And In an Antique Land should not be on this list

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), May 27, 2013 at 15:18

Terry wrote

As a matter of curiosity, do you have issue with The Arabian Nights, edited by the late Muhsin Mahdi?

I also had the very good fortune to listen to him speaking on two occasions and he indeed represented the educated and urbane elite of the Middle East that do not seem to exist anymore and you would find his likes only in Cairo and in Baghdad of the pre-US invasion of Iraq

But his book which I very much enjoyed reading has nothing to do with contemporary Islam and what is shocking is that the salafists want to ban the likes of "The Arabian Nights" as it can "corrupt" the morals of Muslims! Go figure

I understand that it isn't germane to the contemporary crisis of Islamic civilization,

That is the point and also to include a book like "In an antique land" by Amitav Gosh, which is a great book, is really strange as I pointed out here:

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/206283

So you tell me what does an educated Hindu-Indian has to do with contemporary Islam back in the 1970's in rural Egypt? This book is about tracing the life of an Indian slave owned by a Jewish merchant that lived in the 13th century Cairo!

but Mahdi was one of my professors, and I have always deeply respected him as a scholar of medieval political philosophy.

He for sure was great but this book should not be included in such list and so is "in an antique land" and this means that who ever put this list did not read these books

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