Category Archives: Islam and Christianity

Tabsir Redux: This is not an Easter Egg

Central Asia, Food and Drink, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity

Christians around the world celebrate Easter with thoughts of the empty tomb and resurrection of Christ. But there is more. Weather permitting, children are let loose in their Sunday best to hunt for Easter eggs, adding a secular, healthy, dietary blessing to the baskets of chocolate bunnies and jelly beans waiting at home. Even the White House lawn is set for the annual Easter Egg Roll (minus the Christian Rock) on Monday. It is as though many Christians are not content to leave the tomb empty. Apparently egged on by the spring fever of long forgotten fertility rites, the main message of Christianity gets sidetracked to a debate of anything but intellectual designing: which comes first, the Easter egg or the Easter bunny?

Eggs are not the exclusive mystical domain of Christendom (although the ludicrous lengths taken to parade a sacred holiday into outrageous bonnets and Texas-shaped eggs suggest we have entered the dispensation of Christendumb). Secular folk and agnostics eat their eggs for breakfast with bacon, toast and diner coffee. But all God’s children like eggs, including Muslims with internet savy and a taste for the miraculous. Take a gander (but do not confuse his spouse’s eggs with those shown here) at the three eggs shown below. What do you see different in the middle egg than the ones on either side (hint: the left is from the White House State of the Union Eggroll and the right is reported from last year’s Easter Sunday):

Continue reading Tabsir Redux: This is not an Easter Egg →

Orientalism and Bibliolatry:
Framing the Holy Land in 19th Century Protestant Bible Customs Texts

Archaeology and Antiquities, Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Lithographs, Orientalism, Palestine, Travel

I have recently published an article in a volume edited by Ian Netton, entitled Orientalism Revisited: Art, Land and Voyage (London: Routledge, 2013, pp. 187-204). I provide the introductory paragraphs below.


Orientalism and Bibliolatry:
Framing the Holy Land in 19th Century Protestant Bible Customs Texts

“The Orient was almost a European invention, and has been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences.” Edward Said, Orientalism, 1979

“In a word, Palestine is one vast tablet whereupon God’s messages to men have been drawn, and graven deep in living characters by the Great Publisher of glad tidings, to be seen and read of all to the end of time.” William M. Thomson, The Land and the Book, 1859

This essay begins with a famous opening phrase from Edward Said’s Orientalism not because there is a need to validate or dispute it, but because of what it leaves out. Indeed, Said’s caveat of “almost” is telling, since his text only describes the “Orient” invented through the writings of Western writers. What is remarkable about Said’s styling of the Orient as a form of politicized discourse is that the most important part of this invention is missing: the Orient invaded by Napoleon is also the Holy Land, the “vast tablet,” as American missionary William Thomson phrases it, which brings the Bible to life. Napoleon may have initiated Western imperialist ambitions in this Holy Land, but the ultimate failure of his military mission stands in stark contrast to the perpetual array of Christian pilgrims, scholars and missionaries who visited this holiest of Holy Lands for Christians and Jews. Absent from Said’s text is the genre that was most widely read in 19th century Europe and America, specifically Holy Land travel texts that cited contemporary customs and manners of Arabs and other groups encountered as illustrations of Bible characters for popular consumption, especially among Protestants.

Said’s genealogy of the discourse he identifies as Orientalism is a thoroughly academic one. Continue reading Orientalism and Bibliolatry:
Framing the Holy Land in 19th Century Protestant Bible Customs Texts →

Islam: The Arab Religion

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Islam: Introduction, Islamic History, Islamic Texts


By Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, February 22nd

A few months ago, I immersed myself in a kind of reading that I wish was available to me and my teachers when I was in high school in Tangier (Morocco) studying philosophy and Islamic Studies. It is the kind of slow—very slow—reading that keeps you constantly challenged and fully awake. It is archeological and historical work informed by a knowledge so vast that a reader must struggle to keep track of all sorts of cultures, languages, dates, and names. Only scholarship of this scope, though, can aim at the heart of gigantic myths—myths so powerful and persistent that centuries of generations have taken them for reality and billions continue to believe in their truth.

I decided to devote some time to the work of Professor Patricia Crone because her name kept appearing with increasing frequency in the literature I had been reading in the last few years, whether by scholars who share her general view or not. I thought it was time to have a first-hand experience of what Crone’s thesis is about. So, in no particular order, and rather quickly, I read God’s Rule: Government and Islam (2004), co-written with Martin Hinds; Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (first published in 1987); Slaves on Horses (1980) and Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, the book she co-authored with Michael Cook in 1977 and which caused a storm in the rarified circles of scholars. Even though she may have changed her mind since she published the book in 1977, Hagarism and Meccan Trade totally upset the foundations of what we have grown to believe is Muslim history. They show, as do other writers in different ways, like Arthur Jeffery, John Wansborough, and, more recently, Fred Donner, Tom Holland and Robert Spencer, that what Muslims and non-Muslims learn in school about Islam is not facts that happened but literary compositions whose aim was to create a new religion with its own legitimizing mythology.

