Arabs

by Tim Mackintosh-Smith

  Mu’ammar al-Qadhdhafi . . . the Leader’s body: Ajami, Arab Predicament, p. 14.

  al-Qadhdhafi claimed . . . ‘trustee’ of the movement: Ajami, Arab Predicament, p. 93.

  Fall and scatter . . . Andalus the Conquered: Qabbani, p. 762.

  ‘for once’, said Muhammad Hasanayn Haykal: quoted in Rogan, p. 468.

  oil prices had risen . . . $10.41: EI2 VII, pp. 886ff.; cf. Albert Hourani, pp. 418–19.

  even those that have money . . . much influence: Carmichael, p. 357.

  The oil migrations were thus a kind of secular hajj: cf. Rogan, p. 496.

  in the 1975 census . . . the total population: Swanson, p. 55.

  My father . . . at the end of the earth: Basha, p. 160.

  the Arab world [was] more closely linked . . . in its modern history: Sa’d al-Din Ibrahim quoted in Rogan, p. 496.

  Why should we go and lay tile by tile . . . around on them?: Basha, p. 160.

  The Arab world stores . . . beasts bled by their masters: Qabbani, p. 858.

  If I had a whip . . . their camel’s milk: Qabbani, pp. 738–9.

  For Sadat, the war . . . Israel and the Arabs: Albert Hourani, p. 419.

  The Israelis . . . would not be tied to details: cf. Hourani, pp. 419–20.

  They’ve given us the Pill . . . having children: Qabbani, p. 813.

  agreed to keep . . . a great boost: Shehadeh, Walks, pp. 109–45.

  the worst surrender document in our history: Shehadeh, Diaries, p. 160.

  His bombastic barrages . . . and similar causes: figures from the Jewish Virtual Library website.

  because it was planned by America and Israel: report in baraqish.net, 14 September 2016.

  the curriculum was planned by the so-called Islamic State: report in baraqish.net, February 2017.

  a position of real strength, moral not military: cf. Abdallah Laroui quoted in Pryce-Jones, p. 214.

  CHAPTER 15 THE AGE OF DISAPPOINTMENT

  a fine ancient inscription . . . someone called Elias: The inscription is the base of a missing statue commemorating a man who built a public bath, possibly around the fifth century AD. R. Mouterde and C. Mondésert, ‘Deux inscriptions grecques de Hama’, Syria 34, 1957, pp. 284–7.

  destroyed . . . by tanks and artillery: Rogan, p. 513.

  between 8,000 and 25,000 lives: Haag, p. 153.

  largely optimistic . . . on the move: Kassir, p. 32.

  During the interwar years . . . history of the Arab world: Rogan, p. 238.

  Women in Syria . . . before women in France: Kassir, p. 63.

  Iraq seemed to have . . . liberal democracy: Atiyah, pp. 222–4.

  a kind of Oriental Canada: Morris, p. 83.

  Yemen Enters the Modern World: I. Rashid, Yemen Enters the Modern World, Chapel Hill, 1984.

  Reconstructing Arab society . . . contemporary generation: Hitti, p. 755.

  Hold fast . . . and do not be divided among yourselves: Qur’an, 3:103.

  habl is ‘a cord, a rope’ . . . states of South Arabia: cf. pp. 53–4, above.

  I don’t recall . . . any contemporary context: Allawi, p. ix.

  They dreamed of Cairo . . . and total destruction: Bowles, p. 104.

  if Western democracy . . . revivalist, theocratic Islam: Atiyah, p. 240.

  those crushing . . . in 1948 and 1967: cf. Ajami, Arab Predicament, pp. 69–70.

  vague, though intense feelings . . . in the last 50 years: quoted in Pryce-Jones, p. 373.

  In a 2005 poll . . . Morocco, Iraq and Algeria: Pintak, p. 196.

  Nasser may not have been The Last Arab: cf. p. 478, above.

  two eighth-century brothers . . . in Sind and North Africa: p. 267, above.

  the People of the Cave: Qur’an, 18:9–26.

  for 309 years in the Qur’anic version: In the Christian version, from Decius to Theodosius II would be a mere two centuries at most.

  a sense of history is a sense of loss: Naipaul, p. 177.

  an evolving culture-bound dynamic . . . behavior: Varisco, p. 125.

  Saddam Husayn . . . the majority of his subjects: cf. Albert Hourani, p. 432.

  up to a million dead: Rogan, p. 518.

  in the pro-coalition states . . . and governed: cf. Rogan, pp. 565–71.

  US forces alone numbered 650,000: Rogan, p. 567.

