poet of Khorasan · 11th century

A word that carries
a thousand years.

In Persian literary tradition, a diwan is a collected body of poetry — the gathered life's work of a poet. Hafez had a diwan. Rumi had a diwan. Nasir Khusraw — the great Ismaili poet of Khorasan — had a diwan. It was a place where every verse belonged together, where individual voices became something larger than themselves.

We chose this name because it describes exactly what we are trying to build: a gathering place. A collection. A home for people who carry ancient civilizations inside them and are looking for a way to wear that identity with pride.

Arab, Persian, Afghan, Tajik, Kurdish, Central Asian — the Eastern world produced some of humanity's most luminous poetry, architecture, science, and art. That inheritance belongs to millions of people living in the modern world who have no place to gather around it. Diwan is that place.

The Founder

Afghan. Calligrapher.
Builder.

The founder of Diwan was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and grew up in the shadow of the Hindu Kush. He is from Bamiyan — the ancient valley carved by Buddhist monks, later shaped by Silk Road traders, layered with two thousand years of civilization. The niches where the Buddhas once stood are not absence. They are memory.

At fifteen, he left Kabul for Tajikistan — a country where Persian is still spoken as Tajiki, where Rudaki's poetry is taught in schools, where the Samanid legacy lives in the language itself. Then Edmonton, Alberta. Three countries. One language. One inheritance.

He is an amateur calligrapher working in the tradition of calligraffiti — where letters become images and composition becomes meaning. The calligraphy at the heart of Diwan is written by his hand. It cannot be replicated. It is the mark that makes everything authentic.

Bamiyan Valley · Afghanistan · the founder's home

The Themes

Civilizations we
carry forward.