Month: August 2018

– Drawing by Rob Gonsalves, huckleberryfineart.com

For the final project, I intend to work on the idea of magic in literature, especially magic dealing with mythological Arabian tales. In “The Prophet’s Hair” the phial was a symbolic relic, not only was it a religious symbol, but it was a symbol of bad fortune. The people at the time had been pretty much worshipping this hair, deifying the Prophet who did not want to be deified. I would like to introduce common themes and symbols. For instance, giving physical objects power of the supernatural, like the Genie in the lamp, carpets that fly, sorcerers and other concepts.

The title of my Archive will be “Siher”, and the primary text will be “The Prophet’s Hair” by Salman Rushdie. I have also chosen this text because I grew up in a Muslim/Arabian tradition and I feel that it would be interesting for me to discuss this topic also it’s interesting what others think about Islam outside of the Middle East and how it is portrayed in the media and literature. I plan to connect The Prophet’s Hair with the story of Aladdin, which is a classic Disney movie that most people have probably watched. I want to mention similarities between the two pieces. I will also show pictures of magic realism to put into perspective what to expect in the literal explanation. “The Prophet’s Hair” Including the use of contemporary images if possible as well as images from the Movie “Aladdin”. I am considering creating an argument based on orientalism in these two pieces to bridge an understanding of the symbolic images and themes.

http://sf.co.ua/id52240

On Dec 15^th, a night under the spell of the falling rain in the dark alleys of New York City, there was a helpless, homeless young man covering his head and shoulders from the rain and wind. The night was dark, blurry and cold, and the only illuminating objects which shined his way were the headlights of the cars passing by him vanishing in seconds into the night. The helpless young man hung his head over his neck, tucked his shoulders into the blanket that he used to cloak himself from the eyes of pedestrians, he felt humiliated, he needed this barrier to hide his shame from the glaring eyes of the people who watched him. As he was settling in for the night that seemed never-ending, a shadowy figure approached him, he could not tell whether it was a man or a woman, the person leaned over and was there for a fleeting moment then it was gone.  So quick was his disappearance that the homeless man could not decide if it had been real or was he a figment of imagination until he looked down and saw the parcel wrapped in green leaves. In the state of uncertainty, he reached over curiously and touched the green leaves. It was to his amazement when the leaves parted to reveal, a papered tightly rolled in a bundle was something that seemed like dead grass, he looked around to be sure that he was still present in reality. The parcel reminded him of the evil things his grandmother warned him about, he had heard stories of people who tried to make this their master and lost themselves in the process, but he was sure that this could not happen to him, as he had lost everything already. The homeless man reached over, carefully lifted the item, examined it with the eyes of a man, who had lived a life that has experienced loss, he wrestled within himself and the memory of his grandmother about whether he should discard this item or try it to prove he was actually different than everyone else, as this decision he thought, was a moment whether he would move forward or remain stagnant.

This parcel was the type of thing that men spent all their money on, persons lost their freedom over, and entire government systems were set up to prevent its distribution. It was in this moment he knew the universe had given him the opportunity to have it, to use, to make it his. It was this moment he would use it to then prove he was different than all the others and he would master it. He knew he could, he would show her, he would show his grandmother she was wrong.

He hurriedly searched his meager possessions to retrieve his source of heat and hid even further within his cloak, hiding his treasure from the world, from those unworthy to have it, the universe chose him, and he was determined to prove that he was worthy of the choice.

As he deeply inhaled the smoke of the marijuana joint, he found himself face to face with his grandmother, who’d been dead for about 5 years prior. He squared his shoulders and looked her in the eye as he proudly proclaimed, ‘look, grandma, I did it, me, I was the one to master the weed’. He was surprised when she shook her head and looked at him with the saddest eyes he had ever seen. She said ‘my child, things are not as they seem, for you did not master it. The joint you lit was laced with rat poison, we can finally talk about this because you too have died and joined me in the afterlife’. This was his last lucid thought even as the coroner’s men lifted his lifeless body from the cold pavement.

Jean – Léon Gérôme, The Snake Charmer

For this particular analysis, I have looked at the introduction of “Orientalism” and I have linked a few arguments that the author had. Firstly, the ability of the Europeans to enter these countries and decide what was to be recorded and published that has resulted in the different symbols that have created what we now think of as predominately Arab and Eastern nations. For instance, both “The Prophet’s Hair” and “Aladdin” have similar themes and symbols. The symbol of wealth, specifically gold, magic, djinns, the thieves, dark allies, the shadowy figures, women and veils, sorcery, the villain who is extremely greedy Jaffar vs Hashim… etc.

