من وحي الخاطر

I was tagged this morning in a post by a Mauritanian friend,  Zeidane Brahim   which reads: 
"After reading the well detailed Max Blumenthal's article "Weddady’s Free Arabs, American Islamic Congress and the pro-Israel funders who helped them rise," I concluded that Nasser Weddady is conversely guilty until proven innocent. Regarding Weddady's status as a public figure, Mauritanian intelligentsia living in the USA are however, expected to enlighten the public opinion about what is exactly happening over there. In spite of Mohamed El Mokhtar's article "Unfortunate and Disturbing Report: Weddady Has Some Explaining to Do" and its translation by Dr. Elycheikh Ahmed-Tolba, the issue is still obscure."  "Weddady’s Free Arabs, American Islamic Congress and the pro-Israel funders who helped them rise" 
I wrote the following reply to his post. 

Selam Zeindane Brahim, I will say something here since your post appears on my wall, ...

(This was written before the current events in the Arab world--maybe the Shi 'i century is finally drawing to close) This section of Hodgson’s reading provides an extensive review of the historical developments in the Muslim world in what Hodgson term ‘Middle Period,’ which he in turn divides into an early and late period. This roughly corresponds to the period between 945 and 1500 C.E. In both periods, Hodgson surveys the political, social, economic and cultural changes in all the lands in which Islam held sway, an area that stretches all the way from southern Asia to al-Andalusia in Europe.  What makes this period unique in Hodgson’s judgment was that it witnessed the demise of the central Caliphal structure that prevailed for almost two centuries. On the other level, this demise—despite all the political turmoil that it engendered and the fragmentation on the political and economic level— did not translate to a direct decline of the idea of the Muslim community. Yet,...

 In this response, I look at a concept that Hodgson mentioned in passing, but never quite developed, at least not sufficiently. This concept is the construction of the image of the ideal human. This aspect is perhaps the most profound element in Hodgson’s treatment of this period—profound because of what it reveals about the social dynamics, and also because of its implications on the development of history. [1] As our understanding of how societies perceive and react to an existing ‘order’—that is, the existing laws, modes of governance and social mores— enhances, we learn that the conception, creation and dissemination of narratives provide often an indirect commentary on the dominant social order. In cases where the dominant ‘order’ is not preferred, such commentary often carries with it a challenge or some form of resistance to this order. [2] The construction of an ideal human image is not different. It is only when the current ‘order’ of things looks unsatisfa...

In my last response I talked about the symbolic meanings of the difference between the choices of the ideal hero adopted by--on the one hand, the Arabic culture and Persian culture, on the other. I also spoke of the cultural and historical implications of these choices. The relationship between these two cultural poles within the Islamicate civilization is crucial to understanding not only the historical processes that shaped the past of Islam, but also the current state of polarization between an Iranian-led vision (to which some of the Arabs ascribe) and a distinct but less coherent Arabic one. Today's reading on the Bloom of Persian Literary Culture and Its time, presents an opportunity to revisit this topic again.   So in today’s response, I look at this relationship from a slightly different angle.  Hodgson made a distinction between ‘an Arabic zone’ and a ‘Persianate zone’.  According to Hodgson “the Arabic zone is distinguishable less by a common posi...