  Freedom is not something . . . as free as they want to be: James Baldwin, Nobody Knows My Name, ‘Notes for a Hypothetical Novel’, Dial Press, New York, 1961.

  governments and people united in condemnation: cf. Rogan, p. 614.

  a civil war that may have killed 100,000 or more: Albert Hourani, p. 465.

  In the 2014 campaign . . . seven were civilians: BBC report, 1 September 2014, quoting UN figures.

  between 2000 and the middle of 2018 . . . almost 8:1: figures from the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, quoted in the Guardian, 14 August 2018.

  an Israeli property law . . . the Israeli state: Shehadeh, Walks, p. 13.

  the nationalization of bicycles . . . women joined the army: Mackintosh-Smith, Yemen, p. 165.

  Chief Politburo exegete . . . tendencies: Mackintosh-Smith, Yemen, p. 165.

  Chaos will rule . . . thank God: Mackintosh-Smith, Yemen, p. 158.

  From the Gulf to the Atlantic . . . thought and culture: Qabbani, p. 857.

  to the Arab League at its thirty-fifth birthday party: Qabbani, p. 853.

  the billy-goat in the officers’ mess: the nickname is attributed to his assassinated predecessor-but-one as president of North Yemen, Ibrahim al Hamdi.

  The state . . . is a collection of tribes: quoted in Dresch, Tribes, p. 7.

  might as well look for camel-trains at metro stations: Mu’allimi, p. 37.

  the earth disgorges its burdens: Qur’an, 99:2.

  the chief . . . retains his quarter or fifth of the booty: cf. pp. 61–2, above.

  early in 2015 . . . corruption in general: BBC report, 26 February 2015.

  Man jāda sād . . . and you’ll rule the land: Ibn Khallikan III, p. 469.

  dynamic political order . . . republicanism and Islamism: Volpi, p. 1061.

  in the 2014 election . . . 97 per cent of the vote: Guardian report, 20 March 2018.

  Baya’ al-amir . . . pleasing and displeasing: Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon, s.v. byc.

  Nothing doth more hurt . . . cunning men pass for wise: Francis Bacon, Essays, ‘Of Cunning’.

  better to reign in hell than serve in heaven: John Milton, Paradise Lost, book 1, line 261; cf. Ajami, Dream Palace, p. 142.

  In friendship false . . . to rule the state: John Dryden, Absalom and Achitophel, part 1, line 173.

  a history of ashes: Adonis, Thabit III, p. 229.

  the long winter of the Arabs: quoted in Pryce-Jones, p. 14.

  The story . . . of Muhammad Bu Azizi: e.g. Rogan, pp. 626–31.

  a generation . . . systematically lied to: Ajami, Arab Predicament, p. 88.

  the uprising of Ahmad Urabi in 1881–2: p. 433, above.

  zu’’ar, ‘hooligans’, staged periodic uprisings: EI2, s.v. Zuccār.

  the harafish, or ‘rascals’ . . . al-Nasir: Ibn Battutah I, p. 54.

  Facebook pages . . . protesters in Cairo in 2011: e.g. Soueif, p. 155.

  the political pages . . . in the Urabi uprising: cf. Zubaida, p. 168.

  the meeting of minds: Shehadeh, Diaries, p. 112.

  the secular and shaggy-haired . . . as yours: Shehadeh, Diaries, p. 116.

  We are all here together . . . expressing themselves: Soueif, p. 56.

  This [Egyptian] regime lies as naturally as it breathes: Soueif, p. 133.

  the protesters were ‘foreign agents’: Soueif, p. 144.

  ’Aysh! . . . And our human dignity!: adapted from Soueif, p. 18.

  God save the Sultan! / God ruin Fart al-Rumman!: Jabarti II, p. 326.

  Luckless Limper, let him go!: Ibn Battutah I, p. 54.

  Write, write . . . We have found our voice: Soueif, pp. 145–6.

 
; an Egyptian poet . . . ‘How I admired him!’: Shehadeh, Diaries, p. 133.

  stalled between seasons: quoted in Ajami, Arab Predicament, p. 1.

  The current Arab regimes . . . changes nothing: Adonis, Thabit III, p. 165.

  Allah will change . . . what is in themselves: Qur’an, 13:11.

  What I want is power . . . kick ’em the next: quoted in Kipling Journal, vol. 38, no. 180, 1971, p. 6.

  failed rulers had wielded . . . who had ousted them: cf. Iryani, p. 329.

  that vast complex of analogies: Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus, Faber & Faber, London, 1953, p. 80.

  Munsif al-Marzuqi . . . and Solzhenitsyn: Pryce-Jones, p. 401.

