Night of the Living Trekkies

Screw the book, give me the movie! :) I was LMAO while watching this video. And if you're a real Trekkie, you know the name of the female reporter at the beginning. ;)

Where Books Come to Life

This is a well done animation, from the New Zealand Book Council, encouraging people to read. I think this video gives new meaning to the phrase, "reading between the lines." ;)

Are You Chinese, Japanese or Korean?

I'm currently reading Yasutaka Sai's book, The 8 Core Values of the Japanese Businessman: Toward an Understanding of Japanese Management. In his third core value, "Aesthetics and Perfectionism," Sai retells a story about three different Asian perspectives as to what is aesthetically desirable (pp. 55-56):

Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) was tea master to the leaders Oda Nobunaga and Toyotomi Hideyoshi and founder of the Sen school of tea ceremony. One bright autumn day, having invited guests for a tea ceremony, he ordered a young monk to clean the small temple garden. The monk swept up every fallen leaf and told Rikyu that the job was finished. The tea master glanced at the scene and stepped down into the garden. He gently shook two or three trees until a few dead leaves fell to the ground. "Now the stage is set for our guests," he said.

A south Korean intellectual has criticized this incident as typical Japanese affectation. He said that a Chinese would probably have left the garden clear of leaves, as the priest had cleaned it, and a Korean would have held the ceremony with all the fallen leaves just as they were, in their natural state, finding that truly beautiful.

So what are you? Is your aesthetic sense "Chinese," "Japanese" or "Korean?" (I do think that Singapore, being a Chinese-majority country, does have a Chinese sense of aesthetics.)

Leadership Qualities of the Arabs

As a student and lecturer of management and leadership; I found this section in Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests to be rather interesting. This looks like a topic that could be further expanded on. From pp. 371-72:

The quality of leadership in the Muslim armies was clearly very high. The small elite of Hijazi city dwellers, mostly from the Quraysh and associated tribes, who provided the majority of the senior commanders, produced some extremely able men. Khālid b. al-Walīd in Syria, Amr b. al-Ās in Egypt and Sa'd b. Abī Waqqās in Iraq were all military leaders of distinction. In the next generation we can point to Uqba b. Nāfi in North Africa, Tāriq b. Ziyād and Mūsā b. Nusayr in Spain, Qutayba b. Muslim in Transoxania and Muhammad b. Ishāq al-Thaqafī [sic; Kennedy really means Muhammad b. Qāsim al-Thaqafī] in Sind as great commanders. The Arabic sources also talk a great deal about councils of war and commanders taking advice before deciding on a course of action. This is partly a literary fiction, designed to outline the possible military activity and emphasize the "democratic" nature of early Muslim society, but it may be a genuine reflection of practice, whereby decisions were made after a process of consultation and discussion.

The effectiveness of the leadership may be in part a product of the political traditions of Arabian society. Leadership was passed down from generation to generation within certain families and kins, but within those groups any aspiring leader had to prove himself, showing his followers that he was brave, intelligent and diplomatic. If he failed, they would look for someone else. He also had to take account of the views and opinions of those he hoped to lead. Being someone's son was never qualification enough. The astonishment of the Iranian queen mother that the sons of the great Qutayba b. Muslim did not inherit his position are an indication of the difference in culture between Iranian and Arab in this respect. Incompetent or dictatorial commanders were unlikely to survive for long. Ubayd Allāh b. Abī Bakra in Afghanistan and Junayd b. Abd al-Rahmān in Transoxania are among the few examples of failure in command; they lasted only a short time and were savagely excoriated by the poets, the political commentators of their time.

There were other features of the Muslim command structure which led to success. The sources lay continuous stress on the roles of caliphs and governors, particularly the caliph Umar I (633-44), in organizing and directing the conquests. It is quite impossible that Umar could have written all the letters about the minutiae of military operations that are ascribed to him, but these narratives may reflect the fact that there was a strong degree of organization and control from Medina and later from Damascus. There are very few examples of commanders disobeying orders, equally few of rebellions against the center by commanders in distant fields and provinces. This is all the more striking because it contrasts with events in the contemporary Byzantine Empire, where the military effectiveness of the state was constantly undermined by rebellions of military commanders hoping to take the imperial crown. The way in which successful generals like Khālid b. al-Walīd, Amr b. al-Ās, Mūsā b. Nusayr and Muhammad b. Ishāq [sic; again, Muhammad b. Qāsim al-Thaqafī] accepted their dismissal and quietly made their way back to the center, often to face punishment and disgrace, is very striking.

I take exception to Kennedy referring to the councils of war and commanders taking advice being "partly a literary fiction." All the sirah I've read of the Prophet (pbuh) refer time and again to his taking council not only with his Companions, but even his wives (e.g., Umm Salamah at the time of Hudaybiyyah). Moreover, Kennedy proves his own point when he later wrote, "He also had to take account of the views and opinions of those he hoped to lead." I don't think this is a literary fiction at all, but was the standard operation procedure of the Arab commanders, who used the example of the Prophet (pbuh) to great effect.

When Kennedy also wrote that the poets would "savagely excoriate" weak commanders, this is not an exaggeration. Earlier in the book (p. 288) Kennedy had provided several poems; this first was written against Junayd b. Abd al-Rahmān, who led the Arabs in the disastrous Battle of the Tashtakaracha Pass (south of the city of Samarqand, in what is now Uzbekistan):

You weep because of the battle
You should be carved up as a leader
You abandoned us like pieces of a slaughtered beast
Cut up for a round-breasted girl.
Drawn swords rose
Arms were cut off at the elbows
While you were like an infant girl in the women's tent
With no understanding what was going on.
If only you had landed in a pit on the day of the Battle
And been covered with hard, dry mud!
War and its sons play with you
Like hawks play with quails.
Your heart flew out of fear of battle
Your flying heart will not return
I hate the wide beauty of your eye
And the face in a corrupt body
Junayd, you do not come from real Arab stock
And your ancestors were ignoble
Fifty thousand were slain having gone astray
While you cried out for them like lost sheep.

Another poem was written against Ubayd Allāh b. Abī Bakra (pp. 196-97):

You were appointed as their Amir
Yet you destroyed them while the war was still raging
You stayed with them, like a father, so they said
Yet you were breaking them with your folly
You are selling a qafiz* of grain for a whole dirham
While we wondered who was to blame
You were keeping back their rations of milk and barley
And selling them unripe grapes.

* A measure of four liters, the implication being that this was very expensive.

