This hardcover book was delivered today by Amazon. (the preceding link might allow you to download a free version, or at least an extract, if you provide some sort of email or Google credentials.)
I have always been interested in Fatimid Cairo, a time when Egypt was Shia, and a welcoming tolerance for Jews and Christians and other sects and faiths was prevalent. This is as it should be in Islam.
And I have been fascinated since I was kid growing up in Cairo by the story of the Mad Caliph, El Mansur Abu Ali.
For these reasons, and a few others (having to do with the Arabic calligraphy and other linguistic matters), this book should make for amazingly interesting reading. I could find no reviews on Google of this book, despite the presence of Amazon blurbs by presumably noted scholars.
I will therefore write my own in this space, upon completion of my reading The Lost Archive.
In other news, today is another windy day. So I will go off on my morning bike ride, after publishing this post, but avoid doing the dangerous scaffolding work in the back porch.
Instead, I shall be going to a couple of big box stores with my wife to purchase a few things we will need to set up the house for the arrival of Geneva, our beautiful German sheppie puppie, next weekend.
We will be picking her up in Boca, where local police are reported in local media to receive “training” in Israel in so-called anti-terrorism techniques – gratis courtesy of a 501(c)3 that calls itself the AJC. The sooner she’s outta there, the better Geneva will be.
Salamat.
ps Toward the end of my bike ride, I stopped to admire a roseate spoonbill who was fishing in a marsh. It was joing by a white ibis with black-tipped wing and tail feathers. Beautiful to watch, but they flew away far too soon. Saw a glossy ibis, too. He’s a regular around here.
Leaving Amerika 