Though we cannot see humor, like faith, we perceive it all around us.

Once upon a time there was a planet in an unknown corner of the vast universe. For a long time, this planet was distinguished by having inhabitants with no sense of humor at all! This sounds like a joke, doesn’t it? But I am here to tell history, not jokes. This planet’s history was studied in three eras, each having a different state of humor: the Ancient Period, the Middle Period, and the Modern Period.

I. Modern period

The inhabitants of this planet were extremely serious, conscientious, sincere, hard-working, and moral. Besides all these good qualities, they considered humor as a pathological phenomenon. They never laughed or jested, kidded or joked. There was no room for any kind of humor.

A small minority, who had some feeling for humor, occasionally laughed and joked. However, their behavior was extremely alarming to everyone else. These few people were called “laughers,” and they were promptly hospitalized. What was so obnoxious about their behavior, aside from the strange noises they made and the peculiar facial expressions they bore while “laughing,” were the utterly pathological things they said! They seemed to lose all sense of reality. They said things which were totally irrational, indeed sometimes logically self-contradictory. In short, they behaved exactly like anyone else who was deluded or hallucinating, hence why they were put into hospitals.

More importantly, it was definitely verified that this “laughter” was somewhat contagious and that certain individuals became laughers for the first time in their life only after repeated contact with other laughers. Indeed, this was another thing which made the laughers so dangerous. They were not only hallucinating themselves, but tended to pass these hallucinations to others! Hence they had to be hospitalized, not only for their own sakes, but also for the sake of the society.

In the hospitals, doctors tried quite a number of different treatment regimens to cure their pathologic behavior. Besides many unsuccessful treatment attempts, one drug, called “laughazone,” was finally found to kill the symptoms of humor. Almost immediately upon administration, the patient would stop laughing as well as quit the verbal activity called “joking,” and would instead start screaming. The patient would just lie there screaming, hour after hour, day after day, week after week, and month after month. And the most amazing thing of all is that not once during this screaming period did the patient ever laugh or make a joke or even smile. They thought this drug was really phenomenal!

The problem with “laughazone,” though, was that its effects were temporary. After the months long treatment, the patient would, for some unknown reason, fall into a deep state of depression for several weeks, and sometimes longer. After this, he would gradually convalesce, and his original symptoms of laughing and joking would return. So, the doctors had to put the patient through the treatment again and again.

II. Ancient and middle period

The Modern Period contained no literature at all on laughter, except in textbooks and periodicals on abnormal psychology. The Middle Period, on the contrary, was chock-full of laugh-literature. This literature contained absolutely no material which contemporary laughers called “funny.” Indeed the writings were written in a wholly sane, serious, scholarly, and philosophic mood. The writings consisted mainly of analysis and commentary on the ancient texts. The ancient writings, unlike those of the middle period, were totally non-philosophical. They never spoke about laughter or anything like that. They were simply what the Middle Period called “funny.” These archaic manuscripts contained all sorts of incomprehensible and contradictory material called “jokes” or “funny stories.” Therefore, philosophers of the Middle Period extolled the Ancient Period, and referred to it as “the golden age of humor, when men could freely laugh and joke and really enjoy life.” Appreciating the ancient writings required a certain, almost mystical, faculty called “humor.” What was so puzzling was that humor could not flourish in the wholly serious and rational atmosphere of the Middle Period.

So, the Middle period witnessed many discussions on humor. One such discussion which had taken place between the mystic-humorists and the skeptical anti-humorists went as follows:

The Mystic-Humorists claimed that the only reliable way humor could be known was by direct perception: “We can see humor in many situations. Life is permeated with humor, if you can only see it.”

The skeptical Anti-Humorists said, “So, you claim you can see humor! Tell me, what color is it?”

The Mystic-Humorists laughed and said, “Humor doesn’t have any color!”

The skeptics continued: “Oh, so you can see it only in black and white! Well, then, what shape is it?”

“It doesn’t have any form or shape.”

“Then I am confused! Is humor visible or invisible?”

“Of course it is invisible!”

“But I thought you just said that you can see it. Didn’t you say that you could see the humor of certain situations?”

“Well, yes, I said that, but I didn’t mean ‘see’ in the literal sense of ‘see with your eyes.’ Ocular vision really has nothing to do with it. I used ‘see’ in the sense of directly perceive, not see with the eyes. Perception, although as direct as vision, is really through a different sense altogether.”

“A different sense? Which sense is it – hearing? If so, what does humor sound like? Or is it smell or taste or touch or what? With which of the five senses do you perceive humor, or is it a combination of more than one of them?”

“No, it is not any one of these five senses, nor is it a combination of them. It is a totally different sense. In a way, it is a nonphysical sense. We call this sense the ‘sense of humor.'”

“Good God, you literally mean a nonphysical sense? In other words, you mean it is something occult, like telepathy or clairvoyance? But scientific integrity requires us not to believe in anything occult; hence we cannot but believe that this humor is something totally unreal, a mere figment of the imagination.”

In vain the Humor-Mystics protested that there was nothing the least bit occult about humor and said: “If only once you could see what humor was, you would realize that it is the most natural thing in the world, and also that it is delightfully pleasant.”

Another thing, the “Mystic-Humorists” claimed was that the label “Mystic-Humorist” was most misleading. They claimed that there was nothing at all mystical about humor, even though it might seem mystical to those who lacked the immediate sense of humor. They said, “Why not rather call us laughers, which is, in fact, what we are.” And so, the term “Mystic-Humorist” was gradually replaced by “laugher.” Later, this term would be used in the Modern Period as explained above.

Another discussion during the Middle Period was between the “laughers” and the Faith-Humorists, who believed that reason could be somewhat helpful in understanding humor but that an act of faith was crucial. Essentially, Faith-Humorists did not take a hostile, skeptical attitude toward the laughers, but instead believed in them wholeheartedly. They knew that the laughers were in direct contact with that which the Faith-Humorists could only reason about and accept on faith. However, they were heavily criticized by the “laughers” because of their approach to the issue:

You seem to think that knowledge about laughter is somehow more important than the ability to laugh.

You take an approach which is far too objective and scientific. You read all the literature you can find on the philosophy of humor. You perform elaborate linguistic analyses of what the word “humor” could possibly mean. The only way you will ever find out what it really means is by acquiring a sense of humor.

The most insidious error of all is to try to learn humor by merely imitating the outward forms of the laughers. You must remember that the activity of laughter is only a manifestation of humor. Humor itself is something entirely within the spirit.

Another thing that you do out of mere imitation is this ridiculous practice of memorizing jokes. You commit thousands upon thousands of jokes to memory and you think you are thereby acquiring a sense of humor! But memorizing these jokes is absolutely pointless for you until, and unless, you have acquired a sense of humor.