Photo credit: Masjid Jamia Khalid ibn al-Walid, location of the tomb of Khalid ibn al-Walid, from Wikipedia/Mohammad Adil Rais

Tu Huan: Life in Kufa During the Abbasid Caliphate

I finally finished Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests this morning. This is the sixth post in this series from the book, and I expect that there will be three more, insha'allah, on leadership qualities of the Arabs, conversion to Islam, and the battles between the Byzantine and Sasanid empires that tie in with Qur'anic ayat (not necessarily in that order). I also want to update my post on jizya with some additional information I came across at the end of the book.

In the meantime, this passage is about the writings of a Chinese prisoner of war who lived in Kufa, Iraq during the Abbasid caliphate. It provides a first-hand account from a man who lived there for eleven years before returning home. Only a small amount of Tu Huan's writings have survived through today; what did survive was included in an encyclopedia that was compiled by one of the author's relatives in 801. From pp. 360-62:

The Arabs, of course, never conquered China but they did capture a number of Chinese prisoners of war in the campaign that led to the battle of Talas between the Chinese and Muslim armies in 751. Among these was one Tu Huan, who was taken to Iraq and remained there as a prisoner before being allowed to return home in 762. His account of the Muslims is short but extremely interesting, showing how the Muslim world at the end of the period of the great conquests, appeared to someone from a completely different culture.

The capital is called Kūfa [Ya-chü-lo]. The Arab king is called mumen [that is, Amīr al-Mu'minīn, Commander of the Faithful]. Both men and women are handsome and tall, their clothing is bright and clean, and their manners are elegant. When a woman goes out in public, she must cover her face irrespective of her lofty or lowly social position. They perform ritual prayers five times a day. They eat meat, fast and regard the butchering of animals as meritorious. They wear silver belts around the waist from which they suspend silver daggers. They prohibit the drinking of wine and forbid music. When people squabble among themselves, they do not come to blows. There is also a ceremonial hall [the mosque] which accommodates tens of thousands of people. Every seven days the king comes out to perform religious services; he mounts a high pulpit and preaches law to the multitudes. He says, "Human life is very difficult, the path of righteousness is not easy, and adultery is wrong. To rob or steal, in the slightest way to deceive people with words, to make oneself secure by endangering others, to cheat the poor or oppress the lowly -- there is no greater sin than one of these. All who are killed in battle against the enemies of Islam will achieve paradise. Kill the enemies and you will receive happiness beyond measure."

The entire land has been transformed; the people follow the tenets of Islam like a river its channel, the law is applied only with leniency and the dead are interred only with frugality. Whether inside the walls of a great city or only inside a village gate, the people lack nothing of what the earth produces. Their country is the hub of the universe where myriad goods are abundant and inexpensive, where rich brocades, pearls and money fill the shops while camels, horses, donkeys and mules fill the streets and alleys. They cut sugar cane to build cottages resembling Chinese carriages. Whenever there is a holiday the nobility are presented with more vessels of glass and bowls of brass than can be counted. The white rice and white flour are not different from those of China. Their fruits include the peach and also thousand-year dates. Their rape turnips, as big as a peck, are round and their taste is very delicious, while their other vegetables are like those of other countries. Their grapes are as large as hen's eggs. The most highly esteemed of their fragrant oils are two, one called jasmine and the other called myrrh. Chinese artisans have made the first looms for weaving silk fabrics and are the first gold and silversmiths and painters.

The account shows a mature Muslim society, which accords with the picture we know from other sources. The picture dates from the early years of the Abbasid caliphate immediately before the foundation of Baghdad, which was begun in 762, the year Tu Huan was allowed to return home. We know from Arabic sources that the caliph Mansūr was famous for his eloquent sermons in the mosques, and it is interesting to see the emphasis our Chinese observer puts on condemning oppression and injustice on one hand and stressing jihād and the rewards of paradise on the other. We are shown a puritanical society where the veiling of women and the prohibition, at least in public, of alcohol and music are clearly evident. It is also a prosperous society, and one in which the prosperity is widely shared across the different social classes and in both town and village. It is understandable that many of the people conquered by the Arabs would have wanted to be part of this thriving community. Kūfa was, of course, a Muslim new town and a place where one would expect to find Muslim norms strongly adhered to. At the same time, it is striking that there is no mention of non-Muslims, who must still have been in a majority, even in Iraq, an area where conversion to Islam was fairly rapid.

Saudi Aramco World published an article on the Battle of Talas back in 1982 that may be of interest. Also, some pictures of the Talas area may be found here.

Photo credit: Masjid Kufa, courtesy of Mumineen.org

Jizya: Amounts Paid in the Treaties of Orihuela and Misr (Egypt)

One of the complaints about Islam by Islamophobes is the issue of jizya, the tax levied on non-Muslim citizens of an Islamic state. In return for the payment of the jizya, non-Muslims were permitted to practice their faith, to enjoy a measure of communal autonomy, to be entitled to Muslim protection from outside aggression, to be exempted from military service and taxes levied upon Muslim citizens. What has never been brought up in any argument I've read against the jizya is exactly how much was paid by the non-Muslims. In another of my posts about Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (yes, I am almost finished with the book ;) ), Kennedy addresses this issue in several passages. The first passage is with respect to the Treaty of Orihuela (pp. 315-16):

We are better informed about the conquest of the area around Murcia in south-east Spain. This was ruled by a Visigothic noble called Theodemir (Tudmīr). He negotiated a treaty with Abd al-Azīz, of which the text, dated April 713 [Rajab, 94 A.H.], is recorded in several Arabic sources.

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. This text was written by Abd al-Azīz b. Mūsā b. Nusayr for Tudmīr b. Ghabdush, establishing a treaty of peace and the promise and protection of God and His Prophet (may God bless him and grant him His peace). We [Abd al-Azīz] will not set any special conditions for him or for any among his men, nor harass him, nor remove him from power. His followers will not be killed or taken prisoner, nor will they be separated from their women and children. They will not be coerced in matters of religion, their churches will not be burned, nor will sacred objects be taken from the realm as long as Theodemir remains sincere and fulfils the following conditions we have set for him:

He has reached a settlement concerning seven towns: Orihuela, Valentilla, Alicante, Mula, Bigastro, Ello and Lorca.

He will not give shelter to fugitives, nor to our enemies, nor encourage any protected person to fear us, nor conceal news of our enemies.

He and each of his men shall also pay one dinar every year, together with four measures of wheat, four measures of barley, four liquid measures of concentrated fruit juice, four liquid measures of vinegar, four of honey and four of olive oil. Slaves much [sic; must] each pay half of this.

