What's an Arabist to do?

Submitted by jcl (United States), Dec 2, 2011 at 01:11

Now that their Red Arab hopes are all gone, what's are the Arabists to do? I suppose they can retool as apologists for religious reactionaries. I gather it pays well, too.

Anthony should give the authors a break. "Qilbah" has got to be a typo, probably introduced in production. The word's been part of English for a couple centuries now.

Rather than assume that the authors are mentally-handicapped six year olds, a charitable reader would wonder whether their Arabic is generally mistaken. Based on what I see on Google books, it's not. Nor is their Persian and Turkish.

And thank you very much, I'll keep that 'h' with my ta' marbutah. There'll be less confusion with words that actually end in an 'a'. And I've got Hodgson and a couple hundred years of English scholarship on my side.

Anthony might enjoy having a go at that scholarship some day or maybe even a primary source. I'd wager he'd then find it less easy to classify as jihadi-salafis so many of his fellow citizens: members of the Marine Corps, evangelicals, Republicans (especially the circumcised kind whose dual loyalty he so fears).

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