In his delightful book “The Fortunes of Permanence-Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia” Roger Kimball has a chapter “Rereading John Buchan. He writes” Buchan, who described himself as “high- low brow” was author of a spy thriller “Greenmantle” in 1916 which describes a German effort to manipulate a radical Islamist group in Turkey. Kimball quotes a protagonist in the book: “Islam is a fighting creed, and the mullah still stands in the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn sword in the other.”
There’s more. Kimball mines this from another character in the book. “There is a great stirring in Islam, something moving on the face of the waters….Those religious revivals come in cycles, and one is due about now. And they are quite clear about the details. A seer has arisen of the blood of the Prophet, who will restore the Khalifate to its old glories and Islam to its old purity.”
Goodness gracious! Islamophobia in 1916!
In his delightful book “The Fortunes of Permanence-Culture and Anarchy in an Age of Amnesia” Roger Kimball has a chapter “Rereading John Buchan. He writes” Buchan, who described himself as “high- low brow” was author of a spy thriller “Greenmantle” in 1916 which describes a German effort to manipulate a radical Islamist group in Turkey. Kimball quotes a protagonist in the book: “Islam is a fighting creed, and the mullah still stands in the pulpit with the Koran in one hand and a drawn sword in the other.”
There’s more. Kimball mines this from another character in the book. “There is a great stirring in Islam, something moving on the face of the waters….Those religious revivals come in cycles, and one is due about now. And they are quite clear about the details. A seer has arisen of the blood of the Prophet, who will restore the Khalifate to its old glories and Islam to its old purity.”
Goodness gracious! Islamophobia in 1916! rsk