Kennedy continues:

This treaty is a classic example of the sort of local agreements that were the reality of Arab "conquest" in many areas of the caliphate. It is clear that rather than embark on a difficult and costly campaign, the Muslims preferred to make an agreement that would grant them security from hostile activities and some tribute. It is a pattern we can observe in many areas of Iran and Transoxania. It is interesting to note that much of this tribute was taken in kind (wheat, barley, vinegar, oil, but of course no wine). In exchange for this, the local people were allowed almost complete autonomy. Theodemir was clearly expected to continue to rule his seven towns and the rural areas attached to them. There is no indication that any Muslim garrison was established, nor that any mosques were built. Theodemir and many of his followers may have imagined that the Muslim conquest would be fairly short lived and that it was worth paying up to preserve their possessions until such time as the Visigothic kingdom was restored. In fact it was to be five centuries before Christian powers re-established control over this area. We do not know how long the agreement was in force: Theodemir himself died, full of years and distinction, in 744. It is likely that it was never formally abolished but rather that as Muslim immigration and the conversion of local people to Islam increased in the late eighth and ninth centuries, its provisions became increasingly irrelevant.

In another passage, with respect to the Treaty of Misr (Egypt), Kennedy writes (pp. 153-54):

It was probably at this time that the document known as the Treaty of Misr (Egypt) between the Muslims and the Byzantine authorities was drawn up, though the exact context of this document remains unclear. It is in many ways similar to the treaty Umar had made with Jerusalem and was presumably modeled on it. It begins with a general clause safeguarding the people their religion (millat), their property, their crucifixes, their lands and their waterways. They would be obliged to pay the jizya (tribute) every year when the rise of the Nile (ziyādat nahrihim) was over. If the river failed to rise properly, payment would be reduced in proportion. If anyone did not agree to it, he would not pay the tribute but he would not receive protection. Romans and Nubians who wanted to enjoy the same terms might do so and those who did not were free to leave.

...

In many of them [different written accounts about the treaty] the tax to be paid was assessed at 2 dinars per adult male except for the poor. Some also said that the Egyptians should provide the Muslims with supplies. Each landowner (dhī ard) was to provide 210 kilos of wheat, 4 liters of oil, 4 liters of honey and 4 liters of vinegar (but, of course, no wine). They were also to get clothing: each Muslim was to be given a woolen jubba, a burnūs or turban, a pair of trousers (sarāwīl) and a pair of shoes. It may be that many of these south Arabians had arrived very ill prepared for the coolness of an Egyptian winter.

In other words, the jizya paid per person in terms of currency was a very nominal amount. It would be like asking for a tax of one or two dollars per person; the poor, any slaves, presumably women and children would either pay a lower amount or be exempted altogether. The in-kind payments of food and clothing would cost more, but these were no doubt requested by the Arab armies because their soldiers needed the supplies. As Kennedy points out (p. 334), Arab soldiers were expected to provide their own equipment and pay for their own food. Once the payment was made, life went on as before. Muslim armies charged less in terms of the jizya if the town submitted peacefully instead of battling with the army (probably what the slave had told the people at Junday-Shapur, who quickly realized how much cheaper it would be for them to pay the tribute than to fight the Muslims; in fact, Kennedy tells of a number of cities that came to the same decision).

Jizya, then, was not the crushing tax burden one finds in ancient Greek and Roman histories. It was a relatively small amount paid by the non-Muslims; as more and more people became Muslim, the amount paid for jizya actually shrank over time. Of course, we Muslims have our own taxes (e.g., zakat).

Update: As promised earlier, here is one more passage from the book that suggests that the jizya was not terribly oppressive, at least at first. From page 373:

Although we cannot be clear about this, it is possible that the Arabs were, initially at least, less demanding of the resources and services of the ordinary people than their Byzantine and Sasanian predecessors, and the taxes they imposed may actually have been lower. It is not until the end of the seventh century that we get complaints about oppressive tax gathering.

Photo credit: A street in Lorca, Spain, by Howzey

The Meeting between Umar and Hurmuzān

Another story from Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (pp. 130-31). As the Arab army swept through Khūzestān (in what is now southwestern Iran), the Persian general Hurmuzān (Hormozan) fled to the city of Tustar (now Shushtar), where he and his forces were besieged by the army of Abu Musa Al-Ash'ari for at least eighteen months (some records say two years). Shustar finally fell when one or two of the city residents befriended the Arab soldiers and agreed to help them in exchange for a third of the spoils. The Arabs then tunneled under the city walls, and the city was eventually taken. However, the decision was made to send Hurmuzān to the Caliph Umar, who would decide his fate:

After his surrender at Tustar, he was brought to Medina to be presented to the caliph. Before he and his escort entered the city, they arrayed him in all his finery, his brocade and cloth-of-gold robes and a crown studded with rubies. Then they led him through the streets so that everyone could see him. When they reached Umar's house, however, they found that he was not there, so they went to look for him in the mosque but could not find him there either. Finally they passed a group of boys playing in the street, who told them that the caliph was asleep in a corner of the mosque with his cloak folded under his head for a pillow.

When they returned to the mosque they found him as the boys had said. He had just received a delegation of visitors from Kūfa and, when they had left, he had simply put his head down for a nap. Apart from him there was no one in the mosque. They sat down a little way from him. Hurmuzān enquired where his guards and attendants were but was told he had none. "Then he must be a prophet," the Persian said. "No," his escort replied, "but he does the things prophets do." Meanwhile more people gathered round and the noise woke Umar up. He sat up and saw the Persian and the escort asked him to talk to the "king of Ahvaz." Umar refused as long as he was wearing all his finery, and only when the prisoner had been stripped as far as decency allowed and reclad in a coarse robe did the interrogation begin.

Umar asked Hurmuzān what he thought about the recent turn of events, to which the Persian replied that in the old days God was not on the side of the Persians or the Arabs and the Persians were in the ascendancy, but now God was favoring the Arabs and they had won. Umar replied that the real reason was that the Persians had previously been united while the Arabs had not. Umar was inclined to execute him in revenge for the Muslims he had slain. Hurmuzān asked for some water, and when it was given to him he said he was afraid he would be killed while he was drinking. The caliph replied that he would not be killed before he had drunk the water, whereupon Hurmuzān allowed his hands to tremble and the water was spilled. When Umar again threatened to kill him, the Persian said that he had already been given immunity; after all, he had not drunk the water. Umar was furious, but the assembled company agreed that Hurmuzān was right. In the end, he was converted to Islam, allowed to live in Medina and given a substantial pension.

Kennedy continues:

The story of Hurmuzān's trick is probably a folk motif grafted on to historical events, but it serves its purpose to illustrate the contrast between Persian pride and luxury and Muslim simplicity; the honesty of the Muslims and the integration of elements of the Persian elite into the Muslim hierarchy.

