Blog Post #9 - The Great Game

In this week's readings (Ch. 10-14 from the Frances Wood book), one of my favourite aspects was the intense curiosity which the Silk Road inspired in its explorers. Mostly described as "anti-social," people like Stein, Przhevalsky, and Elias became famous by traveling as far away from Western society as was possible. Elias was said to have wanted to avoided a business career in favour of less social endeavours, thereby leading him to cross Mongolia and explore Karakorum. That this was a logical alternative is fascinating to me, as some of the tasks required of them were quite unusual and grotesque. Sven Hedin's account of climbing into the Tower of Silence in order to obtain three human skulls (whose rotting flesh was still somewhat intact) is only one of many assignments given to these explorers, who likely would have preferred instead to avoid contact with such rotting corpses. The pull of the Silk Road seems to have been so powerful as to have made any required actions tolerable -- especially considering that Hedin returned to Kashgar in June 1895 yet left in order to embark on another exploration in December! The dedication to the exploration and collection of "Buddha images" and "Christian relics" in Khotan and Yarkand is just one of many which illustrate the intense attraction these men had to their expeditions.

Blog Post #8 - Views of Islam for the last 40 years

This week's readings provided excellent background information regarding popular opinions about "fundamentalist" Muslims, as well as whether or not historical factors were taken into account during their formation. As such a hot button issue, arguments about women's rights in Muslim regions of the world are never going to be settled nor fully understood simply by examining the history of such "fundamentalist" groups.

What this exploration does do, though, is shed some light on just how multi-faceted their history is, allowing for a deeper and less partial understanding of who supports these practices and how how they became so widespread.

Hirschkind and Mahmood ("Feminism, the Taliban, and Politics of Counter-Insurgency") use Salman Rushdie's beliefs as a perfect example of such a partial, one-sided view of Islam from the West's persepective: Islam itself is wholly incompatible with Western ideals of modernization and freedom. This, in addition to his other controversial remarks, only heightened the tension between the West and the Muslim world. As Said insists ("The Clash of Ignorance"), pitting the West against Islam is a "gimmick" which serves more as a tool to bolster the idea of our "superiority," rather than creating a working model of how the world works, paying great attention to the effects of each civilization or culture upon the other.

Blog Post #7 - Islam in China

This week's readings were particularly interesting to me, as I have taken a few courses on Islam at UofT. The readings somewhat address the role of trade in facilitating the spread of Islam into China, as well as the modern status of Muslims in China. I look forward to the class discussion about this phenomenon, as other religious such as Buddhism seem to have integrated so seamlessly into Chinese culture. Despite Islam's intention to be universally accepted, it has never fully merged with the more "Chinese" or "East Asian" traditions, such as Confucianism and Daoism. Whether it's the monotheistic aspect, or the extremely strong linguistic attachment to Arabic, Islam's acceptance in China doesn't seem to go past individual Muslims' immersion in Chinese culture. Again, the class discussion about Islam's arrival and battle to stay in China is something which I will find extremely intriguing!