Fictional Fortress (2024)

02/12/2023

17/10/2023

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Fictional Fortress

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Islam - The Right Path

17/05/2023

Matthew Dimmock provocatively (but in my view accurately) asserts, “Without Islam there would be no Shakespeare”. He corroborates this by arguing that the many references to the Islamic world in the Bard’s plays function in part as a kind of product placement. Out of Elizabeth’s cordial exchange with Morocco, Persia, and the Ottoman Turks came a thriving trade. This led to wealthy English citizens acquiring a profusion of Oriental goods, from textiles and carpets to spices, pottery, and jewellery. These “material products of Islamic cultures”, Dimmock believes, were ostentatiously shown off by their English owners, who were proud of the Anglo-Islamic commercial relationship and their exotic new possessions. Additionally, in plays such as Othello, discussed in my column before last, and The Merchant of Venice touched on here, Shakespeare worked with, while transcending the limitations of, the popular but stereotypical ‘Turk play’ of his era.

One scholar, the late Martin Lings (himself a practising Sufi), argued in 2004 that the Bard expresses Sufi ideas. Lings averred that in many of the plays we find an encounter between, on one side nascent modernity and creeping atheism, and on the other passionate faith and esoteric customs. He situates Shakespeare squarely within the carapace of his own and fellow Sufis’ mystic tradition.

Building on Lings’s and others’ Sufi scholarship, some have developed the conspiracy theory that Shakespeare was in fact an Iraqi called Sheikh Zubair. While that is far-fetched, it is indisputable that without contact with the Muslim world, Shakespeare’s plays would not be so opulent, spicy, or political.

How the rich and political flavours of Shakespeare’s plays are inspired by the Muslim world of his times

04/08/2022

21/02/2022

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14/08/2021

06/07/2021

16/06/2021

07/06/2021

Israeli police detained and later released prominent Palestinian twin activists for campaigning on social media

23/05/2021

22/05/2021

From Season 6, Yolanda breast reduction surgery has her worried, and she shows her will to her kids. All Your Favourite Real...

21/05/2021

19/05/2021

17/05/2021

Supermodel Bella Hadid donned traditional dress and joined a 'Free Palestine' march in New York City.

Bella Hadid, whose father Mohamed Hadid is Palestinian, marched in New York and posted messages of support on social media.

Fictional Fortress