Category Archives: Orientalism

Tabsir Redux: God’s Equal Curse

Egypt, Orientalism, Travel


English poet and traveller Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (1840 – 1922), circa 1880.

Webshaykh’s Note: Given the ongoing crises in the Middle East, it is useful to return to earlier commentaries. In the excerpt below the voice of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt echoes with resonance for events currently in the news about Syria, Egypt, Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us all hope that the new year brings tolerance and peaceful intentions for us all.

Wealthy and well connected Wilfrid retired from the foreign service in 1869 and soon the traveling Blunts went east. As Wilfrid noted about his first visit to Egypt in 1879, he was still “a believer in the common English creed that England had a providential mission in the East.” After learning about Bedouin customs firsthand in Syria Lady Anne spoke for both travelers about their interest in no longer looking at the people “with the half contemptuous ignorance” of Europeans. Not only were the Blunts aware and appalled at Eurocentric attitudes, but Wilfrid wrote of Islam as a “true religion,” which certainly had far more to offer African converts than Christianity. In 1881 Blunt bought an estate in Cairo, where he became a neighbor and friend of the Islamic reformer Muhammad ‘Abduh. On a visit to England Blunt arranged a visit between ‘Abduh and the reigning social philosopher, Herbert Spencer; the Egyptian reportedly told Spencer that the East was learning the evil rather than the good from the West, but the best of both was the same.

Blunt was perhaps the most famous aristo-critic of British imperialism in Egypt. With the impunity his elite upbringing bequeathed at the time, he admonished Lord Cromer, whose “wrong-headed administration” only served to Anglicize Egypt. He used his impeccable social connections to lobby British politicians, including Prime Minister Gladstone, whose “Oriental” policies he deplored. Blunt’s radical critique of the colonial transgressions committed by the burdensome white race is second to none, including Fanon and Césaire. Consider his prescient diary note at the close of the nineteenth century:

The old century is very nearly out, and leaves the world in a pretty pass, and the British Empire is playing the devil in it as never an empire before on so large a scale. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: God’s Equal Curse →

Let it Snow, dear Sphinx

Archaeology and Antiquities, Bible and Holy Land, Egypt, Orientalism, Poetry


Snow at the Sphinx

As the above photograph shows, even the treasured sands of Egypt are not immune to Mother Nature’s cold warnings. Snow is rare in Egypt and when it falls there is certain to be much interest in what such a climatic omen portends, especially given the mystery that surrounds the Sphinx. After Napoleon’s invasion, unsuccessful as it was from a military standpoint, Egyptomania raged in Europe. There are many poems, as well as paintings, that draw an Orientalist view of the region. Even Mark Twain set down Tom Sawyer over the pyramids. On this Christmas Eve, when the birth of Christ is celebrated throughout the world, including Egypt, it is well to remember that mystery is in the air. Given that General Sisi has admitted that his climb to power was foreordained in a dream, the mysteries coming out of Egypt are as alive as ever.

Oscar Wilde is probably not a name anyone would associate with the night before Christmas. But he did write a semi-humorous and rather long poem in 1894 entitled “the Sphinx.” The whole version can be found here, but I excerpt a few lines to assist in the holiday spirit:

A thousand weary centuries
Are thine, while I have hardly seen
Some twenty summers cast their green
For Autumn’s gaudy liveries.

But you can read the Hieroglyphs
On the great sandstone obelisks,
And you have talked with Basilisks
And you have looked on Hippogriffs. Continue reading Let it Snow, dear Sphinx →

When I wore the hijab: Power and the headscarf

Egypt, Ethics, Gender and Sexuality, Orientalism


I put on my daughter’s abaya, took a picture of myself, and used it as my profile picture on Twitter and Facebook. (Photo supplied: Abdullah Hamidaddin)

by Abdullah Hamidaddin, Al-Arabiya, November 30, 2013

The ‘hijab’ is a very complicated piece of cloth. Since its inception a few millennia ago it had carried with it many meanings. It was an expression of male dominance, an act of religious piety, a manifestation of female oppression, a limitation to a female’s power of seduction, an icon of cultural pride, a slogan of resistance to colonialism imperialism and globalization, an indicator of a worthy wife, an evasion of feminine competition, a marker of otherness and a discouragement to harassers. Different meanings constructed in different epochs for different social and political reasons by different actors with different motivations.

