Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers

This is a superb book. With penetrating insight and an eloquent style, alDa'mi explores the crucial role that Arabo-lslamic history played in the arguments of such prominent British and American "men of letters" as Thomas Carlyle and Washington Irving. The book opens with a preface,...

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Autor principal: Katherine Bullock
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Publicado: International Institute of Islamic Thought 2003
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:ff9603f30e66405c84492d28ccaf56c02021-12-02T19:41:23ZArabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers10.35632/ajis.v20i3-4.18292690-37332690-3741https://doaj.org/article/ff9603f30e66405c84492d28ccaf56c02003-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.ajis.org/index.php/ajiss/article/view/1829https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3733https://doaj.org/toc/2690-3741 This is a superb book. With penetrating insight and an eloquent style, alDa'mi explores the crucial role that Arabo-lslamic history played in the arguments of such prominent British and American "men of letters" as Thomas Carlyle and Washington Irving. The book opens with a preface, in which he lays out his rationale and purpose, and contains seven chapters, in which he develops his argument. AI-Da'mi seeks to deepen our understanding of nineteenth-century Oriental ism by exploring the works of leading intellectual writers of that time: not the professional historians, but the "men ofletters" who used history to expound their arguments, but with a kind of literary licence not available to a proper historian. His main argument is that the writers used Arabo-Islamic history not simply as an exotic or a romantic flourish, but rather as an integral and important aspect of their discourses to comment upon their own time. For example, Carlyle praises the Prophet as a heroic leader, as a way to warn the British of the dangers of utilitarianism and materialism; Ralph Waldo Emerson likewise does this to send a message to the young American nation; Cardinal John H. Newman to alert Europe to the Ottoman threat; and so on. Al-Da'mi convincingly points out that we can neither understand these writers nor the age itself adequately without properly comprehending this aspect of their writings. This is an important rectification to traditional western scholarship, which typically leaves out all mention of anything non-European in its study of its own intellectual history. (Walter E. Houghton's classic work on the Victorian age, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870, has in its index only one entry for Prophet Muhammad ... Katherine BullockInternational Institute of Islamic ThoughtarticleIslamBP1-253ENAmerican Journal of Islam and Society, Vol 20, Iss 3-4 (2003)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Islam
BP1-253
spellingShingle Islam
BP1-253
Katherine Bullock
Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers
description This is a superb book. With penetrating insight and an eloquent style, alDa'mi explores the crucial role that Arabo-lslamic history played in the arguments of such prominent British and American "men of letters" as Thomas Carlyle and Washington Irving. The book opens with a preface, in which he lays out his rationale and purpose, and contains seven chapters, in which he develops his argument. AI-Da'mi seeks to deepen our understanding of nineteenth-century Oriental ism by exploring the works of leading intellectual writers of that time: not the professional historians, but the "men ofletters" who used history to expound their arguments, but with a kind of literary licence not available to a proper historian. His main argument is that the writers used Arabo-Islamic history not simply as an exotic or a romantic flourish, but rather as an integral and important aspect of their discourses to comment upon their own time. For example, Carlyle praises the Prophet as a heroic leader, as a way to warn the British of the dangers of utilitarianism and materialism; Ralph Waldo Emerson likewise does this to send a message to the young American nation; Cardinal John H. Newman to alert Europe to the Ottoman threat; and so on. Al-Da'mi convincingly points out that we can neither understand these writers nor the age itself adequately without properly comprehending this aspect of their writings. This is an important rectification to traditional western scholarship, which typically leaves out all mention of anything non-European in its study of its own intellectual history. (Walter E. Houghton's classic work on the Victorian age, The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830-1870, has in its index only one entry for Prophet Muhammad ...
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author Katherine Bullock
author_facet Katherine Bullock
author_sort Katherine Bullock
title Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers
title_short Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers
title_full Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers
title_fullStr Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers
title_full_unstemmed Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers
title_sort arabian mirrors and western soothsayers
publisher International Institute of Islamic Thought
publishDate 2003
url https://doaj.org/article/ff9603f30e66405c84492d28ccaf56c0
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