Category Archives: Books You Should Read

Islam Obscured

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Islam: Introduction


“Interior of the Amron Mosque,” Henry Bechard, ca. 1870

[Note: the following excerpt is from the introduction to my recent book on the ways in which anthropologists study and represent Islam.]

What the world does not need is yet another book which assumes Islam can be abstracted out of evolving cultural contexts and neatly essentialized into print without repeating the obvious or glossing over the obtuse. This is–I believe and I hope–not such a book. I have no interest in telling you what Islam is, what it really must be, or even what it should be. In what follows I am more attuned to what Islam hopefully is not, at least not for someone who approaches it seriously as an anthropologist and historian. I bare no obvious axe to grind as either a determined detractor against the religion or an over-anxious advocate for it. Personally, as well as academically, I consider Islam a fascinatingly diverse faith, a force in history that must be reckoned with in the present. The offensive tool I do choose to wield, if my figurative pen can stand a militant symbol, is that of a critical hammer, an iconoclastic smashing of the rhetoric that represents, over-represents and misrepresents Islam from all sides. By avoiding judgment on the sacred truth of this vibrant faith, I shift intention towards an I-view that takes no summary representation of Islam as sacred. Continue reading Islam Obscured →

For Lust of Reading

Books You Should Read, Orientalism

The publisher, author and Arabist historian Robert Irwin recently published a readable and passionate defense of academic Orientalism, a once-respected field that has seemingly been in post-colonial freefall (perhaps more accurately a free-for-all) since Edward Said wrote his seminal polemic Orientalism in 1978. Lust of Knowing (or Dangerous Knowledge: Orientalism and Its Discontents in the American edition), Irwin’s take on the motivation of most past Orientalist scholars, is subtitled “The Orientalists and their Enemies,” a list which extends far beyond Edward Said. “I have done my best to make this book interesting,” (p. 2) begins Irwin and all but the most head-in-the-sand devotees of Said’s thesis would have to agree he is successful in this. Like most readers of Said’s text, which is nearing the three decade mark, Irwin does not set out to defend the bias and prejudice hurled in an Oriental direction from generations of European authors, nor does he disparage Said because he was Palestinian or a staunch defender of Arab causes. Continue reading For Lust of Reading →

A Candid[e] View of an Honest Turk

Books You Should Read, Literature, Orientalism, Travel

[One of the great moral tales of the 18th century is Voltaire’s (1759) Candide, a book well worth reading and rereading from time to time. Here is an excerpt from the end of the book, but it is not Orientalism in the Saidian sense of negative portrayal; indeed it is the honest Turk which stands in contrast to tyrants of all stripes.]

During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople, and several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a great noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were returning to the little farm, met with a good-looking old man, who was taking the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was disputative, asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately strangled.

“I cannot tell,” answered the good old man; “I never knew the name of any mufti, or vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the event you speak of; I presume that in general such as are concerned in public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they deserve it: but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I am contented with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with my own hands.” Continue reading A Candid[e] View of an Honest Turk →

In and Out of Aden

Aden, Archaeology and Antiquities, Books You Should Read, Islamic Economics, Islamic Texts, Rasulids, Travel, Yemen

[The following is an excerpt from a recently published historical analysis of the Yemeni port of Aden in the 13th and 14th centuries by Roxani Margariti (Emory University), who reconstructs port life vividly through archival records in the Cairo Genizeh, relevant Arabic texts and archaeological research. This is a fascinating look at one of the most important medieval ports in the Red Sea/Indian Ocean trading network that ultimately linked Europe with the Far East before Portuguese galleons changed the complex equation of global trade.]

by Roxani Eleni Margariti

In the current era of giant container ships, GPS, and e-commerce, a single vessel can carry forty-eight hundred trailer-sized containers of merchandize from Bremen, Germany, to Elizabeth, New Jersey, in a single voyage. The exact position of a ship is knowable at the push of a button and the blink of any eye, and one can place an order one minute and have confirmation of its receipt in the next. It is therefore difficult to grasp the medieval dimensions of dimensions and time. A respectably sized medieval Arab ship held the equivalent of about two trailer-sized containers. Continue reading In and Out of Aden →

Wisdom from a Half Century Ago

Books You Should Read, Islam: Introduction


Wilfred Cantwell Smith

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 →

Tancred or the New Crusade

Books You Should Read, 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 Tancred or the New Crusade →

“when I asked him what a Moslem was”

Books You Should Read, Egypt, Humor and Satire, Travel

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” →

What Went On

Books You Should Read, Islam and Christianity, Islamic History

 

Having just returned from the annual conference of MESA (Middle East Studies Association) in Washington, D.C., my eyes are still glazed from all the new titles in the book exhibits. I doubt there was a major publisher represented that did not have a new offering with “Jihad,” “Post 9/11,” “Islamism” or just plain “Terrorism” on prominent display. The pundits are having a field day, embedded journalist and intrepid academics alike. The greatest volume of texts by a single author went to Bernard Lewis, who had so many titles on display at the Oxford booth that this reputable forum might be in danger of becoming the Oxford-Lewis University Press. Several books back, not that the content varies much, Lewis hit the market right after 9/11 with his What Went Wrong?,a typical Lewisite (following the common media usage of Shiite) rehash lamenting the fact “they” are not as curious about “us” as “we” are about “them.” There are many valuable books now available that counter this iconic neocon imagination of the Middle East. But one book that I fear may be lost in the constant shuffle of new titles is historian Richard Bulliet’s The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization (Columbia University Press, 2004).

Continue reading What Went On →