In E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam, 1913-1936, al-Hurzumān, described as the King of Susiana,

"...succeeded as saving his life by his cunning but only on condition that he adopted Islām. He was able to be useful to the Caliph in various ways on account of his knowledge of Persian affairs. But when 'Omar was murdered in 23 = 644 by a Persian Christian, al-Hurmuzān, probably without reason, was suspected of being an accomplice and killed by 'Ubaid Allāh, son of the Caliph." (p. 338)

Photo credit: Panoramio/shushtari

The Conquest of Junday-Shapur

Another story from Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (p. 128), this time dealing with the "conquest" of Junday-Shapur (also known as Jondisapur (p. 206) or Gundishapur), an ancient city that lies in the modern Iranian province of Khūzestān, between the cities of Dezful and Shustar.

According to this story, the city resisted vigorously until one day, to the great surprise of the Muslims, the gates were flung open and the city was opened up. The Muslims asked the defenders what had come over them, to which they replied, "You have shot us an arrow with a message that safety would be granted to us. We have accepted this and set aside the tribute payments." The Muslims replied that they had done no such thing, but after extensive enquiries they found a slave, originally from Junday-shapur, who admitted that he had indeed written such a message. The Muslim commanders explained that this was the work of a slave with no authority to make such an offer, to which the inhabitants replied that they had no means of knowing that and finished by saying that they were going to keep their side of the bargain, even if the Muslims chose to act treacherously. The Muslims referred the matter to [the Caliph] Umar, who responded that the promise was in fact binding, for "God holds the keeping of promises in the highest esteem." The moral is clear: even the promise of a slave must be respected.

Photo credit: Wikipedia/Zereshk - The interior of Masjid Jameh (Congregational Mosque) in Dezful, Iran.

The Foundation Myth of Qayrawān

I read this to Milady the other night before we went to bed. It's a cute foundation myth for the city of Qayrawān (aka Kairouan, located in Tunisia), which was founded around the year 670 by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi (whom the masjid in the picture to the left is named after). As Milady said to me the other night, this is the sort of story one would tell children. This story appears in Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests (which I mentioned the other day), pp. 210-11:

Uqba went on: "I have only chosen this place because it is well away from the sea and Roman ships cannot reach it and destroy it. It is well inland." Then he ordered his men to get building, but they complained that the scrub was full of lions and vagabonds and that they were afraid for their lives and refused to do it. So Uqba collected the members of his army who had been Companions of the Prophet [pbuh], twelve of them, and cried out, "O you lions and vermin, we are Companions of the Prophet of God [pbuh], so leave us and if we find any of you here we will kill them!" Then the people witnessed the most extraordinary sight, for the lions carried their cubs and the wolves carried their young and the snakes carried their offspring and they left, one group after another. Many Berbers were converted to Islam as a result of this.

He then established the government house and the houses for the people around it and they lived there for forty years without ever seeing a snake or a scorpion. He laid out the mosque but was uncertain about the direction of the qibla and was very worried. Then he slept, and in the night heard a voice saying, "Tomorrow, go to the mosque and you will hear a voice saying Allahu akbar." Follow the direction of the voice and that will be the qibla God has made pleasing for the Muslims in this land." In the morning he heard the voice and established the qibla and all the other mosques copied it.

Photo credit: Masjid Uqba and cemetery, courtesy of Wikipedia/Douya

On the Difficulty of Conviction for Adultery under Shari'ah

I've been reading Hugh Kennedy's book, The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. The book has a number of short anecdotes that illustrate various points that are interesting in their own right. Insha'allah, I'll share several of them as I go through the book, but I thought I'd start with one that is relevant to current non-Muslim fears about shari'ah.

One of the Islamophobe's fears is the punishment decreed for certain hudud crimes, an example of which is adultery:

In the Shafii, Hanbali, Hanafi and the Shia law schools the stoning is imposed for the married adulterer and his partner only if the crime is proven, either by four male adults eyewitnessing the actual sexual intercourse at the same time, or by self-confession. In the Maliki school of law, however, evidence of pregnancy also constitutes sufficient proof. ... Ayatollah Shirazi states that the proof for adultery is very hard to establish, because no one commits adultery in public unless they are irreverent. For the establishment of adultery, four witnesses "must have seen the act in its most intimate details, i.e. the penetration (like 'a stick disappearing in a kohl container,'" as the fiqh books specify). If their testimonies do not satisfy the requirements, they can be sentenced to eighty lashes for unfounded accusation of fornication.

However, what many non-Muslims don't understand is how difficult it is to actually convict a person of adultery and the severe consequences to those who do accuse another of adultery without being able to meet the very high standard of proof that shari'ah requires:

Mughīra [b. Shu'ba] was a tough and resourceful leader but his career was soon engulfed in a scandal that almost cost him his life.

He began an affair with a woman called Umm Jamīl, who was married to a man from the tribe of Thaqīf. Other members of the tribe caught wind of the affair and were determined to preserve the honour of their kin. They waited until he went to visit her and then crept up to see what was going on. They saw Mughīra and Umm Jamīl, both naked, he lying on top of her. They stole away and went to tell the caliph Umar. He in turn appointed the righteous Abū Mūsā al-Ash'arī to go and take over command in Basra and send Mughīra to him in Medina to be investigated. When he arrived Umar confronted him with the four witnesses. The first was emphatic about what he had seen: 'I saw him lying on the woman's front pressing into her and I saw him pushing in and withdrawing [his penis] as the applicator goes in and out of the make-up [kuhl] bottle.' The next two witnesses gave exactly the same testimony. Umar now turned to the fourth, the young Ziyād, who has already appeared [mentioned in the book] doing the army's accounts. The caliph hoped that his would not be the testimony to condemn a Companion of the Prophet to death. Ziyād showed a talent for diplomacy and quick thinking which was to serve him well in the rest of his life. 'I saw a scandalous sight,' he said, 'and I heard heavy breathing but I did not see whether he was actually penetrating her or not.' Since the Qur'an stipulates that conviction for adultery requires the unequivocal testimony of four witnesses, the case collapsed, and indeed we are told that Umar ordered that the other three witnesses be flogged for making unfounded allegations. The story was often repeated by Muslim lawyers, for here was the great Umar, after the Prophet himself the most important law giver in Sunni Islam, making conviction for adultery very problematic indeed.
-- pp. 125-6

