about Hamid Dabashi: Columbia University's Hysterical Professor

Submitted by Allen (United States), Nov 30, 2012 at 14:37

I heard Hamid Dabashi last night: "The World of Persian Literary Humanism" at the Asia Society.

I felt that on hearing him that whatever else is true of Prof. Dabashi, he is a smug anti-Semite. For one, he did not include Jewry among those many nations dwelling in Bagdhad under the Abbasid caliphate. We know that under the Abbasids, Jewry flourished and reached a kind of golden age.

Moreover, the professor left out entirely the contribution of Judaism and the relation of Hebrew to Persian language and literature. This was telling, even to me, since in speaking of the "humanism" of Persian art and literature, he introduced the term "Adumi" clearly a close cognate of the Hebrew from the root "Adam," man.

I studied Oriental Humanities at Columbia, as well as Oriental Religion and Islamic literature, though these were not my major subjects. I'm very disappointed that anti-Semitism has seeped into the study of literature at the university by this back door. I'd heard it all before but I had hoped for improvement. Alas!

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