Steampunk Shariah

I perform extremely well on visual-logic tests. Apparently, this peak skill is linked to my Aspieness, and is why, according to one study, fathers of children with autism are significantly more likely to be engineers compared to other parents. I discovered my aptitude when, aged 16, I ventured to join the Royal Navy as an engineer and took a visual-logic test as part of my application. Not only did I gain the highest score in the history of the recruiting office, but I was invited to train to fly helicopters. Sadly, it all came to nowt when it was discovered I had mid-range hearing loss.

Perhaps rather foolishly, you might think, I never pursued my potential engineering genius, beyond a foundation course at my local Uni. But then again, the fact I’d never noticed this native skill prior to my RN test speaks volumes — surely if I had possessed such an inherent ability, I would have been building model warp drives in the pram. The reason why I’ve never been a ‘builder’ or ‘maker’ also lies with my Aspieness - specifically the dyspraxic part. At school, I could never kick a ball straight, was years behind other kids with shoe laces, and although I no longer walk like my legs are made of rubber, I’m as much of a cack handed twat as I ever was.

However, my fascination for how things work has been reawakened whilst researching medieval Islamic science and technology for my hope2be novel. The problem is, reading books like A. Y. al-Hassan and D. R. Hill’s Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History (Cambridge University Press, 1987) is proving to be struggle because, like most scientists and engineers, the authors often write with an assumption that the reader is familiar with terminology such as epicyclic gearing. Not only am I keen to become better acquainted with this terminology, but I am wondering if I need to learn something about steam technology in order to write about it convincingly.

Possible additional reading:
N. McCarthy, Engineering: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld, 2009)
P. W. B. Semmens and A. J. Goldfinch, How Steam Locomotives Really Work (Oxford University Press, 2004)
R. Stuart A Descriptive History of the Steam Engine (The History Press, 2007)

Bruno Bettelheim Blues lyrics: http://www.steampunkshariah.info/blues.htm
Who is Bruno Bettelheim? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Bettelheim

Despite previous claims — variously rationalised – vis-a-vis not taking the historical aspect of this novel seriously, this morning, I spent several frustrating hours trying to rewrite a draft of chapter 2 after realising the relationship between several characters was historically incongruous. It’s simply too easy to trip over oneself due to sloppy research of the period, and I’m deceiving myself in pretending it doesn’t matter. I’ve done far too much reading around, and not enough close reading. Unless I commit myself to a greater rigour in respect of the research, this novel isn’t going to work.

I therefore intend to commit myself to writing a series of short essays around topics relevant to the hope2be novel, in order to focus my reading and learning. The titles of the essays are as follows:

Describe and discuss (in 2000 words) a topic related to:
1. the development of science and technology in the Islamicate in the Middle Period.
2. the Ismailis and the Islamicate during the Early Middle Period.
3. the relationship between Latin monasticism and the papacy in the 12th century.
4. Eastern Christianity after 1000 CE, with ref. to the Thomas Christians.
5. the Varangian Guard, Byzantine polity and the Normans.
6. the Sephardi Jews and Muslims in Islamic Spain.
7. the meaning of travel for Muslims in the Early Middle Period.
8. mytho-Islamic narratives linked to pre-modern Islamic science and technology.
9. international relations in the regime of Roger II.
10. the contiguity of the military adventures during the second crusade.

In addition, I intend to write a series of short biographical essays (750 words) over the same period:

1. Muhammad al-Idrisi
2. Peter the Venerable
3. Abraham Ibn Ezra
4. Hildegard of Bingen
5. Bernard of Clairvaux

Research Timetable

In his essay The Making and Unmaking of Islamic Culture (Inayatullah and Boxwell, 2003, p.89-106), Ziauddin Sardar outlines the process by which the meaning of ilm (knowledge) was transformed by the ulema (Islamic scholars) of the middle ages, from being a complex concept embracing a multitude of different “sciences” engaged in a quest for knowledge, to a a relatively simplistic “search for dogma” (p.99), which “accumulated authority and power in the hands of a select group – usually those whose religious zeal was matched by powerful memories” (p.100). The outcome was to transform the Islamicate from an open to a closed society.