Good Fathers Read to Their Sons

One of my sisters mailed me a copy of Jim Trelease's book, The Read-Aloud Handbook, originally published in 1979 and now in its sixth edition. Trelease's thesis is that by having parents -- including fathers -- read stories or books aloud to their children, that the child's reading comprehension and academic achievement will increase dramatically. The book is well researched (the following passage alone contained five footnotes, which I've omitted), but many of the facts presented are eye-opening -- and disturbing -- to say the least. The problem is that many American families have placed the burden of the parent reading aloud to their children on the mother. Not that this is completely surprising; after all, mothers are the primary care givers to children under five, regardless of whether she works or not, and he almost always is the primary bread-winner. But that doesn't mean that he can abdicate all responsibility toward his child's intellectual development. There are ways a father can encourage his child or children to read. One of my brothers-in-law, the husband of my sister who mailed me this book, takes his four children to the library once a week, every week. My own father was another bookworm who often read for pleasure, whether it was fiction or non-fiction. As a child, I remember my mom telling us kids (on numerous occasions) that dad wasn't going to wake up soon because he had been reading until two a.m. And, of course, my sisters and I were always encouraged to read. (As a teenager, I often read from our World Book encyclopedia or its various yearbooks for pleasure. Yeah, I know, I was a strange kid, but I've never lost while playing Trivial Pursuit either, so there! ;) )

The following passage comes from a section entitled, How do I convince my husband he should be doing this with our children? (pp. xxii-xxiv of the Introduction). What's surprising and scary is how much American boys have slipped behind girls academically since 1970. For years, we've read articles about how the number of female students has grown in American universities, but usually within the context of a single department or degree program (e.g., law school, medical school, etc.). But apparently the problem is much more widespread. Even looking at my own university's data (Fall 2006 statistics), female students outnumber male students for both undergraduates (53%-47%) and graduates (54%-46%). (For the Honors College, the gender ratio is the same as the graduate students' ratio, 54%-46% in favor of females.) So if you parents want your sons (and daughters) to do well at school, start reading to them now... even if they're teenagers.

The second change is a huge gender gap among American schoolchildren. Since 1970, there's been a steady gain in female achievement, accompanied by a steep drop in male performance. ... In 1970, male enrollment in college was 59 percent, female 41 percent. Three decades later, it's almost completely reversed -- 57 percent female, 43 percent male.

The top 10 percent of high school classes is 56 percent female, 44 percent male; among high school graduates who maintain an A average, 62 percent are female, 38 percent male. Three out of five high school National Honor Society members are girls, and they outnumber boys 124 to 100 in Advanced Placement (AP) classes. As recently as 1987, boys had outnumbered girls in those classes. ...

We know what caused the rise in the girls' scores -- their mothers' value systems about education changed thirty years ago. Mothers now expect more of their daughters intellectually. But how do we explain the nosedive on the part of the boys since 1970? Is it a coincidence that in that same year, 1970, we saw the birth of a national TV phenomenon called Monday Night Football? Prior to that, Madison Avenue pretty much thought it was a waste of time trying to advertise to men late at night -- they were all asleep in their La-Z-Boys. Then along comes MNF and they've got millions of guys doing high fives on their chairs at 11 p.m. It didn't take long for the networks to catch on that sports at night could bring in a boatload of advertising dollars and thus was born ESPN, then ESPN2, followed by channels for golf, rodeo, NASCAR, wrestling, extreme sports -- you name it, all sports, all the time, 24/7.

The impact on the young male of seeing his dad worshiping daily and nightly at the altar of ESPN, has to have played a damaging role in male attitudes about school. Girls read and write; guys hit, throw, catch, shoot, and fish. By 2000, moms were "taking their daughters to work," but dads were still taking their sons to the stadium.

The father who can find his way only to ball games with his kids is a "boy-man," whereas the father who can find his way to a ball game and to the library can be called a "grown man." Unfortunately, we have a growing shortage of grown men in America today. Once I asked members of an audience in Decatur, Georgia, if they thought they'd ever hear a president of the United States make a statement like that to the American people, and a woman replied, "Yes -- as soon as she's elected!"

The strange thing is that this "dumbing of Daddy" seems to affect families at all education levels. In a study comparing poverty-level families and university-educated families, fathers in both groups read to the children only 15 percent of the time, mothers 76 percent, and others 9 percent. That could change if we publicized studies like one conducted in Modesto, California, which showed that (1) boys who were read to by their fathers scored significantly higher in reading achievement, and (2) when fathers read recreationally, their sons read more and scored higher than did boys whose fathers did little or no recreational reading. When the dads were surveyed, only 10 percent reported having fathers who read to them when they were children.

The Economist: Just What Do They Dislike, and Why?

An article in this week's The Economist about the new book by John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks For Islam? The article's primary criticism about the book is that the data was taken from the annual Gallup World Poll and that, at a cost of $28,500 for the full results of that poll, "...it's hard for ordinary folk to judge exactly how fair the authors have been in mining their own data." Otherwise, the results are generally positive:

The authors rehearse several arguments that make sense to anybody who knows the Muslim world. Rather than despising Western freedom, many Muslims admire it, but they scoff at Western claims to be promoting democracy. Muslim women want greater equality, but they are attached to their faith and culture, and hackles can rise when Westerners set out to "liberate" them. The minority of Muslims (7%) who fully approve the September 2001 attacks are not much more pious than average; so religiosity doesn't seem to be what makes them violent. In one survey, over two-thirds of Muslim respondents called America aggressive, while the proportion who took a similar view of France or Germany was under 10%. So democracy as such isn't a Muslim bugbear.

The article also reports on another poll which had was released this past week:

The results of a more narrowly focused survey, by another American pollster, were released this week. They are a troubling read for the Bush administration. A poll by Zogby International of 4,000 people in six Arab countries—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates—found rising numbers had a "very unfavorable" view of America. And compared with a similar poll in 2006, an increasing number (67% versus 61%) thought Iran had every right to pursue its nuclear activities. Whatever one believes about the Muslim soul, Mr Bush's efforts to court the Sunni world, ahead of a possible showdown with Iran, seem not to have impressed the Arab street.

My Top 20 Science Fiction Novels, Part 1

I hadn't forgotten about my own version of the "Top 20 Science Fiction Novels," but I did want to think about what novels I would include in such a listing. If you read my last post on this topic, you know that I agree that the following books should be included in the top 20:

The Lord of the Rings (JRR Tolkien; 1954/55)
Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card; 1985)
Dune (Frank Herbert; 1965)
Starship Troopers (Robert Heinlein; 1959)
Rendezvous with Rama (Arthur Clarke; 1973)
Stranger in a Strange Land (Robert Heinlein; 1961)
Speaker for the Dead (Orson Scott Card; 1986)
Childhood's End (Arthur Clarke; 1953)

So that's eight. Now, before we talk about the remaining twelve, let's talk a little more about criteria. Two issues come to mind:

Because science fiction is so series-oriented, do we count the series as "one" book or do we only look at each book individually?
My answer: We look at each book individually. Let's be honest. Most SF series are written over a number of years (if not decades) and individual book quality often varies within the overall series. I love Anne McCaffrey's work and while a good number of her books are top-notch, there are a few that are absolute crap. (Especially when she decided to reuse some of her old plots from previous novels.) Likewise, Frank Herbert's Dune series is wonderful, but Children of Dune and Dune Messiah don't come anywhere close to the quality of the other four books in the series.

