“The difference in the position of women was indeed one of the most striking contrasts between Christian and Muslim practice, and is mentioned by almost all travelers in both directions. Christianity, of all churches and denominations, prohibits polygamy and concubinage. Islam, like most other non-Christian communities, permits both . . . The status of women, …
Don’t Staple the Moral Onto the Last Paragraph
“Anyone who can write a children’s story without a moral, had better do so: that is, if he is going to write children’s stories at all. The only moral that is of any value is that which arises inevitably from the whole cast of the author’s mind” (C.S. Lewis, Of Other Worlds, p. 33).
Naturally Wanton
“Men naturally are wanton in nothing more than in the things of religion; and corrupt spirits are bent upon and pleased with opposition in these things above any other” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 29).
Masked Men on Monkey Bars
I have wondered why it is that, whenever the media wants me to worry about incipient terror attacks, they frequently show me footage of masked men on monkey bars. Somewhere in the Middle East, some men in pajamas swing menacingly toward the camera, and I am supposed to sign up for increased restrictions on my …
Or So It Seemed
“By 1920, it seemed that the triumph of Europe over Islam was complete. In Afghanistan and inner Arabia and a few other places difficult of access and offering no attraction, independent Muslim rulers maintained the old ways. Otherwise, new rulers and new ways, introduced or imitated from Europe, prevailed everywhere” (Bernard Lewis, What Went Wrong? …
Sound Reading for Children
“Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker. Nor do most of us find that violence and bloodshed, in a story, produce any haunting dread in the minds of children. …
Lost Proportion
“Some think there must be a necessary connection between tolerating some things conceived to be errors and tolerating all things” (Burroughs, Irenicum, p. 26).
Like Dirt When It’s Dry
“Scandal will rub out like dirt when it’s dry. Let it alone, and never try to answer it. The more you meddle with it, the more will the wet mud be spread. Wait till you can use the clothes-brush with real effect” (Charles Spurgeon, Proverbs and Sayings, Vol. II, p. 140).
Not Having the Right Categories
“Westerners have become accustomed to think of good and bad government in terms of tyranny versus liberty. In Middle-Eastern usage, liberty or freedom was a legal not a political term. It meant one who was not a slave, and unlike the West, Muslims did not use slavery and freedom as political metaphors” (Bernard Lewis, What …
False Impressions
[Fairy tales are] “accused of giving children a false impression of the world they live in. But I think no literature that children could read gives them less of a false impression. I think what profess to be realistic stories for children are far more likely to deceive them. I never expected the real world …