I have considered making this a key theme of my hope2be novel, and I’m more and more minded to do so given its increasing resonance vis-a-vis the state of contemporary education in Britain today. Perhaps the most disturbing development in recent times is the plan by New Labour (with no plans by the new administration to halt it) to stop funding what it considers to be “pointless” research (from 2012) — this being research that cannot be shown to have a direct relevance to government policy and/or the economy. In the twenty first century version of cultural closure, it will be the dogma of consumer capitalism that squeezes the breath out of the human quest for knowledge.

What constitutes a proper blog? The bloggers I most admire are those who provide an informed and fair-minded (left-of-centre) analysis on current affairs and the media, and which touch on Muslim issues. My current favourites include: Talk Islam; Indigo Jo Blogs; Islam, Muslims and an Anthropologist; Islamophobia Watch; Craig Murray; Enemies of Reason; Tabloid Watch; Pickled Politics (despite its occasional posts c/o the henious BMSD); Charlie Brooker; and The Cutting Edge. I also occasionally brush past a few more obviously left-wing blogs, such as Lenin’s Tomb. For obvious reasons, there are some “left-wing” blogs I wouldn’t touch with a shit-stained barge pole, most notably Harry’s Place.

Altogether, I’m most interested in bloggers who seek to challenge prevailing negative discourses about Black and Ethnic Minorities (BMEs) and Muslims. Left Foot Forward is subtitled “evidence based political blogging”– and the use of ”evidence” is an important test of a good blogger, in my book. The blogs I detest are those that spout vacuous opinion, and/or reactionary right-wing vitreol, exemplified by Richard Littleprick. Neither am I enamoured by supposedly “witty” bloggers who write with linguistic panache, such as Alex Massie, although Massie is perhaps better than most of his ilk.

Most of my (political) blogging interest is with writers who reside this side of the Atlantic – the one exception being Talk Islam, which is international in its outlook, and which I occasionally contribute to. I know some English Muslims take an interest in Islam in the USA, but I generally prefer to stay close to home on the grounds that it’s the place I know best. However, I sometimes consider throwing out the rule book and stepping up to the opinion plate, as ignorant as the next man, to write off-the-cuff about whatever and whereever is pissing me off,  for no other reason than I imagine I might feel that much better for it. The fact I’ve written this piece suggests that wild consideration may soon become a horrible reality.

I’m still researching the secret society at the hub of my hope2be novel, Ikhwan al-Idries. It seems an ancient Jewish work, The Book of Enoch, may have informed Muslim understandings of Enoch/Idries in the early middle period, and I thus took the trouble of reading some of it today. Reflecting on its words got me thinking about ‘good’ and ‘evil’, among other things – two concept sharply divided in the Book of Enoch, and perhaps in the mental universe I would like my characters to live in.

I don’t want my novel’s characters, or their universe, to robotically reflect my personal values. I fear another novel about al-Idrisi may do just that. At the same time, I don’t want my characters to blindly reflect the views and values of “twelfth century Muslims”, either - after all, most of my characters are members of an intellectual elite. They should live in an independent universe, true to their time and minds, and one which answers questions put to it, rather than providing the kind of answers I would prefer. If  my characters’ notions about good and evil are more rigid than mine, then perhaps the best thing is to throw real-life complexity at them, and see what happens.

Another nagging questions is, how did Muslim scientists of the early middle period perceive the physical universe? And by dint of an empiricism or rationalism, did they see the physical world as being distinct from the metaphysical one. The answer, it seems, is no. However, the world they perceived was quite the Quranic one understood by contemporary ulema. Most ulema today (and many then) disavow(ed) astrology. The scientists of that era understood their learning as part of a tradition descended from Enochian revelation, whereby astrology was viewed as part of that tradition. Indeed, at least one scientist argued Muhammad’s censure of it was in fact a censure of the excessive use of astrology, without reference to revelation. Of course, some scientists disavowed it, but on the grounds that astrology doesn’t make logical sense!

What is the worldview of my hope2be novel, The Muslim Age of Steam? On the one hand, each character has his or (rarely) her own worldview, which accords to some extent with their cultural background – European Latin Christian, Indian Syriac Christian, Jewish, etc. However, I also want to create a prevailing pathos, represented particularly in the core characters, that evokes a mythopoesis pertinent to the twelfth century, the educational milieu from which they emerged, and the core theme of the novel. The common topic uniting these three domains is science, given this is a novel which imagines counterfactual developments in science and technology.

