Arabian Best-Sellers: Saffiya's Choice, NASA and a Day of Judgment…….

              


“The front shelves of bookstores in the Kingdom nowadays have an abundance of books relating to the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. It would seem there is a growing recent trend in people wanting to read such books on account of the increasing number of wars, natural disasters and diseases that the world has witnessed in recent years. Interest in an apocalypse has also been encouraged by e-mails, including one allegedly from NASA giving details of an Nibiru collision, a supposed encounter between the earth and a large planetary object, which will result in the end of the world. While those who write these e-mails furnish supposed scientific proof to support their claims, many of those who read them look for answers in religious books that are widely available in the Kingdom’s bookstores. Religious books about the end of the world and the events that precede it according to Islamic tradition come in all sizes. Some of these books are lengthy while others are short, discussing individual events that have been prophesized……… “There has always been hyperbole in specifying particular dates for the end of the world. As Muslims we … have a trusted source that gives us a clear vision about the end of the world and the signs that will appear prior to it happening,” he added. “There have been incidents throughout Islamic history in which people have claimed the arrival of the Mahdi, but these claims were politically motivated. We are still awaiting the major signs preceding his arrival. These false claims are a result of people merging religious dogma with fiction and their own personal views,” he added……….”

I have heard people in the United States lament the state of literacy and reading in the country. In the Middle East, especially in the Arab World, things have certainly gotten worse. People don't read anymore, not much beyond daily newspapers and magazines. Thinkers and intellectuals are those who write for the daily tabloids. Oddly, the book-burners, the fundamentalists are the most voracious readers, and they mostly read the same thing they have been reading all along; Islamic books.
Arabic literature does not have the typre of great writers, the giants like Taha Hussein, Naguib Mahfouz, and others, The reason is that talented writers are terrified of offending someone, especially the religious establishment or the ruling oligarchs. In Egypt, some of the greatest Arabic writings were done under the monarchy and during the Nasser era- the great secular period before the fundies took over. Things started going downhill during the days of Sadat, who is ironically considered a secular icon in the West . They got much worse under Hosni Mubarak's 29 year rule. It is a quasi-Salafi state in Egypt, where writers can go to jail or be accused of heresy and separated from their wives.
As for the rest of the Arab World, it is much worse: I can only repeat what Sa'ad Zaghloul told his wife (about politics in Egypt) "Mafeesh faida ye Saffiyya. It is useless, Saffiya."
Cheers
mhg

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