i actually finished the second part of Quixote a few days ago; i read the first volume back in March and neglected my course readings because of it--how could i resist Cervantes' wit?

what fascinates me, besides the interplay between reality and fictionality, is the figure of the Moor in Don Quixote. as much as i loved the book, it seems that, as i had anticipated, Cervantes is unwilling to give the Moor any voice unless she or he converts to Catholicism or professes that he or she is more Catholic than Muslim. otherwise, the Moor is almost uniformly depicted as a filthy heathen, the "other," the enemy.

but then...what about the fictional authority, Sidi Hamid Benengeli? what about the fact that the book is supposedly a translation from Arabic? is there another layer to Cervantes' treatment of the Muslim? when Quixote's Moors deny their own Muslim names and commit other acts of cultural servility, it seems so overblown. could that have been done on purpose? perhaps not, but it is intriguing.

reading Quixote, as well as some of the Andalusian philosopher Ibn 'Arabi's writings, has given me an idea for the Independent Project course at UofT next year. i'm thinking of looking at the issue of medieval Muslim Europe (particularly al-Andaluus) in Rushdie's The Moor's Last Sigh, Tariq Ali's Shades of the Pomegranate Tree, and Zulfikar Ghose's "A Mediterranean Tale" and "Arriving in India." why do these three Indian/Pakistani/Western authors, an atheist (Rushdie), a Marxist (Ali), and a...whatever Ghose is...feel the need to deal with Muslim Europe in their texts? how does the idea of the Muslim presence in Europe serve to demolish the imaginary boundaries between East and West that Said talks about in Orientalism? how and why is this interworld constructed ("constructed" implies, for me, its imaginariness), as the quintessential moderate, tolerant, Islamic utopia, by secularist East-Western writers from Muslim backgrounds? does it have anything at all to do with the western postcolonial's desire to come to terms with colonialism by dealing with the colonialism of al-Andaluus, in the same way that i lust after my dream-Chaucer, the postcolonial/precolonial champion of the suppressed English vernacular? what about the way in which the fictional Andalusias seem to blur into India, especially in Rushdie's case?

I don't particularly sympathize with the tribalism at the root of Akbar Ahmed's sense of loss -- he doesn't get Al-Andalus syndrome for Hindu civilization in Pakistan -- however, I do pine for that marvelously syncretic civilization that was Mughal India.

Amid the market's din, faintly, still, the ancient bell resounds that long ago was struck.

[ May 16, 2002: Message edited by: rasmus_raven ]

I am going to have to sit and chew on your questions for a while, this especially:

quote:

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how and why is this interworld constructed ("constructed" implies, for me, its imaginariness), as the quintessential moderate, tolerant, Islamic utopia, by secularist East-Western writers from Muslim backgrounds? does it have anything at all to do with the western postcolonial's desire to come to terms with colonialism by dealing with the colonialism of al-Andaluus, in the same way that i lust after my dream-Chaucer, the postcolonial/precolonial champion of the suppressed English vernacular?

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Europe is almost always thought of as "Christian", with no account taken of the Druids, the Visigoths/Ostrogoths, the Norse or the Russians, never mind the one time Muslims got a serious foothold in Europe or the fact that the Romans themselves were not Christians initially and certainly didn't adopt it wholesale as a state religion.