Comments on: Marriage, religion and idleness

By: a

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:52:13 +0000

I have to agree with Amr on this.

I recently read a book called ‘The Arabic Language’ by Kees Versteegh.
http://www.amazon.com/Arabic-Language-Kees-Versteegh/dp/0748614362/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204411734&sr=8-1

It’s a great book on linguistics, but apart from that it also gives a vast amount of history.

One thing that the author notes early on is that unlike European languages, where each racial group had their own language, Arabic is an amalgam of all the other languages spoken in the area, from the earliest semitic language, Akkadian, to Ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Chaldean, etc etc..
This is thanks to the nomadic lifestyle of the people and their constant trading.
Racially also the people have mixed tremendously. There is the concept of Pure Arabs, descended from Qahtan, and Arabized Arabs (musta3ribun).
Mohammed himself was considered to be Arabized, thanks to his descent from Abraham, who was not Arab.

The author obviously goes into much more detail than this, so I’ll let you pick up the book if your interested.

Anyway, my point is, stop being a dick jose. Take it easy on the sarcasm and internet machismo.

By: MC

MC — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 19:09:46 +0000

Have my idle hands gotten hold of the wrong end of the dirty stick here, or is the Arabist equating religiousity with vice and sin? That would seem to be import of the tag at the end of the posting - and even if we are fine in the distinction between “religiousity” (that teenage God-hornyness that seems to give some people an itch that just never goes away) or what was it that you called it in this case? “despair induced spirituality”? and its outward manifestations; going down to the mosque, praying, growing big long beards and whatever else, should we really be characterizing these preenings as implicitly sinful? Obviously I think so, but I’m a little surprised - not to mention happy - to see grown ups agreeing.

By: ash-shakkak

ash-shakkak — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:00:27 +0000

Why are people such dicks in the comment sections of blogs?

By: jose

jose — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 01:05:12 +0000

El-Abyad: Did you type your response in Arabic and put it through Google Translate?

By: AMP

AMP — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:35:42 +0000

Sphinx, I would be skeptical of the accuracy any figures regarding unemployment and poverty in Egypt, though I also found the mention of the annual hajj trip when the family has no money for marriage to be a bit odd!

I don’t necessarily think that Slackman is arguing that the inability to marry is what is driving increased religiosity, rather it’s unemployment and underemployment among the educated lower-middle classes that causes both of these phenomena. I wish he would have delved into this a bit more. Egypt has a significant human capital problem today that arises from the old free education and guaranteed employment scheme of the Nasser era: a distorted labor market and a lot of “educated” people who come from decaying, over-used, and under-funded universities that do not provide them with skills demanded by the market.

By: Amre El-Abyad

Amre El-Abyad — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 14:14:53 +0000

Jose

that is only part pf the explaination. All th ancint nar eastern civilisations were semitic in language, culture and religous systems. Holly book has got its parallels in the semitic religons of Mesoptamia and Egypt. Pennisula Arabs spoke the most recent of semitic languages, and they were descendasnts of Babylonians, Egyptians, Aramaics, Yemenes according to both history and the Abrahainmic faiths.

The inhabitants of Iranian palteau who are collectively known as Persians have never been considered to be one poeplemaybe untill the Arabic conquests and later on theÂ´the Safavid dynasty. They were Achaemenids, Parthians and Sassanids who spoke different languages of common Indo-Iranian origin and bitter infighting was incesant among those baraberous groups. The same as well goes for the Arabs and their semitic ancestors.

By: Sphinx

Sphinx — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:33:43 +0000

On close reading of Slackman’s story, it’s clear that the link between piety and frustration (mainly social and economic) is a preconception which he mainly imposed on his characters, not something that emerges from what they tell him. As far as I can see, not a single remark by the characters supports such a link. Personally, I have always been sceptical about the theory that religiosity in Egypt is a product of economic deprivation and thwarted ambitions. Overall, unemployment and poverty have gradually declined since the 1970s, so it would be hard to blame those factors for the trend towards overt piety which people have noticed over the subsequent 30 years. Young people complained in those days that it was impossible to get married, for exactly the same reasons, but in those days it was ‘key-money’ they needed — the right to take on a lease in an existing apartment. Since then, the property market has opened up and apartments are readily available at comparatively affordable prices. There are some oddities in Slackman’s story. For example, how come Sayyid’s divorced mother ‘makes a pilgrimage to Mecca every year’, when Sayyid doesn’t have enough money to marry? His $100 a month is no great fortune but many Egyptians manage to marry on that kind of salary.

By: Jose

Jose — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 20:10:42 +0000

Because Arabs are the only people in the Middle East.

By: Amre El-Abyad

Amre El-Abyad — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 16:36:06 +0000

“Middle Eastern proverb that may predate Arabic that claims that â€œThe dust of labor is better than the saffron of idleness.â€)

That makes it Arabic as well. Arabism is the natural and sole extension of the ancient near east.

By: Sphinx

Sphinx — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 09:29:37 +0000

Or, as my Lancastrian grandmother used to say, the Devil finds work for idle hands. And she was a low-church Anglican who lived among the cotton mills during the Great Depression. In other words, this is NOT a culture-specific concept.