Salman’s style is that of an orientalist, someone that even though was involved or had some experience amongst Muslims or at least the culture, spoke as though he didn’t, his words were a barrier between himself and the characters. For an example, a particular character who stood out in the passage was Hashim’s wife; She is completely voiceless, helpless, and pretty much powerless. The oppression was overwhelming to the point of submission. This corresponds to a specific passage from Saeed’s introduction to Orientalism

“For example, in  the  fact  that Flau-bert’s encounter  with  an  Egyptian  courtesan  produced  a  widely  influential  model  of  the Oriental  woman;  she  never  spoke  of  herself,  she  never  represented  her  emotions,  presence,  or history.  He spoke  for  and  represented  her.  He was  foreign,  comparatively  wealthy, male,  and these  were  historical  facts  of  domination  that  allowed  him  not  only  to  possess  Kuchuk  Hanem physically but to speak for her and tell his readers in what way she was “typically Oriental” – Edward Said

Another interesting way to compare both the hint of Orientalism is that Hashim’s critique of Islam is apparent in the story, satirical yes, however nonetheless existing. A position of superiority over the Islamic religion and the technical exercises of authority is well throughout the story. An example would be the passage of using “American’s millionaires” as a meaning of not only justification of his greed but a way to use it as a superior rational decision over the religious tradition decision.

This is important because Salman is of a British western nationality, has already broken the barrier that would consider him an “Orientalist”. One could argue that he himself identifies as a British man, not as a Muslim Indian man who is an Orientalist. Similarly, Sa’id states that “Orientalism  depends  for  its  strategy  on  this  flexible  positional superiority, which puts the Westerner in a whole series of possible relationships with the Orient without  ever  losing  him  the  relative  upper  hand” To take a stand against the orientalist practice or religion is in itself a superior stand, similar to the European explorers when they studied and observed the orientalist world.

(studiostoks/Shutterstock) 

The moneylender, Hashim, is a collector of various objects as a hobby, he also collects unique and different objects indiscriminately which also come from various areas. Unlike most collectors who specialize in one area of items collected his tastes seem to vary with no clear sense of genre of items collected. The passage illustrates this clearly by giving examples of the items he collected. Hashim instead is a collector of all things that he perceives to be valuable.

In an earlier paragraph of the passage the writer described Hashim as not being a godly man, however, this is later qualified in paragraph 11 where Hashim indicated “I’m a man of the world, of this world”. Although going to such great lengths to help the reader understand the religious character of Hashim, one with no connection whatsoever to the religion of the spiritual world (Islamic world), this particular characteristic is however contrasted with his intimate knowledge of the prophet and his feelings towards that of deity. This could be an attempt by the author to show the lengths to which Hashim was going to justify his decision of to make the reader aware of a man who inherently was lying even to himself about his beliefs.

In addition, Hashim uses the word “rotting” to describe the prophet’s hair which shows no respect to the prophet’s persona, yet he again shows value to the secular object , through declaring the hair a secular object, he stripped the hair from its religious value. This would indicate an attempt to disassociate himself with the religious aspect of what he found. Hashim continues to claim that he actually is not keeping the phial for the hair, he keeps it for the beauty of the phial. So Hashim moves slowly towards ridding himself of association of religion, through first, claiming that the hair is of value to other people, thus taking this value away from them would be the right thing to do as they would not have given it the treatment the prophet would want, then to claim that this hair is a secular object, then, finally! – he claims that the hair is pretty much void of value, where he doesn’t acknowledge the hair, he acknowledges the value and beauty of the phial. He follows this justification through logical sense associated with the ideology of this world “American millionaires” who simply buy stolen items with no attention to morality. Where it becomes acceptable for him to keep something that he knows he shouldn’t keep; Which ultimately allows him to be released of the consequences of doing the right thing according to Islam.

The image chosen to represent this passage of the story is the genie in the lamp from the animated movie and children’s story Aladdin. In the movie, like the phial, the lamp was found. The lamp had its own magical powers with the ability to change and transform lives, this is similar to that of what occurred in the story of “The Prophets Hair“.

Throughout the movie, “Aladdin” different characters owned the genie in the lamp and they all had different results. The results, however, did not mean that the object (genie in the lamp) changed but rather it brought out the true nature of its owners based on their intentions for its use. The movie shows that when Jafar the evil wizard gained control of the lamp his greed and desire for power consumed him and eventually led to his demise. Similarly, in “The Prophets Hair“, the moneylender was seemingly a decent man from the outside, however, when in possession of the phial the true characters of his family members and mainly himself were displayed in the story, which ended with their deaths. In both Aladdin and “The Prophets Hair“, the object that persons were seeking did not change but rather when owned or held by men with evil hearts it led to their demise. In the story of Aladdin and “The Prophet’s Hair“, the lamp and the phial resulted in positive changes in the lives of Aladdin and the thief’s family and resulted in the destruction of Jafar and Hashim.

The final parallel drawn from the story of Aladdin to “The Prophets Hair” is that of the thief. In the story of Aladdin the magician could not enter the cave to take the lamp, he needed someone else to retrieve it for him. The thief in “The Prophet’s Hair” also had to be genuine to retrieve the phial as those persons who knew about it could not do it, this was indicated by Hasim’s daughter in the line where she indicated “But it must be a genuine robbery, carried out by a real thief, not by one of us who are the hair’s victims.” Although Aladdin wasn’t given as many details as Sin the thief, the magician and Hashims daughter have similar roles to elicit the help of a third party to retrieve a valuable object they needed. In both Aladdin and “the Prophet’s hair” the person who wanted the item retrieved did not get it, they both promised the retriever many riches in exchange of getting the object they desired, however, both Aladdin and the thief were given no riches from the merchant or Hashims daughter.

Ultimately, all characters were victims but the overall power of the phial was out of anyone’s control, it was as though the phial came with the fate of everyone who came across it.