Sailing Forbidden Coasts

Food and Drink, Photography, Somalia, Travel


Sheik Issa Embarks on the ‘Altair’ for Arabia. He is honored and respected among the Danakil as a leader and saint. Not only was he a gracious host, but he offered to accompany the Altair’s party from the Somali coast over to Arabia, in order to afford them protection from pirates.


[Webshaykh’s Note: Much attention has been given to the Somali pirates loose in the Gulf of Aden. Piracy is no stranger to this corner of the Horn of Africa, nor to seafaring anywhere in history. Here is an excerpt by an American woman visiting the French Somaliland coast in 1930. Ms. Treat indeed provides a colorful narrative treat of her journey aboard a dhow captained by a French convert to Islam. The whole article is well worth reading, as the following excerpt suggests.]

by Ida Treat, The National Geographic Magazine, 1931

Wading through the warm lagoon, breast deep, we crossed the damp sand among the mangroves, treading down the rubbery shoots among which lay quantities of black sea snails, for it was low tide. Beyond the mangroves, the beach stretched bare and white to the four huts, bleached as driftwood, and of so light a construction it seemed that a puff of wind would scatter them across the sand.

Two downy baby camels, in a narrow inclosure of mimosa thorns, darted snakelike necks through the ranches as we passed. From the largest of the huts a man came toward us. I recognized Sheik Issa, whom I had sen at Obock, his lean torso bare, the wooden prayer beads about his neck, swinging across the sand with a vigorous, youthful stride, for all his sixty-odd years.

The day before he had sent the Altair from the heights of Djebel Ghin and had walked all night to be at Angar to welcome us. Continue reading Sailing Forbidden Coasts →

Islam, Science and Creationism

Islam and Christianity, Islamic Sciences, Turkey


Islam, Science and Concerns About Creationism in the Classroom

by Jalees Rehman, Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Chicago, The Huffington Post, January 3, 2011

I have often been asked why we scientists are so resistant to introducing ideas such as “creation science” in the biology classroom. My first reaction is to say that these ideas are not really scientific and therefore do not belong in a biology class, and I would be similarly opposed to teaching lacrosse rules or musical “song and dance” routines in a biology class. I have also realized that one of my key concerns is the harm that teaching creationist ideas in a biology classroom can do to the development of scientific thought in schoolchildren. I will first briefly illustrate some aspects of scientific work in biology, and then I will use a specific example from recent Muslim creationist literature to show how it can be potentially detrimental for students who want to develop rigorous scientific thought. For the purpose of brevity, I will use the all-encompassing term “creationism” to describe beliefs based on religious scriptures about the development of life on earth. An in-depth discussion of the different types of creationism can be found in the excellent overview by Ronald Numbers entitled “The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design”. Continue reading Islam, Science and Creationism →

THE STORY OF PYRAMID THOTHMES

Archaeology and Antiquities, Humor and Satire, Photography, Poetry


Sphinx and Pyramid at Giza

THE STORY OF PYRAMID THOTHMES

THOTHMES, who loved a pyramid,
And dreamed of wonders that it hid,
Took up again one afternoon,
His longest staff, his sandal shoon,
His evening meal, his pilgrim flask,
And set himself at length the task,
Scorning the smaller and the small,
To climb the highest one of all.

The sun was very hot indeed,
Yet Thothmes never slacked his
Until upon the topmost stone
He lightly sat him down alone
To make himself some pleasant cheer
And turned to take his flask of beer,
For he was weary and athirst. Continue reading THE STORY OF PYRAMID THOTHMES →

Still in a pretty pass …

Iraq War, 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 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 Still in a pretty pass … →

Buried Texts Recovered: An American Consul goes to Bethlehem, 2

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

I continue a thread on one of the numerous 19th century Bible customs travel accounts by Christian enthusiasts able to travel to their “Holy Land.” The author, Frank S. DeHass, served as the United States Consul in Palestine in the mid 19th century. His text is aptly entitled Buried Cities Recovered, or, Explorations in Bible Lands, giving the results of recent researches in the Orient, and recovery of many places in sacred and profane history long considered lost. My copy, handed down from my grandmother, was published in 1886 in Philadelphia by Bradley & Company; the tenth edition no less! This is a wonderful read and it is worth reading the entire book online, thanks to Google Books.

An eastern inn, or khan, never was a house of entertainment in the sense that Americans understand a hotel to be. Such accommodations as provision, bed, and other comforts at an inn are unknown int he Orient, and belong exclusively to western civilization. In the East all travelers carry their own bedding and provision with them, and must dress their own food, kindle their own fire, and spread their own table. An Oriental inn is merely a place of shelter from the storm, or protection from robbers, where a man and his beast can safely lodge for the night free of charge. A portion of the khan was assigned to the beasts, generally one side, and travelers who came in late, if they found the khan full, would have to make their beds in the manger with the horses and camels, as Joseph and Mary were forced to do. These caravansaries, or inns, were sometimes very rude, simply a rough wall built around a house, or natural caves int he rocks, as appears to have been the case at Bethlehem. Many of these grottoes are used as stables in the neighborhood, and some of them as dwellings by the Arabs. Continue reading Buried Texts Recovered: An American Consul goes to Bethlehem, 2 →

New book on Lawrence

Archaeology and Antiquities, Books You Should Read, Journalism and Media, Orientalism



A new book has appeared by Michael Korda entitled The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (Harper/HarperCollins Publishers, 762 pages). A review by Ben MacIntyre was published in yesterday’s New York Times, the beginning of which I attach here.

Lowell Thomas, the pioneering American journalist and filmmaker, was buying dates on a Jerusalem street soon after the holy city had been wrested from Turkish control by British forces in 1917, when he spotted a group of Arabs, led by a most remarkable figure. “A single Bedouin who stood out in sharp relief from his companions; . . . in his belt was fastened the short curved sword of a prince of Mecca, . . . marking him every inch a king. . . . This young man was blond as a Scandinavian. . . . His expression was serene, almost saintly, in its selflessness and repose.”

The robed figure was T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, Laurens Bey to his Arab comrades in arms, the “Uncrowned King of Arabia” according to his boosters. And if Thomas’s description seems sensationalist, that is hardly surprising, for the American did more than any other single person to turn Lawrence into a glittering multimedia global celebrity, a fable, a saint and a myth.

Lawrence was an ambiguous figure in his lifetime, and has remained so ever since, in part because the fog of fame made it virtually impossible to see him clearly, then and now. He was a scholar and warrior, an imperialist and supporter of Arab independence, a politician and rebel, a publicity seeker and recluse. Fighting alongside Arab irregulars in the revolt against Turkish Ottoman rule during World War I, he was fanatically brave and chillingly ruthless. He was fastidious, inconsistently vegetarian, sexually repressed, allergic to physical contact and addicted to danger, flagellation and roasting baths. He was fabulously weird. Continue reading New book on Lawrence →