Is a "big concept" good enough to ignore bad writing?
My answer: No. Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven have created wonderful ideas for their novels in the form of "the Foundation" and "Ringworld," respectively. Both men wrote a number of books using those two concepts, and both are great concepts, no question. But Isaac Asimov was a novice writer when he wrote Foundation, and it shows. Likewise, the original novel "Ringworld" reads like a poor man's imitation of Robert Heinlein. ("Louis Wu" in particular has always seemed to me to be a rip-off of Heinlein's cranky yet lovable father-figure, whether that's Jubal Harshaw, Citizen of the Galaxy's Col. Richard Baslim ("Baslim the Cripple") or, to a lesser extent, Lazarus Long.) So, as much as these two books deserve recognition, no; they'll wait until I write a "Top 20 Most Influential SF Novels" post, insha'allah.

So, to be in the top 20, a novel has to be not just a good read, but a great read. It has to have both, at the very minimum, a good concept and good writing. Ideally, it should be the type of book that you want to read again and again.

So, the remaining twelve are... (to be continued)

The Freakin' *Grumble Grumble* Book Meme

Courtesy of a vengeful Izzy Mo. ;)

The Rules:

1. You have to look up page 123 in the nearest book around you.
2. Look for the fifth sentence.
3. Then post the three sentences that follow that fifth sentence on page 123.
4. And then tag five people, just like you were tagged!

The nearest book around me? In a tiny room filled with three bookcases, which book qualifies? Seeing how I was tagged all five times, I'll do a little penance and write out two passages, one for fiction and the other for non-fiction.

Fiction: Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card

She did not let her parents know, and above all never hinted to Peter how often she thought about Ender, how often she wrote him letters that she knew he would not answer. And when Mother and Father had announced to them that they were leaving the city to move to North Carolina, of all places, Valentine knew that they never expected to see Ender again. They were leaving the only place where he knew to find them. How would Ender find them here, among these trees, under this changeable and heavy sky?

Non-Fiction: The Geography of Thought: How Asians and Westerners Think Differently... and Why, by Richard E. Nisbett

Imagine that you see a college student being asked to show possible donors around the campus for a day and that for this service the student is offered only a small amount of money -- less than the minimum wage -- and imagine that the student refuses. Do you suppose you would think it is likely that the student would volunteer to help in an upcoming Red Cross blood drive? Probably not very likely. But suppose a friend of yours had seen another student offered a reasonable amount of money -- say, 50 percent above the minimum wage -- to show the donors around and the student had agreed to do so.

Whom shall I piss off today? ;) How about Rob Wagner, our sister in Islam Kay, another sister in Islam, DramaMama, fellow drum corps alum James Chappell (who completely missed my recent posts of the 20 best SF novels), and (let's see if he even notices a lowly blog like mine) Mr. "IZ" of IZ Reloaded.

Comments About the "Top 20" SF Novels

This happened to be an interesting topic, and I do appreciate all the comments that the previous post generated. In preparing to write about the top 20 science fiction novels I'd choose, I thought I'd go over the earlier listing and discuss why I agree (and disagree) with those choices. Please feel free to chime in and criticize my criticisms, if you'd like.


1. The Lord of the Rings (1954/55) - Technically not SF, but fantasy. However, the two genres are very much related to each other, and some authors like C.J. Cherryh bounce between the two fields. While I'd prefer not to have LOTR on a list of the best SF novels, the book is so influential that you can't really not have it on the list.

2. Time Enough for Love (1973) - Enjoyable book, especially for "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long," but I wouldn't rate it #2 and, in fact, I'd drop it from the "top 20" altogether. (This is a book I've reread recently as well.)

3. The Martian Chronicles (1950) - Another book I've reread in the past few months. Influential book? Absolutely. Worthy of being in the "top 20?" Not a chance. And the writing is very dated at this time.

4. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) - Sad to say, I haven't had the chance to reread this one in a long time. I remember Heinlein's use of a Russian "accent" to be off-putting at the beginning, but it grew on me as I continued reading the book. I'm not sure I can remember enough about the book to say whether it's worthy of a "top 20" honor, but I'll be conservative and say "no." I expect I'll need "room" on the list for other books.

5. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) - Another book I haven't read in a long time. Another book that, while influential and speaking on an important topic (censorship), I'll also pass on.

6. Ender's Game (1985) - Worthy of a "top 20" listing; worthy of being made into a major motion picture. Until about 10 years ago or so, making this novel into a movie would have been extremely difficult (a lot of wirework at the very least); in today's realistic CGI world, the "battle scenes" that are at the heart of the novel should be a breeze for today's filmmakers to do. A movie based on this book should pull in "Harry Potter" numbers at the theaters.

7. Second Foundation (1953) / 8. Foundation (1951) / 12. Foundation and Empire - One of the things that struck me about this list of "top 20" SF novels is that the books seemed to be picked either because the plot was based on a strong conceptual idea or because the book was a sentimental favorite. The Foundation series is another one of the former. I had originally read the Foundation trilogy when I was around 20 years old; about a year ago, I reread "Foundation." Such terrible writing. Isaac Asimov became a great writer, but the first book is not representative of his eventual skill. However, once again, yes, an incredibly influential series. (George Lucas' planet of "Coruscant" was obviously based on Isaac Asimov's "Trantor.") Worthy of a "top 20" honor? No, not today.

9. Dune (1965) - This is a book that I often reread (actually, I'll go through all of Frank's Dune novels in one go, from start to finish). The writing remains fresh, even though the book was written in the early 60s. Most definitely top 20. To be honest, I'd probably rate it #2, behind LOTR.

10. Starship Troopers (1959) - Another book I've reread in the past year. As a Heinlein "juvenile," it's better than most. It's worthy of a "top 20," but I'd place it in the last quarter.

11. Rendezvous With Rama (1973) - Haven't read it in a long time, but it's worthy of a "top 20." I read this for the first time when I was in my early teens and, well... it made a great impression on me (as did several other of Arthur Clarke's novels).