You combine the two techniques of joke memorization and forced laughter, and then you are sure you have matured. But God Almighty, how wrong you are! You go forth into the world claiming yourselves to be authentic laughers. Nothing sabotages our cause more than this! The skeptics who meet you are almost rightfully reinforced in their belief that humor is something which is a mere sham and delusion. Yes, the pseudo-laughers like you are the major cause of the disappearance of humor from this planet.

As laughter disappeared more and more from this planet, the people of the Middle Period realized that this was a tragic loss rather than a gain, and they did everything possible to stem the tide. Only at the very end of the Middle Period did it first occur to mankind that laughter, far from being something good, could actually be something totally undesirable. People started saying: “Maybe we should stop trying to stem the tide. Maybe the tide is our greatest blessing, although we don’t know it. Maybe it is high time that this silly archaic thing called ‘humor’ should disappear. Maybe laughter was all right for savages, and we are now becoming civilized!” Then the idea fully occurred to mankind that humor was but another form of psychosis; laughter was a type of psychopathology. Thus was ushered the Modern Period.

III. Back to the modern period

As we discussed earlier, people of the Modern Period had to accept the painful fact that the laughers were not permanently curable, at least for the foreseeable future. This fact split the medical opinion into two divergent camps; hospitals, similarly, split into two widely divergent types. Hospitals of Type I were called “laugh-scream hospitals”; those of Type II were “pure-laugh hospitals.” In the laugh-scream hospitals, the doctors realized that no patient was permanently curable. Hence, once a patient was admitted, they were admitted for life. All that could be done was to administer the laughazone treatment over and over for the rest of the patient’s life. The discipline at these hospitals was ironclad: no patient was ever released, and there was to be no letup in treatment. It was better for the patient to face reality and scream than to withdraw into his fantasy world of humor and laugh.

The philosophy of the pure-laugh hospitals was, however, entirely different. They agreed with the laugh-scream hospitals that no laugher was permanently curable. But they thought: so why not let the patient enjoy his life? Was it really all that bad that he had these fantasies? Similar to the laugh-scream hospitals, patients were incarcerated for life. But they were given no treatments whatsoever! The patients in the pure-laugh hospitals were very happy. Everything possible was done for them to ensure their happiness. The pure-laugh hospitals, in the true sense of the word, were merely isolation centers. Their only function was to prevent the inmates from infecting the outside world with their laughter-psychosis.

Thus the conditions inside the pure-laugh hospitals were close to idyllic, except for one thing! Good God, the patients cried “How unfair that our brothers are screaming themselves to death in the laugh-scream hospitals while we are free to enjoy our laughter. Those doctors at the laugh-scream hospitals! They believe that they are helping their patients! They are the maddest of all! We must find a way to free our brothers so that they can enjoy laughter as we do.”

Occasionally, patients would escape from the laugh-scream hospitals, and they would immediately rush to the pure-laugh hospitals, where they were cheerfully admitted. As the patients in the pure-laugh hospitals increased in number day by day, at last, they managed to find the loopholes in the system. It didn’t take them long to organize raids on the laugh-scream hospitals, through which they freed all the laugh-wards, and brought all the patients back to the pure-laugh hospitals. The laugh-scream hospitals eventually went out of existence.

However, laughers were not satisfied with this success. They were bothered by the thought of those outside the laugh-communities who never knew the joy of laughter. What could be done for them? Just about nothing, they decided, since the old loopholes they had used to escape were taken care of. But here, providence intervened in a very remarkable way. What happened was this:

The standard of living inside the laugh-hospital communities was far higher than outside. One by one the outsiders pretended to be laughers in order that they might be incarcerated in the laugh-communities. The pretended-laughers knew perfectly that they had no sense of humor, and they couldn’t have cared less; they deliberately lied just for the purpose of joining the laugh-communities with their high standards of living. What happened was that the lying-laughers, being surrounded by an enormous majority of genuine laughers, very soon caught the laughing sickness themselves, and in but a few weeks turned completely into genuine laughers. And so one non-laugher after another lied his way into the laugh-communities, and shortly, became a genuine laugher. Then finally, even the psychiatrists succumbed, and no non-laughers were left behind. The entire planet was now one huge laugh-hospital, and the Modern Period that was devoid of humor became the funniest era ever.

This story was adapted from Richard Smullyan’s This Book Needs No Title: A Budget of Living Paradoxes by (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1980). Copyright (c) 1980 by Raymond M. Smullyan (Acquired necessary permissions from the author).

Nural is a graduate research assistant in computer science at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia.

Middle Eastern men, especially Muslim men, have been depicted in the media as angry, violent, oppressive, and inhumane madmen who terrorize the innocent. Wilson, or Willow as she is referred to in the book, openly discusses her initial fear of Middle Eastern men as she states, “I had been taught to fear [Middle Eastern men]… they always seem like nice guys. It’s only after you’ve gotten involved that you discover the honor-killing wife-imprisoning fundamentalist reality beneath the façade” (43). Wilson, through her interaction and relationships with men in Egypt, depicts a very different side of Muslim men in the Middle East. She portrays men as kind, protective, and respectful. Her interaction and relationship with these men varies greatly, beginning with her husband, Omar, and continuing even to two local shopkeepers. Willow’s husband, whom she met in Egypt and is Muslim, is far from the stereotypical Middle Eastern man depicted in the media. He is kind, gentle, respectful, intelligent, and patient. Though Omar had never shown anything other than these qualities, Willow was often skeptical of him and how he would be once they married. When Omar’s female relatives began to place ideas in Willow’s head that Omar was a “traditional” man who would require her to slave in the home cooking and cleaning, she became alarmed and confronted him. Omar responded, “I am not marrying you to have a servant, I’m marrying you because I love you… You have this idea of a stereotypical Arab man in your head, and you keep confusing him with me” (204). Omar never deviated from being an honorable man through the entire book; he always respected and supported Willow in whatever it was she wanted to do: to visit Iran alone, to visit her family in Colorado alone, and even to move to the U.S. with Willow. Another major reoccurring theme when it came to her interaction with men in Egypt was this concept of them being very protective of their women, “The men began to treat me with the same protective chivalry they extended to other Muslim women” (108). While living in Tura, Willow and her friend Jo regularly shopped at a duken where they formed a friendship with its owners, Mohammad and Namir. There was one particular visit to the duken where a fellow shopper questioned Willow asking her if she was American. Mohammad and Namir immediately turned their attention to the man watching and listening to how he spoke to Willow. Willow described the scenario as following, “I noticed that Namir and Mohammad had stopped stocking the shelves and stood very still, looking at the man with an expression that was not friendly. Without speaking, but very clearly, they were saying Stop, go back, and approach her more suitably” (131). Willow further explains her and Jo’s relationship with the shopkeepers by elucidating, “Mohammad and Namir subtly defended our honor by insisting that within the confines of their shop we should be treated like Arab women… with the proper degree of respect” (130). There was also a fararghi, or poultry seller, Am Mahmoud, who came to Willow’s defense as well. While shopping in the market one afternoon, a group of American tourists stared at Willow trying to decipher if she was American or a Muslim. Willow describes Am Mahmoud’s reaction: “At the same moment, Am Mahmoud himself, cleaning his hands with a cloth, stepped between me and the street, screening me from the view of the tourists… the tourists moved on… Am Mahmoud had protected me from exposure and embarrassment as he would an Egyptian girl” (211-212). Though Willow also acknowledges the presence of some desperate, gawking men in Egypt, she more importantly acknowledges and shares with her audience the truth that men in the Middle East are not as they appear in the media. They are human beings and share the same emotions that everyone else experiences. They are protective of their women and have no intention of abusing or oppressing them. They are kind, gentle, and respectful; quite the opposite of violent, angry, and controlling as seen in the media.