A Religion is Born

Muslims believe that their Prophet Mohammed, who was born in 570 AD and died in 632 AD, is the best human ever born in the world, chosen by God to spread his final and everlasting message, preserved in a heavenly tablet, the Koran. Starting out from humble origins in Mecca—a bustling crossroads in the caravan trade—and reputed for his honesty and wisdom, Mohammed married his older boss Khadija, received God’s message through the archangel Gabriel at a local cave when he was 40, fled his native city and migrated to Yathrib (thereafter known as Medina) when his persecution grew more intense, and later returned to Mecca as a triumphant Muslim conqueror. By the time he died, he had married several times and most of Arabia had converted to Islam. Soon his followers, known as Muslims, fanned out in a series of conquests (downplayed as futuhat in Islamic apologetics) that, within a century, had reached France and turned the Fertile Crescent, North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula into Muslim nations. Continue reading Islam: The Arab Religion →

Travels of Sir John Mandaville, 2

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity


Silk Road

[One of the most widely read Holy Land travel narratives of the 14th century was attributed to a certain Sir John Mandaville. Some scholars believed it was compiled from writings of It appears to have been compiled from the writings of William of Boldensele, Oderic of Pordenone, and Vincent de Beauvais. Whoever the author, it is a fascinating read for the positive depiction of Islam. But part of the praise is to heap shame on the Christians for not keeping faith as well as these Saracens. Martin Luther used the same tactic, even accusing the Catholic Church of being worse in keeping faith than the Turks of his day. The entire book is online, but here is the part comparing Muslim and Christian devotion. For part one, click here.]

And, therefore, I shall tell you what the soldan told me upon a day in his chamber. He let void out of his chamber all manner of men, lords and others, for he would speak with me in counsel. And there he asked me how the Christian men governed them in our country. And I said him, “Right well, thanked be God!”

And he said me, “Truly nay! For ye Christian men reck right nought, how untruly to serve God! Ye should give ensample to the lewd people for to do well, and ye give them ensample to do evil. For the commons, upon festival days, when they should go to church to serve God, then go they to taverns, and be there in gluttony all the day and all night, and eat and drink as beasts that have no reason, and wit not when they have enough. And also the Christian men enforce themselves in all manners that they may, for to fight and for to deceive that one that other. And therewithal they be so proud, that they know not how to be clothed; now long, now short, now strait, now large, now sworded, now daggered, and in all manner guises. They should be simple, meek and true, and full of alms-deeds, as Jesu was, in whom they trow; but they be all the contrary, and ever inclined to the evil, and to do evil. And they be so covetous, that, for a little silver, they sell their daughters, their sisters and their own wives to put them to lechery. And one withdraweth the wife of another, and none of them holdeth faith to another; but they defoul their law that Jesu Christ betook them to keep for their salvation. And thus, for their sins, have they lost all this land that we hold. For, for their sins, their God hath taken them into our hands, not only by strength of ourself, but for their sins. For we know well, in very sooth, that when ye serve God, God will help you; and when he is with you, no man may be against you. And that know we well by our prophecies, that Christian men shall win again this land out of our hands, when they serve God more devoutly; but as long as they be of foul and of unclean living (as they be now) we have no dread of them in no kind, for their God will not help them in no wise.” Continue reading Travels of Sir John Mandaville, 2 →

Travels of Sir John Mandaville, 1

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity


portrait of Sir John Mandeville, from 1459


[One of the most widely read Holy Land travel narratives of the 14th century was attributed to a certain Sir John Mandeville. Some scholars believed it was compiled from writings of It appears to have been compiled from the writings of William of Boldensele, Oderic of Pordenone, and Vincent de Beauvais. Whoever the author, it is a fascinating read for the positive depiction of Islam. The entire book is online, but here is the part on Islam.]

NOW, because that I have spoken of Saracens and of their country — now, if ye will know a part of their law and of their belief, I shall tell you after that their book that is clept ALKARON telleth. And some men clepe that book MESHAF. And some men clepe it HARME, after the diverse languages of the country. The which book Mohammet took them. In the which book, among other things, is written, as I have often-time seen and read, that the good shall go to paradise, and the evil to hell; and that believe all Saracens. And if a man ask them what paradise they mean, they say, to paradise that is a place of delights where men shall find all manner of fruits in all seasons, and rivers running of milk and honey, and of wine and of sweet water; and that they shall have fair houses and noble, every man after his desert, made of precious stones and of gold and of silver; and that every man shall have four score wives all maidens, and he shall have ado every day with them, and yet he shall find them always maidens. Continue reading Travels of Sir John Mandaville, 1 →

The World’s Muslims

Islam and Christianity, Islam in America, Islam in Europe, Islam: Introduction, Teaching Resources


The Pew Foundation has recently released a major worldwide survey of religion. As can be seen from the basic breakdown, Christianity is the largest in number of adherents, with Islam in second place. Here is the discussion of Islam:

