For those of us who have been reading about Islam for decades, it is somewhat of a shock that one of the classic studies, Islam in Modern History, by the noted historian of religion Wilfred Cantwell Smith, is now half a century old. Based on personal experience in Pakistan in addition to masterful knowledge of sources, Smith put “modern†Islam on the intellectual map. For a book written so long ago by a humble scholar aware of the pitfalls of political prophecy, you might wonder why such an obviously out-of-date analysis is worth reading and re-reading. I suggest that despite the spate of recent books on Islam, many of them well worth reading and rereading in their own right, a return to Smith’s penchant reading of Islam is well worth the time and effort, no matter how you view the infinitely debatable notion of the divine. Continue reading Wisdom from a Half Century Ago
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An Unprofitable Prophet from Maghrebinia
[In 1953 Gregor von Rezzori published a fictional satire of an anonymous East European/Near Eastern land he called Maghrebinia. Here is an excerpt that is still poignant today…]
“I am about to report on the great and glorious country Maghrebinia. You won’t find it on a map, it isn’t in any atlas or on any globe. There are people who say it lies in southeast Europe, others like to think it is southeast Europe, but, for heaven’s sake, what is southeast Europe? … Of course pedantic people might make an effort to define the borders of Maghrebinia geographically and vaguely, but just these pedants would get it all wrong. For Maghrebinia’s true borders lie in the hearts and souls of its people, and pedants don’t know the first thing about the hearts and souls of people…â€
“Maghrebinia is beautiful. Continue reading An Unprofitable Prophet from Maghrebinia
Tancred or the New Crusade
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) was one of the most colorful and literary of British Prime Ministers in the latter half of the 19th century. Among his novels was one about a young conservative English lord named Tancred who made a spiritual quest to the “Holy Land.†This is his Tancred, of The New Crusade, originally published in 1877. In the novel Tancred is disillusioned with the lack of morality in British politics. Instead of taking his inherited place in high society, he chooses instead to go on a quest for spiritual meaning to the land where his religion began. Disraeli, as novelist, uses the Levant as a backdrop for his psychological portrait of young Tancred, but it is as much about the foibles of the British political scene as it is an “Orientalist†rendering of the cradle of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. The novel is full of intrigue, as adventure stories should be. It has not made canonization as a “great” work, but it is still worth a read (if you can find a copy). Continue reading Tancred or the New Crusade
“when I asked him what a Moslem was”
According to all three major monotheisms even God needed time to take a rest and so the sabbath was created. With the spate of mosque bombings, torture of prisoners and outright mayhem dominating the news about the Middle East these days, it might help to sit back and read what the American humorist Mark Twain wrote about his Missouri-born creation Tom Sawyer set loose in the Holy Land more than a century ago. Continue reading “when I asked him what a Moslem was”
The Founding of Baghdad
The Founding of Baghdad
by
Ahmad ibn Abu Ya’qub ibn Ja’far ibn Wahb Ibn Wadih Yaqubi (died ca. 897 CE)
“I mention Baghdad first of all because it is the heart of Iraq, and, with no equal on earth either in the Orient or the Occident, it is the most extensive city in area, in importance, in prosperity, in abundance of water, and in healthful climate. It is inhabited by the most diverse individuals, both city people and country folk; people emigrate to it from all countries, both near and far; and everywhere there are men who have preferred their own neighborhoods there, their trade and commercial centers; that is why there is gathered together here what does not exist in any other city in the world. Continue reading The Founding of Baghdad
A Sailor and His Camel Ride
[Illustration: Arabian Camel from George Shaw, Zoology (1801)]
[Joseph Osgood was a Black American sailor who visited the Yemeni port of Mocha about a dozen years before the start of the American Civil War. He offers a rich, descriptive account of his visit to the Yemeni coast, including a sailor’s view of the ship of the desert.]
No wheel carriages are used here, the most general mode of transportation being by camels, for which the males along are serviceable. The flesh of the camel forms a staple article of food, the head and neck being excepted, because one of the race unwittingly rendered these parts unholy by obtrusively poking his head and neck into Mahomet’s tomb. Wellsted says that a camel is welcomed at its birth, by the Arab, with “another child is born unto us.” Continue reading A Sailor and His Camel Ride
The Book of Sanaa
One of the Arab World’s most important modern poets is the Yemeni ‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Maqalih. Dr. al-Maqâlih received his Ph.D. from ‘Ayn Shams University in 1977. He was President of Sanaa University from 1982-2001. He has received the title of “Knight of the First Rank in Arts and Letters” in 2003 from the government of France. The poem (translated here by Bob Holman and Sam Liebhaber) was written during the 70 day siege of Sanaa in 1968 when the poet was 31 years old. Sanaa is the capital of the modern Yemeni nation state, as it was for the Zaydi imamate when Dr. al-Maqalih was born.
The 26th Qasida
By ‘Abd al ‘Aziz al-Maqalih
Where are the gardens of Sanaa?
Dusty souqs have killed them,
covered them with corruption.
Nothing remains of their walls,
no one marched in their funeral.
Mary in the Qur’an
Illustration: Theotokos, Virgin Mary, Albanian icon
Bismillah al-Rahman al-Raheem. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.
. . .And make mention of Mary in the Scripture, when she had withdrawn from her people to a place in the East, and had chosen seclusion from them. Then We [God] sent unto her Our Spirit and it assumed for her the likeness of a perfect human being. She said: “Truly I seek refuge in the Merciful One from you, if you are God-fearingâ€. He said: “I am only a messenger of your Lord, to give to you a pure sonâ€. She said: “How can I have a son when no man has touched me, neither have I been unchasteâ€? He said: “Even so. Your Lord says: ‘It is easy for Me. And that We may make of him a revelation for humanity and a mercy from Us, and it is a thing ordained’â€. And she conceived him, and she withdrew pregnant with him to a distant place. And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm-tree: She cried out: “Oh! Would that I had died before this! Would that I had been a thing forgotten and unseen!†Then (a voice) called out to her from beneath her: “Do not grieve, for surely your Lord has made a stream to flow beneath you; And shake towards you the trunk of the palm tree, it will drop on you fresh ripe dates: So eat and drink and refresh yourself. Then if you see any person, say: ‘Surely I have vowed a fast to the Merciful One, so I shall not speak to any one today’â€. Then she brought the child to her own people, carrying him. They said: “O Mary! You have come with an amazing thing. O sister of Aaron! Your father was not a wicked man nor was your mother an unchaste womanâ€. Then she pointed to the child. “But they said, ‘How shall we speak to one who is still in the cradle, a little child?’ Jesus said, ‘Behold, I am God’s servant; God has given me the book and made me a prophet. God has made me blessed, wherever I may be; and God has enjoined me to pray and to give alms so long as I live, and likewise to cherish my mother; God has not made me arrogant or unblessed. Peace be upon me the day I was born, and the day I die, and the day I am raised up alive’â€. Qur’an, Chapter of Mary, (19:16—35)
Good evening, al-salaamu alaikum, peace be upon you all.
I am, as ever, honoured to be here with you on this blessed night at Trinity-St. Paul’s. It is a great joy to be back in this church, both in the primary meaning of that word as this gathering of people, and in the secondary meaning of this amazing physical space that we share. Continue reading Mary in the Qur’an