Women have also been utilized as a tool in the American media to depict the Middle East and Islam as oppressive and condescending towards women. The media stresses the human rights violations of women in the Middle East, including honor-killings, abuse, polygamy, and lack of education. The media often portrays women as helpless and forced to cover head-to-toe with drapery. What the media does not discuss are the independent women in the Middle East or the reasons behind gender discrepancies within Islam. Wilson, on the other hand, exposes a different side to women in the Middle East: independent women, who are the head of the family. One very solid example of this type of women is Omar’s mother, Sohair who is also Muslim. Sohair was a single mother who worked hard her entire life to bring herself and her children out of poverty. Wilson also explains that just as in the West, many young women in the Middle East are also becoming more concerned with their careers and their education rather than just being a housewife. In addition to meeting Sohair, Willow realized the role of women through her interaction in the market and as a bride in Egypt. Wilson discusses women’s role as she states, “She is the one who builds relationships with the vendors of the best meat and the freshest fruit, and argues for the lowest price; she knows herbal remedies for dysentery; it is she who cooks for ten people out of three pots when relatives drop by unexpectedly. In Egypt, women create the civilization the men merely live in” (207). She goes on to discuss women’s rights in the Middle East and how they are better off since they have influence rather than rights: “Why push for rights when you have influence? A gusty, intelligent woman in the Middle East can steer fortunes of her entire family with a minimum of exposure and risk; giving her a full complement of western rights would limit the scope of her power by exposing her to the same public scrutiny as men” (270). Wilson further addresses women’s rights in Egypt and how if she were to marry Omar as a Christian, she would have fewer rights than as a Muslim (90). She even briefly discusses how the marriage license “entitled [her] to a slew of things if Omar took a second wife” (94). Lastly, Wilson touches on the believed double standard of men and women in the Middle East and in regards to being a Muslim. Willow explains that neither Islam nor the Qur’an warrants female oppression, “Islam, in its purely textual form, took my side. There is no religious limit on the public spaces that women can inhabit; nothing prevents them from running businesses or driving cars, there is no reason they must walk behind men or cover their faces. A woman’s role is not defined by the kitchen and the nursery” (80). While visiting Colorado and enjoying coffee with a friend, the friend inquired about women not being allowed to be in the company of another man if he is not her husband or of her husband’s family. Willow beaks this idea of an oppressive, double standard as she says, “There are only two genders here. Creating a rule for one necessarily creates the same rule for the other. You could just as easily asked whether Omar could go out with another woman or be alone with her, and I would have given the same answer: no” (228). Women hold much more respect than the media leads on to believe. They present one side of the matter without fully explaining the other. Willow summarizes the truth of women in the Middle East for her audience as follows, “It was such a tantalizing contradiction, being a woman in the Middle East—far less free than a woman in the West, but far more appreciated” (250).

The media has created an image of all Muslims as being extremists. What they fail to mention in their new reports is the simple fact that that extremists make up only a small fraction of the Muslim population and those in the Middle East fear these individuals as well, not just Westerners. Islam is the second largest religion in the world; if all or even a majority of Muslims were extremists and terrorists then there would be a much greater number of attacks around the world and on a much more regular basis. Wilson makes clear this point throughout her work. She briefly describes a fundamentalist mosque near her apartment and how “the screams of the muezzin” woke the entire neighborhood up at 4 am (123). Wilson even attempts to explain the truth behind fundamentalists and their actions, “The fundamentalists we could see from our bathroom window hated us for very religious reasons… It became clear to me… how little the anger of our local extremists had to do with military America. While the situation in Iraq gave them political legitimacy and direction, and a dangerous amount of emotional leverage with average Muslims, it was not the reason they were angry. They hated America that exports culture” (135-136). The media is also guilty of blaming Islam for supporting terrorism; which Wilson makes clear is not the case by any means, “Dozens of fatwas against terrorism have been issued since 9/11, many by high-ranking clerics. The silence of the press to positive gains made by moderate Muslims has enabled damaging misconceptions about the religion and its leaders” (243). Wilson even interviewed a mufti, who stated that Islam “aims to protect human dignity and human rights” and that it forbids “tyranny, prostitution, suicide, drug abuse – anything that treats a human being as an object” (247). Finally, Wilson attempts to also clear up the misconception that all Muslims hate Americans and that the Middle East only has a negative view of America and its people as she explains, “To speak about America in such bitter generalities was not typical in Egypt, except perhaps among hard-line fundamentalists” (278). Once again the author tries to make clear that the false generalizations and fallacies presented by the media. Though terrorism is a real problem, and though the extremists do use Islam as an excuse, it does not represent Islam or the Middle East by any means. Just as Americans do not all want to be stereotyped by what is seen in Hollywood, Muslims do not want to be stereotyped by only what is broadcast in the news.

“There was so much about Islam and the people who lived it that was left unsaid in the media and in public discussion, and I could do something about it” are the very words which explain the purpose of G. Willow Wilson’s The Butterfly Mosque. Wilson’s work was a well-written attempt to bridge the gap between the Middle East, mainly Islam, and the United States. She illustrated the truth: the good and bad of both cultures. While she focused on closing the gap between what is seen in the media in the U.S. in regards to men, women, and fundamentalists, she never presented only one side of the matter. She acknowledged and made reference to the fact that there were truths to the stereotypes, but that the stereotypes did not apply to everyone. These incorrect stereotypes of men being oppressive and violent, women being submissive and abused, and all Muslims being fundamentalists are incorrectly applied to the majority when in reality this applies to a small minority. Readers of this work will finish this book with a new perspective on Islam and that of Middle Eastern culture.

Jessica Danielle Phillips is a senior in International Relations at Rollins College in Winter Park, FL.

