T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia" saw no "moderate Muslims"

Submitted by Larry (United States), Sep 8, 2010 at 14:03

From his "Introduction" (link below) "Semites [Muslim] had no half-tones in their register of vision. They were a people of primary colours, or rather of black and white, who saw the world always in contour. They were a dogmatic people, despising doubt, our modern crown of thorns. They did not understand our metaphysical difficulties, our introspective questionings. They knew only truth and untruth, belief and unbelief, without our hesitating retinue of finder shades. . . Their thoughts were at ease only in extremes. They inhabited superlatives by choice.

Sometimes inconsistents seemed to possess them at once in joint sway; but they never compromised: they pursued the logic of several incompatible opinions to absurd ends, without perceiving the incongruity. With cool head and tranquil judgement, imperturbably unconscious of the flight, they oscillated from asymptote to asymptote."

http://books.google.com/books?id=CbQl94rM4r4C&pg=PA20&dq=seven+pillars+of+wisdom+primary+colors&hl=en&ei=xMyHTLS9HY2WsgP2y9irCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

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