  Habib Bourguiba . . . fasting in Ramadan: EI2, s.v. Tunisia.

  their ra’iyyah . . . private flock: cf. p. 431, above.

  Cunning has effect from the credulity of others: Johnson and Boswell, A Journey to the Western Islands, Penguin Classics, London, 1984, p. 288.

  slaves of the stick: Imru’ al-Qays, p. 134.

  If Time enthrones . . . the time of the ape!: quoted in Ibn Khallikan III, pp. 236–7, and sometimes attributed to Imam al-Shafi’i.

  Give me five hundred years . . . Switzerland: quoted in Pryce-Jones, p. 4.

  the time people began to talk . . . 50,000 years ago: Diamond, p. 40.

  Words . . . Since the seventh century: Qabbani, p. 759.

  Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: cf. p. 135, above.

  Martin Nowak’s Supercooperators: cf. ideas on language and dominance, pp. 9 and 163, above.

  bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language: Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen, part 1, section 109.

  the Qatari poet . . . a fifteen-year gaol sentence: BBC reports, 30 November 2012 and 22 October 2013.

  Qabus of Jurjan . . . his calligraphic tower-tomb: cf. pp. 346–7, above.

  Call it ‘sweet nectar’ . . . daylight from it: quoted in Ibn Khallikan I, pp. 24–5.

  Contrary to what most people believe . . . a Jewish state: San’a Radio, February 2017.

  many have been convinced . . . ‘Americans and Israelis’: report in baraqish.net, April 2017.

  lies propagated . . . no turning back now: Lévi-Strauss, p. 300.

  Here I am, going far . . . to this place: Jarrah, pp. 290–1.

  From Syria . . . five million have fled: UN figure in the Guardian, 31 March 2017.

  Lo! on her grim and massy rock . . . foeman’s shock: Gibb’s translation in Ibn Battutah I, p. 96.

  one of the most splendid . . . ivory and ebony: Ibn Battutah I, pp. 97–8.

  Its surface . . . fugue for the eyes: Mackintosh-Smith, Tangerine, p. 188.

  dismantled . . . an unknown location: www.unesco.org/ne/en/safeguarding-syrian-cultural-heritage, accessed June 2018.

  AFTERWORD IN THE STATION OF HISTORY

  We’re waiting . . . in the station of history: Qabbani, pp. 754–7.

  the constant present . . . the timeline of Hell: cf. Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2009, p. 331, n. 23.

  Max Weber’s ‘eternal yesterday’: Max Weber, Gesammelte politische Schriften, Drei Masken Vlg, 1921, p. 507.

  the royal court . . . Istanbul: BBC and Guardian reports, 20 October 2018.

  Arab allies . . . ’urubah, arabness: e.g. statements by the legitimate Yemeni government quoted on sahafah.net, c. 16 October 2018.

  in July 2018 . . . language of the State of Israel: Guardian report, 19 July 2018.

  The Aleppo mosque . . . Chechen cash: Reuters report, January 2018.

  Ali Abd Allah Salih . . . the charmer: Mackintosh-Smith, Yemen (2014 edition), ‘Afterword’.

  Already when we unified . . . as ages run!: from Shaykh Hamdan bin Muhammad Al Maktum’s ode, ‘Al-Jār li ’l-Jār’, https://lyrics-on.net/en/1096426-el-jar-lil-jar-lyrics.html, accessed 14 November 2018.

  The assumption . . . their colonial subjects: Doreen Ingrams, p. 153.

  We live in an age . . . in their benefits: quoted in Suleiman, p. 191.

  As time goes by . . . contact with Westerners: Husayn, p. 109.

  People . . . resemble their fathers: Jahiz, part 3, p. 113.

  the gaze . . . foredooms all your hopes: Kassir, p. 2.

  apparently ‘Western’ . . . the Muslim mind: Ajami, Arab Predicament, pp. 52–3.

  wherever it may come from . . . different from our own: cf. p. 280, above.

  He sees the lightning . . . the lightning-flash: Jarrah, p. 41. I thank Dr Khaldun al-Sham’ah for first reciting these verses to me.

  Those who believe . . . have their reward with their Lord: Qur’an, 2:62.

  something glorious . . . every kind of pleasure: Jan Morris, Spain, Penguin, London, 1982, p. 14.

  We want a generation . . . history from the roots: Qabbani, p. 703.

  To you . . . be your religion, and to me mine: Qur’an, 109:6.

  something rotten: cf. p. xiii, above.

  those villagers . . . that the Romans had filled in: cf. p. xxv, above.

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