Book review
Wilson, G. Willow. The Butterfly Mosque. New York: Grove Press, 2010.

The group consisted of two priests, a nun, a publisher, and a director. For me as a Muslim, it was the first time I had seen Franciscan monks in their habits, a long, hooded, brown robe, tied at the waist with a white cord, and with large concealed pockets in the arms. I thought they were wearing them simply because they wanted to make everything in the documentary appear as if it were in the Middle Ages, but, no, it was their everyday attire, and they wore their habits all the time we were together.

It was a noteworthy mission that merged from different parts of the US (Texas, California, Ohio) in order to set out on a tiring journey passing through Istanbul, Urfa, Damascus, Cairo, and Damietta, meet lots of people, and visit a great number of places. The project was named the Damietta Project, Damietta being the city where St. Francis of Assisi (d. 1226), the founder of the Franciscan order, met the Muslim sultan in the heat of war in 1219. I learned that it was a very cordial encounter between St. Francis and Sultan Al-Kamil, and the monks hoped that their documentary would serve to build a peaceful world by presenting a model from eight hundred years ago.

John, the publisher in the group, presented to me as a gift a copy of this book by George Dardess. This is why I am referring to this group and their project, for their philosophy resonates in the core message of the book.

Due to the limited space available, I will not give a comprehensive review of the book, for almost every argument carries baggage, and a fair review would entail a lengthy analysis. I will briefly touch on some aspects of the first part of this book, which I believe is an effort by the Franciscan order to help remove interfaith misunderstandings. In this respect, the author, who is a member of both the Muslim-Catholic Alliance and the Commission on Muslim-Christian Relations in Rochester, is the right author, and this makes the book worth reading. The opening prayer given in the introduction indicates the sincere efforts of the author, and thus of the group, to be revealed in the later pages:

God, creator of us all, master of the universe,

we ask you to be present with us

as we search to know you

not only in our own sacred scripture

but also in that of our Muslim sisters and brothers.

help us forget past quarrels

as well as present fears and suspicions.

Help us instead to keep our minds open,

our spirits free,

and our hearts joyful

as we ponder:

whether the god we both worship

is you.

amen.

Praising the Nostra Aetate (Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions) of the Second Vatican Council, Dardess points to a great achievement on the side of the Christian world, as they managed to move away from Dante’s inauspicious depiction of the Prophet in The Divine Comedy, to acceptance of Muslims as worshipping the same God as Christians. Although this step toward dialogue received relatively little elaboration in the Council documents, it was still a positive effort. Nevertheless, this fragile step was threatened after 9/11, which makes books such as this one invaluable contributions to eliminating misconceptions about Islam.

The author’s intention in writing this book is summarized in his willingness to worship together with all humanity, as one family: “If we . . . come to the understanding that we do indeed worship . . . the same God, we can find ways of praying to that God together without violating our significant differences” (p. 6). The author does not deny the fact that it is not easy pass the stumbling block of the Christian attribution of divinity to Jesus versus the Muslim belief that he was not divine, but he argues that the purpose of this book is “to open up the possibility of [such] enrichment, even at the point when dialogue seems impossible” (p. 26).

The author does not skip over details such as the word “Allah,” which is perceived by some non-Muslims as some kind of god for Muslims, like an idol. Dardess carefully notes that “Allah” is not a special name peculiar to Islam but simply the Arabic word for God. Many Christians in the West are not aware that their co-religionists in the Middle East use the word Allah for God, as well. Dardess underlines the fact that God of Islam is not a God of wrath: “… the Muslim approaches God, not in abject fear, but in the profoundest gratitude” (p. 18).

The author lays down a very objective historical background to Islam for novice readers who have a superficial knowledge of its history, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and the Holy Qur’an. In this section, Dardess carefully notes that “honest dialogue depends upon having enough confidence in our own religious identity to be able to explore the religious identity of others without tension or defensiveness” (p. 30). In the comparison he makes between the Christian Eucharist and Islam’s holy book, the Qur’an, he states a principle, which is essential in true dialogue: “only lovers understand other lovers” (p. 30).

Analyzing further Qur’anic language, the author rightfully underlines that “words like Jihad, Allah, Muslim and Islam have so lost connection [in English] with their original context that they have become more truly English words than Arabic ones. The words convey our own understanding of Islam, not the understanding of Muslims themselves” (p. 31). Dardess points out that it is more of a linguistic challenge than a doctrinal one for Christians to understand the Qur’an. Language differences are no doubt a barrier in any human context, but in the case of the Qur’an, a specific branch of scholarship, tafsir, has been developed since the advent of Islam, as a result of which a number of interpretations have been produced to help readers understand the universal message of the Qur’an, not only for non-Arabs but also for Arabic-speaking believers. Surface reading of the divine text-actually any text-is never a profound reading of it, and it might even be misleading at times. Besides, the emphasis on the preservation of the original text should never be underestimated, for not only in the case of the Qur’an but in all translation works, it is of the utmost significance to be able to refer to the true original text in its original language.

In the Middle Ages, when Muslims were the pioneers in science, their works were translated from Arabic into Latin for many centuries, and this resulted in the European Enlightenment, which, according to the author, is “humankind’s greatest achievement, the one against which [we] must measure all other civilizations” (p.31). This last statement is problematic in itself and needs to be addressed. Western perceptions of the East have been shaped largely within the framework Western social sciences have drawn. The dress sewn for the Western context does not fit the Muslim world and social movements therein; however, social analysts work on the same model in their efforts to understand the East. So, the author’s argument to “measure all civilizations against European Enlightenment” contradicts his overall positive approach to understanding Islam.

Nevertheless, the book is a significant contribution to the literature on interfaith dialogue despite some of the shortcomings pointed out above. However, as the author mentions in the introduction, “the discussion itself is more important than the answer.” Those non-Muslims who are curious about Islam will certainly benefit a lot from this book: What exactly do Muslims believe? How do those beliefs differ from their own? What do Muslims believe about Jesus? Mary? Satan? Creation? The Holy Spirit? Do we worship the same God? Guided discussion questions in each chapter encourage readers towards further reflection and dialogue.

Life without me is only silence

Every artist wishes to present his work to admiring eyes. In the whole universe, from atoms to star systems, God shows all the details of His art to you, a conscious being; and among His works, He has installed the most splendid ones in your body. He has given you reason and knowledge so that you can easily see and understand them. With knowledge, you can appreciate the meaning and different qualities of existence. However, you need another tool, your five senses, through which you will look at and learn about the material world around you and then turn this knowledge into an appreciation of the meanings behind God’s creation.

