"Heat-shimmer made the reliefs on the cella waver." (p. 101)
In Section 7, Zabdas converts his household to Islam.
In Section 8, Aliyat suffers the restriction of the new religion and the qadi advises Zabdas against divorcing his uncanny wife.
In Section 9, Zabdas deputes Aliyat to give discrete instruction in trade to a young Christian kinsman.
In Section 10, Bonnur's instruction begins.
In Section 11, conversation between Aliyat and Bonnur takes a personal turn.
In Section 12, their adultery begins.
In Section 13, Zabdas announces that he will go to Tripolis with Nebozabad for several weeks.
In Section 14, Zabdas and his sons catch them in adultery but he fights and she escapes.
In Section 15, Nebozabad smuggles her out of the city.
In Section 16, she has a night with Nebozabad before beginning her new life in "...all the world and time." (p. 107)
Zabdas accepts Islam as the pure prophetic monotheism that ends superstition about saints and priests and pointless restrictions. However, it imposes ancient Arabian restrictions on women. When I was a student in Manchester, I visited a Sikh family and their Gurdwara and came to see Sikhism as a reformed Islam. A comrade brought up as a Sikh appreciated this description of it.
9 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I disagree that Islam belongs in the line of prophetic monotheism we see in Judaism and Christianity. Because I don't believe Mohammed was a prophet at all. I lean more to Hilaire Belloc's suggestion that Mohammedanism is best described as a stripped down, Arianizing imitation of Christianity.
And I seriously doubt Narayan Singh, the Sikh we see in THE PESHAWAR LANCERS, would agree with what the Sikh you met saying his religion was a "reformed Islam." Narayan had only contempt for Islam as such. Besides, I thought the Sikh religion split away from Hinduism!
Sean
Rejoice, Sean!
Guru Nanak led a Hindu-Muslim ecumenical movement which, rejected by both sides, had to defend itself and became a third religion after the Founder's death! Their scripture, the Granth, is hymns composed by Hindus, Muslims or Sikh Gurus.
Paul.
Hail, Sean!
I have trouble distinguishing between Mohammed and Elijah, though: two intolerant monotheists.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That surprises me. I had thought the Sikh religion mostly a reaction against Hinduism, and opposition to its polytheism and the caste system. Should I assume the Muslim bits in the Granth came mostly from the Sufi strain of Islam?
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I agree Elijah was certainly a FIERCE man. And I certainly wished he had not made plans for the massacre of the house of Omri. But Elijah was right to oppose paganism and King Ahab's unjust acquisition of Naboth's vineyard.
Sean
Ave, Sean!
Good question. Not sure, though.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I was just speculating, because the Sufis seem to be among the least violent sects of Islam and more open to non Muslim ideas than most.
Sean
I remember noting when I first read "Boat of a Million Years" that the Muslim conquest of parts of the Roman Empire is portrayed as reducing the status of women. I had heard the claim that Islam was less bad for women than what came before, but since I tend to find Anderson accurate whenever he put something I know about in his stories, I'm inclined to believe him on this.
I would also note that Mohammed's first wife was a business woman, which suggests that even in pre-Muslim Arabia, Islam reduced the status of women.
Kaor, Jim!
The way Islam treats and regards women, at least in theory if not always in practice with individual Muslims, is one of the many, many things I dislike about it.
One of the most horrible things I ever saw was a video of a Muslim mob stoning a young girl to death (I think in N. Africa). This girl's dreadful crime was refusing to marry the man picked out for her by her parents.
Ad astra! Sean
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