If anything, this makes it quite difficult to speak of the ‘hijab’ rather one ought to speak of ‘hijabs’ each using a ‘cloth’ but each assigning to it so many meanings that renders it impossible to make any generalization no matter how mild it may be. And every generalization I make here has multiple exceptions. Yet despite all those many differences there seems to be one constant about the hijab: it is about women and for women; only women. Men do not put on a hijab. They may cover their heads even their faces, but that is another thing. The hijab is not the cloth that covers a head, or hair, or even the face. The hijab is something else altogether. Continue reading When I wore the hijab: Power and the headscarf →

Tabsir Redux: When the Fat Lady Sings

Gender and Sexuality, Humor and Satire, Music and Dance, Orientalism

For those fortunate enough to own a MAC computer there is the digital blessing of ITunes. One of the stations listed under “Eclectic” is “The 1920’s Radio Network” which features jazz and vaudeville songs from the 20s through the 40s. Every once in awhile along comes one of those “Oriental” tunes, usually riding stereotypes into the desert on a sand-blasted camel of Araby. One I recently heard manages to offend both Egyptians and obese women (not to mention any serious poet). This is Egyptian Ella, not to be confused with Ella Fitzgerald, who did not debut until four years after this tune was written by Walter Doyle and popularized by Ted Weems and his orchestra.

Egyptian Ella

by Walter Doyle

Ella was a dancing girl who started getting fat
Every day saw three more pounds on Ella
Until one day she found she’d lost her job because of that
And to make it worse, she’d lost her fella
She took a trip to Egypt to forget
And she made such a hit that she’s there yet … Continue reading Tabsir Redux: When the Fat Lady Sings →

A Wolff in Shepherd’s Clothing, #3

Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Ethics, Islam and Christianity, Kurds, Lithographs, Orientalism, Travel, Turkey


Dervish,; photograph by Sevryugin Anton (1830 – 1933), the official photographer of the Imperial Court of Iran

In the early 19th century there was a florescence of Protestant missionary interest in saving Muslim, Jewish and other kinds of Christian souls in the Middle East. This thread continues excerpts from one of the earliest accounts from the 19th century, that of Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), a convert from Judaism to Christianity. In 1837 he published a diary of his travels. Like a number of Christians visiting the Muslim world, Wolff is more impressed by Muslim sobriety and devotion in their ritual than he is by the Christians he sees:

There is also an intriguing encounter between the Christian missionary and a Kurdish Muslim dervish:

Chalk one up for the Kurdish dervish over the atheists of Europe.

Tabsir Redux: Tancred of the New Crusade

Judaism, Literature, Orientalism


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 Tabsir Redux: Tancred of the New Crusade →

A Wolff in Shepherd’s Clothing, #2

Aden, Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Orientalism, Travel, Yemen, Zaydi

In the early 19th century there was a florescence of Protestant missionary interest in saving Muslim, Jewish and other kinds of Christian souls in the Middle East. This thread continues excerpts from one of the earliest accounts from the 19th century, that of Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), a convert from Judaism to Christianity. In 1837 he published a diary of his travels. Here are the passages related to a brief stop in several of Yemen’s ports:

to be continued…

A Wolff in Shepherd’s Clothing, #1

Bible and Holy Land, Books You Should Read, Orientalism, Travel

In the early 19th century there was a florescence of Protestant missionary interest in saving Muslim, Jewish and other kinds of Christian souls in the Middle East. One of the earliest accounts from the 19th century is that of Joseph Wolff (1795-1862), a convert from Judaism to Christianity. His missionary travels began in 1821 and he also went in search of the “lost tribes” of Israel. In 1837 he published a diary of his travels. This is a fascinating book to read, once one gets by the evangelistic fervor. He was considered by fellow missionaries to be somewhat of an “eccentric,” as he acknowledges in the frontispiece to his travels.

Here is how he begins his book… Continue reading A Wolff in Shepherd’s Clothing, #1 →