If you were not able to perceive light and color (by your eyes), your knowledge of material existence would be insufficient. Similarly, if God had not placed me in your skull, you would not be able to hear and know the songs of birds, the rustling of trees, the babbling of water, or the whistling of wind, which are each a note in the divine musical harmony throughout the universe. Indeed, everything speaks in its own tongue in order to introduce God to people. You use your eyes to perceive the things that speak with the wavelengths of light. You use me to perceive other wavelengths called “sound,” which is caused by the vibration of molecules.

The wavelength of the sounds that I can perceive ranges between 20 and 20,000 Hertz. I am unable to sense frequencies of sound that are above or below those limits. Indeed, it would be better to call this an advantage given by God rather than an “inability.” If the Creator of everything in the universe had not created me with this limited capacity, you would be facing unbearable pain in your head. If He had made me work with a wider range of hearing, you would be disturbed by the footsteps of a little ant, the moaning of an insect laying eggs, the buzzing of beehives, and the sound of the fluttering birds. Therefore, the fact that I have sufficient sensitivity for you to meet your needs is an advantage and an indication of God’s mercy. After all, my Creator gives everybody exactly what they need in a most suitable way and in the best measurements; He never does anything absurd. Do not ever want to have an ear like that of a bat. I am the best one for you.

Do not ever think that my outer, visible part is too simple. My outer ear, which sometimes turns red when you are nervous, is placed in the best position according to the shape of your head so that it can receive sounds in a most efficient way. Because it is made up of elastic cartilage, my outer ear (A) is very flexible, and it won’t break when you lie on it. The curves on me (known as the helix) and the hairs inside my channel are not made without a reason, either. My cartilages have the perfect shape to channel the sound down towards my middle ear according to the intensity of the sound and the direction it comes from. Because this special shape is formed according to the genetic code of a person, it is different in every person. The hairs in the canal serve to protect me from foreign objects like insects or dust. The canal that connects my outer part to my middle part is pretty wide, but if too much fatty wax accumulates here, I might experience temporary hearing loss.

My outer part is followed by my middle ear, which begins with the ear drum (tympanic membrane) (C). Attached to this thin ear drum are three bones: the malleus (D), the incus (E), and the stapes (F), which are all placed in order. These little bones are jointed to each other at an angle of 105 degrees. With an action like a piston, they amplify even the smallest sound vibration coming from the ear drum and transmit it to the middle ear. My middle ear space is connected to your pharynx by a very thin canal called the Eustachian tube (G). In order to protect my ear drum from rupture, I recommend that you open your mouth during an explosion or an intense sound. In that way, the sound waves that enter through your mouth will balance with the sound waves in my canals so that my ear drum is protected.

My inner part, followed by my middle part, is the most vital and sensitive area. Therefore, it is surrounded and protected by the bones of your skull. This inner part, which is an amazing piece of art and technology, comprises two wonderful receptor components. Those two little parts are placed in the same narrow area inside the temporal bone, but they perform different tasks. One of them is the cochlea (H), which is involved with hearing. The other part is the balance (vestibular) canals, which consist of the semicircular canals (I), the saccule (J), and the utricle (K). This balance organ enables you to stand straight and walk, run, or move without bumping or falling.

Like carved marble or forged metal, those parts are crafted out of bones that form a beautiful and intricate whole. My cochlea is divided widthwise by a bony tube. The upper compartment above the tube is connected to an oval window, which is an outlet to the middle ear. The lower compartment below the tube is connected to a round window. My inner part is a labyrinth of fluid-filled tubes. The fluid in the bony labyrinth, between the bone and the membranes, is called perilymph, and the other fluid within the membranous structure is called endolymph.

Situated on the basilar membrane (L) of my cochlea is a very small and special organ that you call the organ of Corti. The organ of Corti contains the hearing cells (or hair cells), the receptors (M) that are sensitive to sound waves, and other supporting cells. Because the length of the cells in the organ of Corti varies, different parts of my cochlea are sensitive to sounds of different wavelengths.

The sound waves travel via the malleus, the incus, and the stapes and through my oval window, agitating the perilymph of my cochlea. After that, the sound waves cause Reissner’s membrane (N) in my cochlea to vibrate, which then results in a wave movement in the endolymph. The wave movement continues along this membrane until it reaches my organ of Corti. The special receptor cells (or hair cells) of the organ of Corti are the ultimate vibration receptors. Their surfaces consist of very small strands (cilia). Those little strands bend and twist when the sound waves are received. Right at this point, a very important event occurs: it is the movement of these strands which converts the mechanical energy (that is produced by the vibrations of the sound waves) into electrical impulses. Those electrical impulses are then sent to your brain via the auditory nerve (nervus cochlearis) of the brain, where they are perceived as “sound.” The same sound waves continue their way to the perilymph and pass into the round window, the section between the middle ear and the inner ear. The round window pushes out to dissipate the sound vibrations in the perilymph and thus lessens their pressure.

The speed of the hearing depends on the speed of the sound that travels through my membrane and little bones. However, once the sound waves begin to pass to your brain as an electrical impulse along the auditory nerve, the hearing process increases its speed. Then your brain immediately interprets and reacts to the sound waves. You are not aware of all these rapid activities which are done perfectly in fractions of a second. You only say that you can hear something ordinarily. Have you ever thought before about how hearing takes place? Do you think you would have a clue about the sounds and music in the universe if God had not created me as your hearing organ?

Think about it, Peter! God knows exactly what you need for your life and equips your body accordingly. If there were no God, would such a complicated organ as your ear form by itself in your skull? Can it be a simple “coincidence” where some biological mechanisms take place successfully and in order without any plan or project and they produce such a splendid organ as me with all my sections? Like every reasonable and thoughtful person, you now understand that I cannot be the result of simple coincidence but only a creation of our God Almighty, don’t you?

Maintaining your balance

So far, what I have told you about is my duty to hear. Now I must also tell you about my duty of balance, so that you can better understand how miraculous I am.

Have you ever seen an acrobat walking on a rope or a mountain climber in action? Or shall I give a better example that might be more familiar to you? Remember what you do on your bicycle to keep from falling off. At the slightest mistake, the acrobat might topple from the rope, the climber might slip off the cliff face, and you might fall off your bicycle. While you are making unconscious (reflex) movements to keep your balance, have you ever thought about what busy operations are going on in my system? I have been equipped with very sensitive receptors which help you stay stable during your continual, different movements. Those receptors immediately recognize the changes occurring as a result of your slightest motion; they warn your body to adjust to your new position by sending out information to the spinal cord and to the brain about the new situation.

You may wonder how these two processes, hearing and balance, can take place in such a small area of the body, the inner ear. It is our Creator, God, who puts microscopic cells in a narrow place and runs the most sensitive and important operations via those little cells.

How do you feel the sensation of balance and how do you react with the right reflex action? To find an answer to that, you need to re-examine my anatomical structures mentioned before. At the base of my semicircular canals is a bulb-like enlargement which opens to the saccule and the utricle. My three semicircular canals are situated at 90-degree angles to each other in three-dimensional space.