13. Pet Sematary (1983) / 14. Farnham's Freehold (1965) - I haven't read either of these books, so in all fairness I can't really say whether they should belong in such a list; however, I'm going to exclude them from my own listing.

15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Read the short story (The Sentinel), read the novel (several times), watched the movie (don't know how many times). But is it really worthy of a "top 20" in today's era? I don't think so.

16. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) - I consider this novel to be the last and best of Heinlein's juveniles (although it's obviously not one of the "official" Scribner juveniles). Although certain aspects of the writing have become somewhat dated (and Heinlein's various discussions about Islam are both accurate and completely off the deep end in equal measure), it remains, IMO, one of Heinlein's best works. I would rate it higher than either of the other Heinlein books discussed above.

17. Speaker for the Dead (1986) - It's been a while since I've read this novel; I think it resonates with people the most for the semi-spiritual aspect, the "speaking" for the dead. Although it's a direct sequel to Ender's Game, it's written in a completely different frame of mind. (Imagine George Lucas following up Star Wars with, say, Solaris, using the same characters.) I'm not sure whether it's still "top 20" material, but I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say "yes."

18. Have Space Suit - Will Travel (1958) - No. Another Heinlein juvenile. OK plot. Purely in this list for sentimental reasons. Nice to read, but not anywhere close to "top 20" material.

19. Childhood’s End (1953) - Yes. It's been ages since I've read this, but some parts of this novel have remained vivid memories.

20. Glory Road (1963) - No. Haven't read it since '83 or so. Who were these guys who voted for this novel trying to kid? It's OK, but it's nowhere near "top 20" material.

Top 100 ... er, 23 ... er, 20 Science Fiction Novels

I just came across this website, the Internet Speculative Fiction Database. One of their webpages lists the "Top 100 Novels." Except that, for some reason, they only list the top 23. And even there, they double-count "The Lord of the Rings" as a separate novel along with each of the individual novels. So it's either the top 22 novels or the top 20, take your pick. I've deleted the three individual novels from the list, making it a top 20. Dates in parentheses are publication years.

1. The Lord of the Rings (1954/55) - J. R. R. Tolkien
2. Time Enough for Love (1973) - Robert A. Heinlein
3. The Martian Chronicles (1950) - Ray Bradbury
4. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966) - Robert A. Heinlein
5. Fahrenheit 451 (1953) - Ray Bradbury
6. Ender's Game (1985) - Orson Scott Card
7. Second Foundation (1953) - Isaac Asimov
8. Foundation (1951) - Isaac Asimov
9. Dune (1965) - Frank Herbert
10. Starship Troopers (1959) - Robert A. Heinlein
11. Rendezvous With Rama (1973) - Arthur C. Clarke
12. Foundation and Empire (1952) - Isaac Asimov
13. Pet Sematary (1983) - Stephen King
14. Farnham's Freehold (1965) - Robert A. Heinlein
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) - Arthur C. Clarke
16. Stranger in a Strange Land (1961) - Robert A. Heinlein
17. Speaker for the Dead (1986) - Orson Scott Card
18. Have Space Suit - Will Travel (1958) - Robert A. Heinlein
19. Childhood’s End (1953) - Arthur C. Clarke
20. Glory Road (1963) - Robert A. Heinlein

Two comments: Of these twenty, the only two I haven't read are Pet Sematary (I've never read any of Stephen King's books) and Farnham's Freehold (which is surprising, as I've read just about every other Heinlein juvenile). The other surprise is just how few books there are from certain eras. The newest book on the list is Orson Scott Card's "Speaker for the Dead," with his "Ender's Game" the next youngest, both from the mid 80s. Nothing is listed from the better works of the more recent writers: Bear, Brin, Cherryh, Gibson, Robinson, Wolfe, etc. Likewise, a lot of good work from the "New Wave/Dangerous Visions" era of the late 60s/early 70s is missing as well, authors such as Delany, LeGuin, Niven, Silverberg, etc. While I enjoy Heinlein's novels just as much as any other SF reader, seven of the top 20 seems a bit much when other just-as-good-if-not-better novels are not included on the list.

Odd Stories from Asia

I picked up a copy of Asia Weekly yesterday; this is a small magazine published in Hong Kong, made up primarily of news stories about Asia from newspapers and magazines worldwide. In a recent issue (#40; December 10th-16th), there were a number of short but very odd stories that are worth sharing.

First, in the "Would You Believe It?" section, a couple of stories from China:

Health requirements are so strict for women hoping to enter the People's Liberation Army that some recruits try to make up for deficient oral health by replacing their rotten gnashers with dog teeth, reports China's Shenyang Evening News. According to an "unnamed military expert," one recruit from a recent class of 268 young women in Shenyang "failed her physical check last week because she had canine [dog's] teeth."

Doctors in China admit they are baffled after a man began to perspire green sweat. Cheng Shunguo, 52, of Wuhan, says his sweat turned green in the middle of November. "I noticed that my underwear and bed sheets were all green," he said, reports Ananova. Doctors carried out blood tests on Cheng, but found everything to be normal. "We cannot find the cause," admitted a spokesman for the hospital, which reported the case to media in the hope of finding a solution. In 2004, a similar case was reported in China's Guangdong province.

A migrant worker from Chengdu has suffered from a "strange affliction" since 1996, reports China Daily. When suddenly gripped by bouts of the unknown illness, the middle-aged woman is only able to walk backwards. Doctors have been unable to find the cause.

The next story comes from a two-page feature, "My Own Private Korea," which is a selection of excerpts from the writings of George Clayton Foulk, an American naval officer who was an intelligence officer attached to the US Embassy in Korea in the early 1880s (and who was fluent in Korean). The following excerpt comes from the forthcoming book, Inside the Hermit Kingdom: The 1884 Korea Travel Diary of George Clayton Foulk (which sounds fascinating):

A private encounter with two female entertainers:
At one place, two rather pretty girls came in. As usual at first, they were scared out of their wits at the sight of a man with short hair, and "red" (brown) at that. But after I had showed them a mirror, some photographs, &c., and had talked a while, they became quite at home. They sang for me, and told me stories. Suddenly one of them, the prettiest too, reached behind her and brought out a brass bowl, the Korean chamber pot, which girls of caste and officers always carry with them (by a servant) when they go away from home. Without moving an inch from her position, three feet from me, she put this under her clothes, and while she made the pot ring, went on with her conversation as if nothing at all unusual was going on! Great Caesar! I have been to strange lands, but I never experienced anything like this!

