Sunday, March 26, 2006

Arab Regimes' Orientalism. So Bernard Lewis' book, The Crisis of Islam, was just issued in an Arabic translation in Cairo by State-controlled the Al-Majlis Al-A`la li-th-Thaqafah (The Supreme Council of Culture). But the Mubarak's government, in promoting the book, had to make it more palatable for Muslim readers. So the title was simply changed to Islam and the Crisis of the Age. So while Lewis makes Islam the reason for the crisis, the Egyptian Council (of culture, no less) makes Islam the solution of an unidentified crisis.