by Talal Asad, Islam Interactive, May 21, 2012

In April 2011 an international symposium was held in Riyadh, under the auspices of the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies as well as the Austrian Embassy to Saudi Arabia, on the life and work of my father. The conference as a whole was entitled “Muhammad Asad – A Life for Dialogue,” but I was asked by the organizers to write specifically on “Muhammad Asad Between Religion and Politics.” Unfortunately I was unable to attend the symposium so I sent in my written contribution to be read out by someone else at the meeting. What follows is a slightly elaborated version of the argument I sent.

I should begin by correcting a view that has become common among people interested in my father’s life and work, that his conversion can be seen as the building of a bridge between Islam and the West. He has even been described by some as a European intellectual who came to Islam with the aim of liberalizing it. Nothing could be further from the truth. When he embraced Islam (aslama, “submitted,” is the Arabic term) he entered a rich and complex tradition that had evolved in diverse ways – mutually compatible as well as in conflict with one another – for a millennium-and-a-half. Thus in his own life’s work he sought to use the methodology of the medieval Spanish theologian Abu Muhammad Ibn Hazm, he drew often and copiously on the interpretations of the nineteenth-century Egyptian reformer Muhammad Abduh, and again, despite strong disagreement on various points of substance with the fourteenth-century Syrian theologian Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyya, he attempted, like the latter, to integrate reason (‘aql), tradition (naql), and free-will (irāda), to form a coherent and distinctive vision of Islam. His view of Sufism, incidentally, was also influenced by Ibn Taymiyya, for whom it was the excess of Sufis rather than Sufism as such that was the object of reproach. In fact most of what my father published in the early years of his life (Islam at the Crossroads, the translation of Sahīh al-Bukhāri, the periodical Arafāt, etc.) was addressed not to Westerners but to fellow-Muslims. I would say, therefore, that he was concerned less with building bridges and more with immersing himself critically in the tradition of Islam that became his tradition, and with encouraging members of his community (Muslims) to adopt an approach that he considered to be its essence. His autobiography was the first publication that was addressed to non-Muslims (as well as to Muslims, of course), a work in which he attempted to lay out to a popular audience not only how he became a Muslim but also what he thought was wonderful about Islam. His translation of the Qur’an into English, completed in the latter part of his life, was not simply a translation: it was a detailed presentation of his final vision of Islam. (more…)

There is a series of photographs of the Yemeni youth skateboard culture in Sanaa in the Toronto Star.

Strategist of the Desert Dies in Military Hospital

Lord Allenby’s tribute - “Valued comrade”

The Guardian, May 19, 1935

We regret to announce the death of Mr. T. E. Shaw (”Lawrence of Arabia”), which occurred shortly after eight o’clock yesterday morning in Wool Military Hospital, Bovington Camp, Dorset. Mr. Shaw, who until recently was an aircraftman in the Royal Air Force, was injured in a motor-cycling accident on Monday night and did not recover consciousness.

Tragic as it is that such a remarkable career should have been ended by a simple road accident, an official statement issued yesterday shows that if his fight for life had succeeded it would still have been a tragedy, for Mr. Shaw’s brain was irreparably damaged.

Mr. Shaw was 46 years of age.

After a post-mortem examination by Mr. H.W.B. Cairns, the London specialist, the following statement was issued: -

“The post-mortem examination conducted by Mr. Cairns showed such severe lacerations and damage to the brain that in the event of his recovery he would have only regained partial use of his speech and eyesight. In view of the immense activity and energy of Mr. Shaw it is felt that this may be some consolation to those who had entertained anxious hopes of his recovery.”

Another statement issued was: “The funeral of Mr. T. E. Shaw, formerly Colonel Lawrence, will take place at Moreton Church, Dorset, at 2.30pm on Tuesday. The service will be a simple one and no mourning and no flowers are requested. Apart from those specially invited the service will be confined to his particular friends and those who were associated with him in Arabia. (more…)

As begun in a previous post, here is another excerpt from Philip J. Baldensperger’s The Immovable East, published in 1913, and available for free as a pdf at archive.org.

(more…)

The land currently contested by Israelis and Palestinians has a long history of being contested. In the 19th century, when the area was under Ottoman control, several foreign missionaries settled in the land where Jesus walked. Philip J. Baldensperger, born in 1856, was the son of an Alsatian missionary living near Jerusalem. As a boy who grew up in Palestine, he learned first hand many of the customs and wrote his observations down. His magnum opus is The Immovable East, published in 1913, and available for free as a pdf at archive.org. I attach here the introduction to the work by the bibliophilic Frederic Lees. The pictures are well worth looking at the text, which is a fun read with banal Orientalist trimmings of an area where politics rules the day as never before.

(more…)

The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has just issued a report on the letters found at Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan. This is: Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?
The authors are Don Rassler, Gabriel Koehler-Derrick, Liam Collins, Muhammad al-Obaidi, and Nelly Lahoud. Here is the description and it can be downloaded here.