Finally, an obituary for a Malaysian policeman who had plenty of chances to die while on duty but finally passed away at home:

To most of his colleagues, as well as the criminals he was chasing, Kulasingam Sabaratnam, or "Kula," might have well been the toughest person they knew on the Royal Malaysian Police Force, says The New Straits Times. He was known for taking risks and surviving them. "Since you all have wives and families, let me go first," he usually told his officers before an action. "I'm not married." Kulasingam's fierce dedication to his work helped to bring about the demise of 25 secret societies and several of the most notorious criminals active in Malaysia during the 1970s, such as the "infamous" robber Botak Chin. In his 35 years on the fource, Kula was spashed with acid, shot, attacked by an axe-wielding psychopath and nearly crushed by a falling tree. In the end, he died after slipping in his bathroom and fracturing a hip. He was bedridden after hip-replacement surgery and died November 29 at the age of 77 after contracting pneumonia. Over 200 people paid their last respects to the former Johor Criminal Investigation Department chief at his funeral.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raje'un.

The Economist: Rules of the Game

In this week's The Economist (August 9th), there is a book review on Olivier Roy's "Secularism Confronts Islam." The title by itself suggests an anti-Islamic tome but, apparently, the book is anything but. From the blurb by the publisher, Columbia University Press:

The denunciation of fundamentalism in France, embodied in the law against the veil and the deportation of imams, has shifted into a systematic attack on all Muslims and Islam. This hostility is rooted in the belief that Islam cannot be integrated into French - and, consequently, secular and liberal - society. However, as Olivier Roy makes clear in this book, Muslim intellectuals have made it possible for Muslims to live concretely in a secularized world while maintaining the identity of a "true believer." They have formulated a language that recognizes two spaces: that of religion and that of secular society.

Western society is unable to recognize this process, Roy argues, because of a cultural bias that assumes religious practice is embedded within a specific, traditional culture that must be either erased entirely or forced to coexist in a neutral, multicultural space. Instead, Roy shows that new forms of religiosity, such as Islamic fundamentalism and Christian evangelicalism, have come to thrive in post-traditional, secular contexts precisely because they remain detached from any cultural background.

In recognizing this, Roy recasts the debate concerning Islam and democracy. Analyzing the French case in particular, in which the tension between Islam and the conception of Western secularism is exacerbated, Roy makes important distinctions between Arab and non-Arab Muslims, hegemony and tolerance, and the role of the umma and the sharia in Muslim religious life. He pits Muslim religious revivalism against similar movements in the West, such as evangelical Protestantism and Jehovah's Witnesses, and refutes the myth of a single "Muslim community" by detailing different groups and their inability to overcome their differences.

Another positive review of Roy's work is located at A Fistful of Euros.

The Economist review:

It is a risky business nowadays to engage in debate about secularism; doubly so if the subject is French-style secularism (laicité) and its confrontation with Islam. As a respected French scholar of the modern Muslim world, Olivier Roy has clearly grown tired of the uninformed polemics of those he wryly dubs the "Islamologists of court, academy or cocktail party." In a work of sustained deconstruction, he takes apart the myths, clichés and prejudices which characterize the current conversation about Islam.

His central contention is that "[the] problem is not Islam but religion or, rather, the contemporary forms of the revival of religion." For the past 20 years or so, the notion that religion should be a purely private affair has been challenged by a new breed of charismatic (often born-again) Christians, Jews, Muslims and others. The new believers are often individualistic, rejecting conformity with either orthodox theology or institutionalized religion. The secular European state, where mainstream religion is in decline, is uncomfortable with this new, assertive and unconventional religiosity.

But Islam has been singled out, partly because of its terrorist fringe. Mr Roy argues that the "Islam" depicted as incompatible with (indeed threatening to) modern Western secular society is a one-dimensional construct wholly at odds with the diversity of life experienced by real flesh-and-blood Muslims, including those living in the West. The defenders of laicité, in their alarm at a largely mythical Islam, sense danger at every bus stop.

The wearing of the veil (seen, in the face of the facts, as involuntary) becomes an emblem of a deeply-laid plan of Islamic subversion. All arranged marriages are seen as forced marriages and therefore repressive. The ultimate aim of the well-known Muslim intellectual, Tariq Ramadan, is deemed to be to turn France into an Islamic state. The periodic riots in the Paris banlieues are seen as signs of Islamic revolt rather than social protest.

Mr Roy rejects all of these contentions and, along the way, has some fun at the expense of those who have created an Islamic exception. Why attack only Islam as discriminatory? Should we not stigmatize the Catholic Church for not allowing women to be priests? Why not ask Jews to give up the notion of the "chosen people?" More seriously, he suggests it might be honest, though hardly honorable, to admit that Islam is singled out because it is the religion of immigrants and because it is associated, in entirely negative ways, with the Middle East.

In truth, conservative Muslims view sex and family in essentially the same way as conservative Christians and Jews. Mr Roy argues that in all cases the state's attitude should be the same—to distinguish between moral values and legal norms. Those who regard abortion or gay sex as a crime are not required to renounce their views, only to respect the law (and not, for example, assault gays or set fire to abortion clinics). You can believe what you want provided you obey the rules of the game.

The relevance of all this goes well beyond France. Many in Europe, believing that multiculturalism in Britain and the Netherlands has failed, are wondering whether the stricter French were right after all. Olivier Roy's cogent little book may give them pause.

Update: Oddly enough, this post has been linked to by an Islamophobic blogger (no, I'm not going link back to him). I don't think, though, that he realizes I'm a Muslim. Weird.

Islam at a Glance

Sadruddin Islahi's Islam at a Glance (Translated by M. Zafar Iqbal)

Islam at a Glance is a primer on Islam. The book covers and explains intelligently the concept and meaning of Islam by focusing on its fundamental beliefs and practices - such as belief in God, the Afterlife, Angels, Books, Prophets and the fundamental duties known as the Pillars of Islam. Objectives of Prayer, Fast, Zakat, Hajj - the Pillars of Islam - have been explained in such detail so as to integrate their relationship with a way of life which is Islam. It also covers the principles behind...[more]

Imam Ghazzali's Ihya Ulum-Din (The Book of Worship), Volumes I-IV

Imam Ghazzali's Ihya Ulum-Din (The Book of Worship), Volumes I-IV

This book, "Ihya Ulum-Id-Din" (Revival of Religious Learnings), is the masterpiece work of the famous Persian scholar Imam Ghazzali who has been honored as "Hujjatul Islam," the Proof of Islam. This book is classified into four volumes - Worship, Worldly Usages, Destructive Evils, and Constructive Virtues. Each volume has been further divided into ten chapters.

The subjects are well arranged like a law book or a medical book. The first two volumes speak about... [more]