My semicircular canals contain few sensory hair cells but there are plenty of them in the bulb-like enlargement. The strands of these cells, which are placed delicately, have enough elasticity to twist and bend during a movement. The receptors for balance in the saccule and the utricle are covered by a thin membrane which contains a gelatinous layer and tiny calcite crystals (cupula terminalis). Depending on its density, the endolymph fluid in my semicircular canals moves against the direction that your head and body move in. Similar to the uncontrolled movement of passengers in an accelerating or moving vehicle, depending on the speed and the direction, the movement and the speed of the endolymph differs from the general movement of your body. For example, when a car turns right, the passengers move to the left with the turning acceleration, and when a fast-moving car brakes suddenly, the passengers are thrown forward. Similarly, depending on its acceleration and momentum, every change in your movement causes the fluid in my semicircular canals to move. Triggered by the movement of the endolymph fluid, the gelatinous mass with the calcite pieces is displaced, causing the strands of the receptors to twist. Every movement of your head warns the cells of different parts, and via the vestibular nerve (nervus vestibularis) the nervous system is notified of changes occurring in your balance.

Thankfulness and contemplation

You have now seen what amazing works my two compartments, the balance and the hearing organs produce. All through your life, the former serves you by maintaining your balance without missing any of your movements, while the latter enables you to learn about the thousands of types of sounds in the world. Once you consider all of your movements in your life, you will see that my two organs perform their duties perfectly without ever getting tired, giving up, or complaining. We do not ask for any fee from you in return for those benefits, either. In fact, when God Almighty created you, placed us in your skull and set up our connection with the related center in your brain, He did not ask for any fee from you. All He wants you to do is to think about those blessings and be thankful to Him.

If you visited a hospital, you might see a lot of scenes which would lead you to think about God’s blessings on you and thank Him. Serious ear illnesses include middle ear infection (otitis media), which is frequently seen in children; otosclerosis, which is the limited ability of the stapes to transmit sound waves because its base becomes fixed to the oval window; and several hearing disorders which might be present at birth or occur later in life, depending on the level of damage to the auditory nerve. Witnessing the effects of those illnesses, you would understand how important it is to be able to hear and stand straight and balanced, and so see how blessed you are. At every step you take, when you are lying down or standing up, or every time you hear the twittering of birds, a nice melody, or the sweet voice of your parents, you will now appreciate the greatness and the mercy of our Lord God Almighty, who has engraved the meanings of all those sounds in your mind.

Peter! Until now, you have used me to listen to others, but today it was my turn to be listened to while I told you about myself. However, I must admit that I have only been able to explain to you the details of about one-hundredth of the beauties displayed in me and my delicate anatomical structure. If I attempted to present you with all the details about me discovered by developing technology and science and the meanings attached to them, there would not be enough pages in the magazine that you are holding now. Indeed, you do not need that much information either. My main aim here is to draw your attention to me, and thus let you know our God and bring you closer to Him. I hope I am successful in that. From now on, you will hear my ringing occasionally and remember me so that you will be saved from your heedlessness once again.

Irfan Yilmaz is a professor of biology at Dokuz Eylul University, Izmir, Turkey.

Even though garden cultivation of roses began some 5,000 years ago, possibly in China, the fossil record indicates that roses have existed for millions of years. Wherever roses are found, they become a symbol of something: love, beauty, royalty, death, war, and politics. Sometimes, they even represent famous names in history.

During the Roman Empire, roses were grown extensively in the Middle East. Those roses, the most fragrant in the world, were used to make perfume. Their strong scent also caused people to regard them as having a deep mystical significance. However, roses grown in China do not have such a scent. Perhaps this is one reason why roses are not nearly so beloved in China.

Roses seem to make their first literary appearance in the eighth century bce. In The Iliad, an epic poem of ancient Greece, Hectares body was anointed with rose oil. Roses are often mentioned in ancient Greek myths in a wide variety of different forms. For example, a white raised symbolized Aphrodites purity and innocence. Furthermore, her desire and passion for Adonis, her wounded love, was represented by a few drops of her blood changing a white rose into a red rose. In another myth, Zeus scattered roses across the land as a wedding gift to Eros and Psyche.

The Romans also embellished their myths with roses. They used roses at funerals as a sign of resurrection, for example, and Flora was the goddess of spring and flowers. Despite being credited with creating the rose, other Greek deities helped Flora give it its life, sweet scent, and beautiful shape.

Presumably, a correlation exists between ancient Greek and Roman mythology and Christianity with respect to roses. Harpcrates, who was bribed into secrecy with a white rose by Eros, became the god of silence. This was carried over into Christianity, for a rose was often carved onto a meeting rooms plastered ceilings to warn that the discussions were sub rosa (under the rose, or secret).

The rose and religion

Christians used the red rose as a symbol of Jesus passion, martyrdom, and resurrection, as well as for Marys motherhood and purity. Mary is mostly linked with the white rose. The roses design also implies the liturgy. For instance, Mary is surrounded with brilliant roses in this beautiful poem by Wordsworth (1807):

In trellised shed with clustering roses gay,
And, Mary! Oft beside our blazing fire,
When yeas of wedded life were as a day
Whose current answers to the hearts desire.(1)

Also, Mary is often reported as being accompanied by showers of fragrant rose petals. Many stained-glass window scenes of the Blessed Mother and other saints show them holding roses. Underlying all of this is the idea that fragrance is good.

In the seventh century, Prophet Muhammad is symbolized with a rose. It seems that every opening bloom points to another wonderful person in the garden of humanity. The roses reputation increased a thousandfold with the coming of the Prophet. His great personality illuminated the roses color, and his perfect morality is the source of its fragrant sense.

Farid ad-Din Attar (d. 1230), one of the greatest Sufi mystic poets of all time, wrote in his The Rose Garden:

In the rose bed, mystery glows.
The secret is hidden in the rose.(2)

Another Sufi mystic, Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), notes that just as the rose consists of many petals held together, so a Sufis soul shows many different qualities. These qualities emit fragrance in the form of a spiritual personality. As the rose has a beautiful structure, the Sufi has a fine structure, manner, dealing with others, speech, action, and so on. Just as the roses beautiful perfume penetrates the entire room, the Sufi penetrates society and helps to heal its problems.

Furthermore, the Quran honors the red rose by mentioning only it out of all flowers: When the sky is torn apart, so it was (like) a red rose like ointment. Then which of your Lords favors will you deny? (55:37-38). The beauty of a single rose is just one small creation among all of Gods bestowed bounties. The rose has a distinct shape, and whoever created it and tore the sky apart, just like we might tear apart a red rose, created it so that we could understand that the rose was created for significant reasons.