This report is a study of 17 de-classified documents captured during the Abbottabad raid and released to the Combating Terrorism Center (CTC). They consist of electronic letters or draft letters, totaling 175 pages in the original Arabic and 197 pages in the English translation. The earliest is dated September 2006 and the latest April 2011. These internal al-Qa`ida communications were authored by several leaders, most prominently Usama bin Ladin. In contrast to his public statements that focused on the injustice of those he believed to be the “enemies” of Muslims, namely corrupt “apostate” Muslim rulers and their Western “overseers,” the focus of Bin Ladin’s private letters is Muslims’ suffering at the hands of his jihadi “brothers”. He is at pain advising them to abort domestic attacks that cause Muslim civilian casualties and focus on the United States, “our desired goal.” Bin Ladin’s frustration with regional jihadi groups and his seeming inability to exercise control over their actions and public statements is the most compelling story to be told on the basis of the 17 de-classified documents. “Letters from Abbottabad” is an initial exploration and contextualization of 17 documents that will be the grist for future academic debate and discussion.

by Mark LeVine, PhD Dept. of History, UC Irvine, posted on Al-Jazeera, May 1, 2012

Dear David,

It’s been too long. I was a little surprised that I was not part of your just published list of dangerous, Jew- (self-) hating, Nazi-loving supporters of Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions against Israel. Maybe I’m not good - sorry, evil - enough to have made the A-list of Israel-bashers featured in your April 24 New York Times ad . But not even your full list, with 1,004 professors, journalists, artists, activists and organisations? Was there really no room for me, one of your original 101 most dangerous professors?

Indeed, the new list, like the old one, is much longer than the sample you’ve presented. You’ve only scratched the surface; you should hire more interns. Let me help you a bit; you can add me now.

While adding my name, perhaps you might consider the implications of so many people from all walks of life joining the BDS movement: they have decided that decades of illegal Israeli occupation, massive settlement construction, the destruction and theft of much of the natural resources of the West Bank and Gaza - from olive trees to precious water resources - and the systematic detention, torture and murder of tens of thousands of Palestinians, have done grave harm to Palestinian society. These crimes against the Palestinians involve such a wide spectrum of Israeli society and government that calling for the boycott of Israeli institutions, divestment from the Israeli economy and sanctions against the government is both a necessary and moral response to this situation.

You argued in the New York Times ad that supporting BDS is akin to supporting the Nazi attacks on Jews in the years leading up to the Holocaust. You have labelled anyone who accuses Israel of murdering Palestinians - which is actually a statement of fact, not an accusation - a terrorist or supporter of terrorism. This is, of course, nonsense. (more…)

One of the most revered journals on the political front has taken a cue from Sports Illustrated: Foreign Policy now has a sex issue, indeed what is billed as “the sex issue.” Someone forgot to tell the editors that there is such a thing as “gender,” since there is very little bedroom-variety “sex” revealed in the articles. If a review of “Women in Politics” is about “sex,” then the journal misses out on the real sex going on, like politician John Edwards cavorting while running for President and several secret servicemen strip clubbing the night away in Columbia. And if what is going on from India to Iran is “the new politics of sex,” it looks a lot like the old. The reader might even accuse the journal of false advertising, since the seductive pose of a model clad in hijab black on the cover suggests more politically incorrect eye candy inside.

The lead article by the journalist Mona Eltahawy has launched a barrage of commentaries and counter commentaries in the academic community. Echoing the cover tag, she asks “Why do They Hate Us?” with a less than subtle subtitle of “The Real War on Women is in the Middle East.” Were this “really” the case, it might be seen as good news, since I have always been under the impression that the real war on women was more or less worldwide. How wonderful that women in Africa, Asia and Latin America no longer have to worry about real warfare. Of course, we all know the real war against women ended in Europe when the wielders of the Malleus Maleficarum burned the last witch and in the United States when women started voting in 1920. And I am sure the GOP is quite relieved to know that the war on women announced for the upcoming election is phony.

I understand the author’s frustration at the lack of progress for promoting women’s rights in the aftermath of the now rather chilly “Arab Spring.” Her experience in Tahrir of being groped and sexually assaulted is despicable. But to assume that those men stand for all Egyptian men and that all Egyptian women are hated is what one says in anger. The “real war” here is not about groping; it is a battle for minds, not bodies. The “real” enemy is a politics charged with a dogmatic rhetoric that is less about what men and women do in the bedroom than how they conform to an imposed tyranny that benefits the proverbial one percent, be they dictators or clerics. (more…)

The continuing turmoil in Syria and impending election in Egypt have knocked Bahrain off the news cycle. Things there are not so funny, but it is still worthwhile to take a comic look. You can do that here.

sample illustration from Josh Neufeld’s “Lines in Ink, Lines in the Sand”

There was a time when “Oriental Tales” were the rage of the age. Montesquieu penned Lettres Persanes in 1721 and Oliver Goldsmith followed up several decades later with The Citizen of the World. But I recently came across a late 19th century text about a future visit of a Persian Prince and Admiral to the ruins of a land known as Mehrica. This is The Last American and purports to be the journal of Khan-Li, a rather bizarre name for a Persian but so thoroughly Orientalist in mode. The Introduction to the text was provided in a previous post.

It is quite apt that the epigraph for the book is a dedication to “the American who is more than satisfied with himself and his country.”
Given the recent “Occupy Wall Street” interest, here is a century old look at what it might have been in ruins…
(more…)