However, it seems academics write about Muslim science and technology in one of two ways: the first is a “secular” approach, exploring the nature of scientific ideas in pre-Modern Islam and their impact on the society contemporary to them, but with an emphasis on those aspects of Muslim thinking that accord with 20/21 century ideas about what constitutes ‘science’. The second is the “Seyyed Hossein Nasr” method, which seeks to locate science and technology within the context of an Islamic worldview.

The problem with the former approach is that it is reads the past in terms of the present, to the extent that the worldviews of pre-modern Muslims risks becoming a palimpsest for contemporary Eurocentric scientism. The problem with the latter is that it is hard to discern whether the “Islamic worldview” postulated is a historical truth or a romantic notion, perpetuated by Muslims seeking to present their own orthodoxy as eternal. Ibn al-Rawandi (827 – 911) is perhaps the pre-modern Islamicate’s most famous freethinker, but I doubt he was its only one — at least among the elites.

What is perhaps nearer the truth is that educated elite Muslims of the twelfth century held a worldview that was both neo-scientific and mythopoetic, and the narrative uniting their Islam and scientific outlook was not a desire to theosophize on “taqwa” or realize Prophetic proclamations to seek knowledge in China, but the story of the “Three Hermes” (Trismegistus). Nasr tellingly gives a brief single reference to Hermes in his “Science and Civilization in Islam”, merely to mention that he is “regarded in the Islamic world as the founder of the sciences of the heavens and of philosophy” (p.31, 1987). Not a significant figure, then. And the most common Hermes narrative apparently not worthy of repetition.

The story of the “Three Hermes” is most famously detailed in Abu Masar’s Book of the Thousands — a text no longer extant in full, but repeated and reformulated by numerous authors since sufficient to gain a grasps of the key elements of the tale. Briefly, the story tells of a Hermes who is identified with the Prophet Idries (and was the Grandson of Adam); a Hermes who lived in the time of Nebuchadnezzer; and a later travelling Hermes who was Egyptian. The problem now is to develop an understanding of this narrative and draw it into the life of my hope2be novel – Kevin Van Bladel assisting.

Chris McGreal, writing for The Guardian, reminds the world of some of Pamela Geller’s less savoury associates.

So why write a novel? It’s an important question, or at least I said it was in yesterday’s blog post. The kind of “voice” one adopts in a novel, I theorised, was in some sense determined by one’s novelistic intentions. The assumption, which was yesterday more implied than stated, is that voice is determined by the way the authorial voice responds to the events of the story. That authorial response, I hazarded, was in turn determined by the reason for writing the novel. A clear intention results in a confident manner towards the material and thus an “assured voice”. And having an “assured voice” is a good thing, or at least, the critics think so. But is there really a link between intention and voice, as I suggested? Let’s find out.

To begin with, the reason I started writing my hope2be novel, and the reasons I’m still at it, are not entirely the same. The reasons for writing at the beginning were primarily to do with preserving my sanity. I’m a househusband and primary carer of a severely autistic teenager and I needed a productive, intellectually challenging outlet. I have a long-standing academic interest in the humanities, but pursuing an academic career whilst caring for my son has proved impractical. I therefore decided to pursue my interests through the medium of an old passion, creative writing.

My motivations beyond this have evolved with the subject matter. I decided to write (counterfactually) about the twelfth century almost at random, but my choice has resonated with a whole host of issues about which I am passionate, from world history to racism. This was the era that saw the formation of a persecuting society, the root of many of the less savoury aspects of the modern European mindset that made it such a perfect global racist-imperialist. But it would be wrong to define my latter motives as crudely political.

At the heart of what I’m doing is a desire to present a powerful (and hopefully beautiful) narrative that celebrates human potential and frailty. My novel is not just about a group of Muslim scientists developing 19th century technology in the 12th; it explores what would have happened if the same scientists and technicians decided their inventions ought to be used to transform the world into a more prosperous and peaceful place for humanity. Who would help? Who would hinder them? Who would betray them? Will these intentions determin my voice? I think so, because I can write this story with my own Muslim anarchist values unashamedly at the forefront of what I’m doing. The danger, I suppose, is that the result might be a tract rather than a story. Mitigating this is a belief that the medium is the message. At the very heart of my values is a belief in human love as an ethical ideal - a love that celebrates human life in all its absurd, hopeful, driven, freedom loving, sincere, drunken beauty. The story is gonna pack in the madness of humankind and you’re gonna love it. Insha Allah.