In the Islamic tradition, wearing perfume is a food for the soul and the spirit. One hadith relates that one of the Prophets favorite things was good fragrance. That is why Muslims often wear pure essence of rosewater, especially before prayers. Rosewater is also the preferred soak for the miswak (a traditional toothbrush taken from the branches of a fibrous tree).

Possessing one of the most heavenly scents, a roses essence has several aromatherapeutic benefits as well. Valerie Worwood, in her The Complete Book of Aromatherapy, writes that a roses essence is a powerful and uplifting anti-depressant, aids in digestion, and soothes frayed nerves. These benefits can be enjoyed just by sprinkling some rose water or essence on your body, adding a few drops to your bathwater, or burning the scent in an incense burner in your home.

Associating roses with religion is as old as religion itself. How nice it would be if the veneration that all Jews, Christians, and Muslims have for the rose could make all of us understand that we are bound together with each other and many others in this very way! Moreover, these three monotheistic religions trace their origins to the Middle East, the ancestral home of modern roses.

The rose in other cultures

Many other cultures feature things related to the rose. For example, different sects within Hinduism worship deities through such household and temple offerings as rose attar (perfume). Ancient Persian legends speak of a nightingale that so dearly loved the white rose that it grasped it tightly. The thorns, which pierced its breast and caused its blood to fall on the rose, turned it red. Hence, one type of rose is known as the red damask. Interestingly, Rose is one of the most popular names for girls in many languages. The Turkish word gul, for instance, means rose and smile and has many popular derivations in Turkey.

Around the twelfth or thirteenth century, knights returning from the Crusades brought the rose home to Europe. By the middle of the fifteenth century, the rose was used as a symbol for the factions fighting to control England. The white rose symbolized York, and the red rose symbolized Lancaster. As a result, the conflict became known by historians as the War of the Roses. The red rose is still the emblem of England, since Lancaster won the war. Roses were in such high demand during the seventeenth century that royalty considered roses or rose water as legal tender. Both were often used as barter and for payment. Napoleons wife Josephine established an extensive collection of roses in western Paris during the 1800s.

A new interpretation

In the twentieth century, a splendid new interpretation of the rose and nightingale story was presented by Bediuzzaman Said Nursi. His famous The Words contains an addendum to the discussion on the nightingale. The nightingales small wage is the delight it experiences from gazing on smiling, beautiful roses, and the pleasure it receives from conversing with them and pouring out its woes. In other words, its sorrowful song is not a complaint arising from animal grief; rather, it is the birds thanks for the gifts of the Most Merciful.

Moreover, according to Said Nursi, every sort of being–even stars–has a nightingale. But the most excellent and noble nightingale, whose voice was the most ringing, whose recitation was the most complete, whose thanks were the most universal, who brought all beings of the heavens and Earth in the universes garden to rapture through his poetry was Prophet Muhammad, the nightingale of the luminous Quran. Here, the rose is associated with divine knowledge and wisdom.

Conclusion

Today, people prefer to buy roses for special occasions as precious gifts. As Shakespeare said, there is a meaning kept in the rose that we have to understand, just as the rose keeps its scent within itself. On Valentines Day roses express our love, on Mothers Day they tell our mothers that we remember their mercy toward us, and on Teachers Day they show a students respect for his or her teachers.

Most modern-day roses can be traced back to this symbolic ancestry. The popularity of roses seems to rise and fall according to gardening trends of the time. Gardeners realize that roses fit the lifestyle of every century. With the rise of emphasis on spirituality in the twenty-first century, roses are once again enjoying a resurgence in popularity.

Roses have a special hold upon us and, even though it is hard to capture in words, there is something about roses that evokes a response beyond the virtue of great beauty. This article has presented some historical traces of roses in several civilizations. Perhaps you will associate them with a favorite meaning or figure. So, would you like to finish the following sonnet of Shakespeare in your own way?

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I …?(3)
(the original says in her cheeks)

Footnotes

1. www.poetry.com
2. Omar Ali-Shah, tr. The Rose Garden (Gulistan) of Saadi (Reno, NV: Tractus, 1997).
3. From My Mistress Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun, Sonnet 130, www.poets.org.

Not a day goes by without the media mentioning a fundamentalist attack on modern society. Questions race through your mind: Who are these people? How and why did they come into existence? What are they trying to accomplish? Karen Armstrong, author of The New York Times bestseller A History of God: The 4000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, has written her latest book in an attempt to answer such questions from a position of empathy, instead of the more common one of crude judgment.

Armstrong diligently analyzes the evolving perception of religion from the 1500s to the 1990s by exploring fundamentalist movements in Judaism (Jewish fundamentalism in Israel), Christianity (American Protestant fundamentalism), and Islam (Muslim fundamentalism in Egypt and Iran).

Opposing the general perception that fundamentalism is inherently conservative and wedded to the past, Armstrong argues that it is essentially modern and highly innovative. She observes that people of the past developed two ways of thinking: mythos and logos. Mythos was concerned with what was thought to be timeless and constant in our existence: meaning. In the context of this book, it is defined as: Mythos (Greek): A mode of knowledge rooted in silence and intuitive insigh which gives meaning to life but which cannot be explained in rational terms. Logos, on the other hand, was the rational, pragmatic, and scientific thought that enabled us to function well in the world. Regarded as complementary ways of arriving at the truth, each had its own special area of competence.

But by the eighteenth century, Europe’s startling success in science and technology caused it to begin considering logos the only means to truth and mythos as false. Armstrong argues that fundamentalism, which interprets the truths of mythos as though they were logoi, is a response to modernity’s resulting attack on religion, a response rooted in the fear that modernity will destroy religion. She cautions, however, that such a reactionary fundamentalism reduces religion to an ideology that admits only one interpretation, thereby negating religion’s inherently life-valuing, positive attitude.

Armstrong builds her argument carefully. Starting from the life and world order of the premodern era, she traces how modernity came about and how people and societies reacted to it. It took the West nearly 300 years to become modern. Once it became established there, it was ruthlessly directed outward to the world at large. Faced with the West’s global hegemony, the peoples of the Middle East had to become modern in a much shorter span of time.

The author points out that modernism wears one face in the West and another one in the Middle East. In the West modernization was characterized by independence and innovation; in Egypt and Iran, however, it was accompanied by dependence and imitation.

Quick fixes for modernization did not work very well. She writes: Frequently, modern society is divided into ˜two nations’: secularists and religious living in the same country cannot speak one another’s language or see things from the same point of view. What seems sacred and positive in one camp appears demonic and deranged in the other. Secularists and religious both feel profoundly threatened by one another Although this separation was deeper in the Middle East, similar divisions have occurred in Jewish and Protestant communities.

