Islam and the Religions of the Ancient Orient

Abstract

THE MYTH of the unchanging East shows surprising tenacity. Though serious historians have long since challenged its validity it emerges again and again, among scholars as well as among journalists. Even the obvious fact that the life of the East is changing with vertiginous speed before our very eyes does not discourage this romantic attitude; it only compels a shift of emphasis from external things to the inner world of instincts and ideas. The psychology of Islamic countries and peoples remains unchanged, we are told, and its manifestations remain essentially the same: plus ga change plus c'est la meme chose! To a certain extent one can hardly quarrel with this impression. The physical environment has remained much the same, aside from far-reaching transformations in the agricultural and animal background which have been made necessary by constant shifting in flora and fauna. In passing it may be emphasized that the prevailing forms of domesticated plants and animals have shifted to a quite extraordinary extent, if we compare different historical ages in the same Near-Eastern lands.' Moreover, not a little of what is often considered as specifically is really universally human, or at least generally characteristic of domesticated mankind. This is particularly true of the famous Oriental imagery, which would no longer appear so exotic if we compared it systematically with corresponding early European poetic imagery, instead of com-