The Wisdom of Chewing Fish Eyes

Humor and Satire

[The following is an excerpt from Gregor von Rezzori’s Tales from Maghrebinia with clever stories about the famous Turkish wit, Nasr al-Din Khoja.]

“Once, so they say, when the poverty in the country became so great that no one gave anything to the wise Hodscha any more, he went to the Gospodor, the king’s representative, and threatened, ‘Sir give me a bag of gold or I shall do what I have never done before.’ The magnaminous Gospodor, at that time a member of the House of Kantakukuruz, was frightened by the threat, and let him have the bag of gold. ‘Verily,’ said the Hodscha, ‘if you had not listened to me, oh administrator of the king’s domain, I would have been compelled to work.’… Continue reading The Wisdom of Chewing Fish Eyes →

Divide and Think You Conquer

Islam in America, Islamophobia, Shi'a, Sunni

The distinction between sunni and shi’a in Islam has both political and doctrinal issues at stake. In a political sense, the original causes are moot. There is no caliphate today, no unbroken record of temporal earthly dominion for successors of Muhammad in the Islamic ummah. In the older sense to identify on a macro-level as sunni or shi’a follows differences in interpretation of the Quran, statements of the Prophet Muhammad, and the continuing role of descendants in the Prophet’s family from ‘Ali. The actual divergences over mostly issues of Islamic law, apart from succession of the Prophet. These are as varied in the sunni schools as they are between sunni and the various shi’a views. Much of the disagreement can be explained on cultural terms as Muslim communities have evolved almost fromt he start outside of the Arabian heartland.

But for anyone interested in disrupting unity or political reconciliation, the embedded historical grievances between sunni and shi’a can be resurrected in a flash. Consider the power-scarred sectarian wedge in the current security chaos of Iraq, where Saddam’s secular Ba’th party had mitigated religious identity politics for several decades. Those in the West who hate Islam, who may even view it as a Satanic plot out to destroy Jews or Christians, must be smiling broadly every time Muslims kill each other, bomb each other’s mosques and treat each other as worse than the “other” infidels. Continue reading Divide and Think You Conquer →

An Iraqi Rhapsody

Iraq, Literature, Terrorism Issue

[The following is an excerpt from Sinan Antoon’s recently published translation of his earlier Arabic novel about life in Saddam’s Iraq.]

Two clouds kissed silently in the Baghdad sky. I watched them flee westward, perhaps out of shyness, leaving me alone on the bench beneath the French palm tree (so called because it stood in the courtyard in front of the French department) to wait for Areej. I looked for something worth reading in that morning’s al-Jumhuriyya, and found a good translation of a Neruda poem in the culture section, besieged [beside?] on all sides by doggerel barking praises of the Party and the Revolution. The breeze nudged the palm fronds above my head to applaud. It was April, “the month of fecundity, the birth of the Ba’th and the Leader,” as one of the posters on the college walls announced. Continue reading An Iraqi Rhapsody →

May Day, May Day

Iraq War, Terrorism Issue

“May day, may day.” You can take this in two ways. First, this is the day in which many working people in the world celebrate being workers. This is not the way it will be commemorated on the front lawn of the White House today. Then there is the military version of a Spitfire on fire and a pilot knowing it is time to bail out. The pilot currently occupying the White House is wielding his veto power today in order to stay the course. Since he is not yet convicted that the war is lost, he sees no need to bail out.

But let’s flash back four years to the banner day “Mission Accomplished” speech of a boastful George Bush on the deck of USS Abraham Lincoln. Continue reading May Day, May Day →

Delta Farce: Jihad in Somalia?

Film and Video, Somalia, Taliban, Terrorism Issue


[Illustration: Delta Force video game; insert, Somali soldier killed in heavy fighting in Mogadishu is dragged through the city’s streets in late March. Photograph: Mustafa Abdi/AFP/Getty]

The impoverished East African country of Somalia is continually in the news. Minority Rights Group (MRG) International announced a month ago that Somalia is now the least safe country in the world for minorities, edging out Iraq and Sudan for this dubious distinction. Nor can it be said that Somalia is safe for majorities, given its recent, bloody history. In the past month more than 1,000 people have died, rivaling the surging toll in Iraq.

In 1993, a decade before Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was shocked and awed into anarchic free fall, a team of U.S. commandos parachuted into Mogadishu, the capital of this strife-torn East African country. Two Blackhawk helicopters were downed and the warlord escaped. Hollywood’s cinematic version hit the screen eight years later with the same bad ending. Then came the video game, Delta Force Black Hawk Down. Now a savvy teenager, armed with cheats, could rewrite history and let the good guys win. But in Somalia today it is hard to figure out just who the good guys are. Continue reading Delta Farce: Jihad in Somalia? →

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 →

An Unprofitable Prophet from Maghrebinia

Humor and Satire

[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…”

“Maghrebinia is beautiful. Continue reading An Unprofitable Prophet from Maghrebinia →

The Book Of Death #28

Contemporary Art, Lebanon, Literature, Poetry


[Illustration: “Refugees” by Palestinian artisit Ibrahim Hijazy, 1996.]

by George El-Hage

Today, the seventh day of the month of Death, I decided to end our relationship. I decided to pack my suitcase and leave. Everything in our spring-like room I left for you: the velvet drapes, old books, notebooks of memories and red roses. All the silk pillows, and the ivory chairs, and the chandelier of carnations, the big bed in the other corner of the room remain for you. I took with me one bleeding suitcase which is my heart. It was so filled with surprise and sorrow that I did not have room for one little pencil. I left empty-handed except for an armful of ashes. I held dejection to my breast, the harvest of a full year of love. I embraced it with anguish and washed its forehead with dew from my eyes. Continue reading The Book Of Death #28 →