Armstrong looks for a solution to this escalating spiral of hostility and recrimination. She writes that fundamentalists must remember religion’s more compassionate and life-valuing aspects, whereas secularists must embrace modern culture’s benevolent, tolerant, and respectful characteristics. Her wealth of comparative religious knowledge has interesting insights to offer both fundamentalists and secularists in this search for a better understanding of the other side.

Hostility to Islam and Muslims was an integral part of most of the travellers’ mental makeup. David Roberts, a painter of the idealized landscapes of classical ruins, expresses his frustration in a dislike and hatred of Arabs whose forms litter the otherwise perfect scene: ‘Splendid cities, once teeming with a busy population and embellished …with temples, now deserted and lonely, or reduced by mismanagement and the barbarism of the Muslim creed to a state as savage as wild animals by which they are surrounded. Often have I gazed on them till my heart actually sickened within me.’1

As ‘the idea of travel as a means of gathering and recording information is commonly found in societies that exercise a high degree of political power, the traveler begins his journey with the strength of a nation or an empire sustaining him (albeit from a distance) militarily, economically, intellectually and, as is often the case, spiritually…’2

In 19th century travel accounts, the more routine designation of the Orient is feminine; its main symbols are sensual women, the harem, and the despotic -but curiously attractive- ruler. Moreover, Oriental women, like Victorian housewives, were confined to silence and to unlimited service. The English woman traveller, Miss Irby, who travelled throughout the Ottoman regions, defines the proper place of the oriental women:

‘To the Musulman, a woman was an inferior being, a chattel, to be bought and sold, kept secluded behind the screens of the women’s quarters, or, if produced in public, to be hidden behind the draperies of the litter, or muffled and secreted in long shapeless robes, face covered by the veil; the property of the man as was his dog, his servant, his horse, to wait on his pleasure, to sleep at his feet; yet withal, if the husband be rich, to be cossetted and adorned with jewels and fed with sweetmeats, to spend days in idleness and chatter.’3

In various 19th century Oriental books and tales like Vathek, the Giaour and Don Juan (especially Cantos 5-8) which are more or less fixated on the images of the Oriental harem, the figure of the veiled Eastern girl symbolising the colonial Other is created by a narrative structure in which a male subject’s attempts to liberate a female object from the tyranny of the harem is interrupted or arrested by a stereotypical patriarchal aggressor who prevents the achievement of narrative desire in the possession of the woman. In other words, the Orient is thus refigured as the harem fantasy of European imperialism that shows ‘the East’ as the obscure object of Western desire. The narrative structure of Vathek designates the Orient as a feminized place invaded by the masculine subject.

Reza Hammani and Martina Rieker criticize Ghoussoub’s Marxist approach which deprecates Islam as not good for women. However, they agree that Middle Eastern feminism is vitiated by its involvement in debates whose agenda was set in 19th century travel writing. They develop this idea further with the following explanation:

‘Two issues have dominated Western discourse about Middle Eastern women since the 19th century; the veil and the harem. The harem continues to be treated as a contemporary reality in popular mythology. Thus, Gloria Steiner cites freeing Saudi women from harems as one of her fantasies in her autobiography – we wish her luck in finding a harem in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it is above all the veil which remains a central preoccupation… The veil is not always imposed; in many contemporary instances women have been instrumental in assuming it. This is not a matter of relativist interpretations but of power… In the case of women in Egypt since Sadat’s Open Door Policy, large numbers of working-class women have themselves mobilized to veil to signify their opposition to the regime.’4

Irene L. Szyliowicz remarks that historians and social scientists arc demonstrating that the traditional portrayal of women in these societies has been biased and based on Western judgements. European ethnocentrism and male chauvinism have combined to account for this phenomenon.5 As she thinks that French travel writer, Pierre Loti’s attitude toward Oriental women is particularly worth studying for several reasons, she points out in her Pierre Loti and the Oriental Woman (1988) that ‘since all the Oriental women essentially support and ratify their Occidental lovers, it is proper to conclude that Loti created these fictional characters as wish-fulfilment fantasies, to simultaneously reinforce and magnify his manhood.’6 When Loti made a speech titled ‘La Femme Turque’ (the Turkish Woman) before a large gathering of European women in the conference on ‘Feminine Life’, he concluded with a message: ‘Open the cages, open all the harems. Yet, don’t open them too quickly, for fear that the young, imprisoned birds should take a frantic flight before knowing properly where their inexperienced and fragile wings will take them.’7 According to Loti’s interpretation of Oriental women, which is quite similar to that of Byron, one might imagine that ‘they could be manipulated easily by their dominating masters, and further, this masculine paradigm presented these women, like their Occidental sisters as actually craving male domination.’8 Eventually, in the case of Oriental or exotic women created by Loti, the reader faces a different form; they are simple, primitive, dependent, often helpless, and they worship the hero as though he was God. ‘And despite the fact that he was still a product of his Occidental milieu and the prejudices with which he was raised, he prided himself on his objectivity toward various lands which he visited.’9

In sum, from the previously quoted remarks by 19th century travellers, it may be concluded that the most general point about travel literature (something also confirmed by Sir John Mandeville’s Travels) is that travel is undertaken for a great variety of purposes; the specific purpose involved in a given case is always, to a greater or lesser degree, determinant of what is noted or considered noteworthy. Consequently, the attention paid by the writer of a travel book is always ideological. A traveller usually comes from somewhere – from a country from a language community, class – and consciously writes the record of his journey for a particular public in the country he came from.10

Notes

1. As quoted in BALLANTINE, J. The Life of David Roberts, R.A. Compiled from his journals and other sources, Edinburgh, 1986, pp. 104-5.

2. KABBANI, R. Europe’s Myths of the Orient, Macmillan, London, 1986, p.1.

3. ANDERSON. D. Miss Irby and her Friends, Hutchinson, London, 1966, pp. 52-3.

4. HAMMANI, R. and RIEKER, M. ‘Feminst Orientalism and Orientalist Marxism’, New Left Review, 170, 1988, p. 93.

5. SZYLIOWICZ, I. L. Pierre Loti and the Oriental Woman, Macmillan, London, 1988, pp.1-3.

6. ibid.

7. ‘Et je dis avec eux, mais non sans inquietude: out ouvrez toutes les cages ouvrez tous les harems. Cependant ne les ouvrez pas trop vite, de peur que les jeunes piseaux prisonniers…’ P. Loti ‘La Femme Turque in Quelques aspect du vertige mondial, Ernest Flammarion, Paris, 1917, p. 182.

8. SZYLIOWICZ, p. 3.

9. ibid, p. 12.

10. PARKER, D. ‘Orientalism and its Problems’ in BOOLE, F. (ed.) The Politics of Theory, University of Essex, John Fletcher.