Muslims number 1.6 billion, representing 23% of all people worldwide. There are two major branches of Islam – Sunni and Shia. The overwhelming majority (87-90%) of Muslims are Sunnis; about 10-13% are Shia Muslims.8

Muslims are concentrated in the Asia-Pacific region, where six-in-ten (62%) of all Muslims reside. Many Muslims also live in the Middle East and North Africa (20%) and sub-Saharan Africa (16%). The remainder of the world’s Muslim population is in Europe (3%), North America (less than 1%) and Latin America and the Caribbean (also less than 1%). Continue reading The World’s Muslims →

Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms

"Arab Spring", Development, Egypt, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Morocco, Tunisia


Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom; source, Library of Congress

By Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, January 8th, 2013

The deeply contentious referendum on Egypt’s new constitution last December 2012 gave me some hope that not all is lost to Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the revolutions that toppled dictators in the last two years. Given the rapid Islamization of the public sphere in much of the Arab world in the last few decades, I was expecting something close to a landslide, not a small voter turnout and a modest 63.8 percent in favor of the charter. As it turns out, there are still pockets of resistance that oppose the Muslim Brothers and their agenda, even though, as the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted at that time, the divisions are not necessarily between Islamists and secular liberals. The fault lines in Egypt seem to be more varied than what is broadcast in the United States.

Be that as it may, the thing that concerns me the most is what the Western media is talking about, i.e., the clash between those who want a nation governed by divine law and those who don’t want religion to be the absolute reference in legislation. In November 2012, I had the opportunity to make the case for the separation of state and religion to people who participated or are actually participating in the drafting of constitutions in Morocco and Tunisia, a person who ran in the last presidential race in Egypt, members of the Tunisian parliament, a leader of a major Egyptian political party, and many others who are playing some role in the future of North Africa and the Middle East. I also explained why, at this crucial juncture in the region, Arabs and Muslims can’t do better than learn from the American constitutional process and especially the reasons for separating state and religion.

Fewer documents explain more powerfully the reasons for doing so than the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, first written by Thomas Jefferson in 1777–only a year after he drafted the Declaration of Independence–and enacted into law in January 1786, with the crucial help of James Madison. Jefferson was so proud of Virginia’s Religious Act that he wanted it noted on his epitaph. Continue reading Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms →

The Morale of the Moral Animal

Anthropology/Sociology, Ethics, Humor and Satire, Islam and Christianity


A Christmas message from Charles Darwin

In a New York Times commentary two days ago, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks tackles the consumerist “war on Christmas/Hanukkah” but with a neuro-evolutionary twist traced back to none other than Charles Darwin. He argues that despite the rightwing clamor about the impending destruction of Christmas and all things deemed proper religion, religion is doing quite well “in an age of science” and after “a series of withering attacks, most recently by the new atheists, including Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens.” The proof? Well, “still in Britain three in four people, and in America four in five, declare allegiance to a religious faith.” He might have added that an even higher percentage would work for Islam, and probably Hinduism and Buddhism as well.

For Sacks this adherence to a religious faith “is truly surprising.” Really? It seems that the best explanation for him comes from Darwin, once considered the Great Satan of Scientific Doubt. Here is the dubious (and I believe ultimately “missing”) link between what people say in opinion polls about religion and the scientist whose 200th birthday was celebrated only three years ago:

Our biological and cultural makeup constitutes our “adaptive fitness.” Yet religion is the greatest survivor of them all. Superpowers tend to last a century; the great faiths last millenniums.

So “survival of the fittest” must mean that since something as vague as “religious faith” survives in opinion polls, it must be very, very fit. In this case the evidence does not fit very well. Sacks notes that Darwin was “puzzled” by the fact that the ruthless do not always win in the battle for survival. How could altruism possibly result from natural selection? Darwin was puzzled because he had no idea of genetics or DNA, despite his correct notion that inheritance is always unique; thus, his model provided a mechanism that explained why so-called “fixed” species could actually transform and did not in itself explain why. But Sacks misses the point on what allows humans (and no doubt several of our ancestral cousins) to be moral at all: the ability to think morally rather than simply act according to a programmatic code. The seeming altruism of an insect or bird is not the same as altruism among humans, because it is not thought out as humans do. Nor is it the case that altruism demands self-sacrifice; caring for one’s offspring can be as altruistic an act as sacrificing one’s life for a comrade. If a mother or father sacrifices herself or himself to save a child, this is indeed reproductive success as Darwin would define it.

But Darwin is not really the issue here, unless Sacks wishes to analyze Darwin’s own views on religion. In his Autobiography (a great read at any time of year), Darwin clearly rejected the formal Anglican Christianity of his day, but he did not consider himself an atheist. The term “agnostic,” created by his friend and public relations bulldog Thomas Huxley, is a closer fit to what Darwin is suggesting about the transformation of his own faith. He did not reject the idea of some intellectual force setting the whole universe in motion or keeping it together, but he did not see any viable explanation in the religions he knew. Continue reading The Morale of the Moral Animal →