![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2026\/03\/Looking_East_through_the_Arbel_Pass_5806699434.jpg\")
<\/a>My attention was caught by this article in the Deseret News<\/em>: \u00a0\u201cPerspective: Iraq\u2019s future is visible every day in the faces of its young people:\u00a0We take the war seriously. But I mostly see ordinary people continuing to do their best to build stable lives, educate their children and contribute to their communities\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Why? \u00a0Because its author, Brad Cook<\/a>, contributed a volume to Brigham Young University\u2019s onetime Middle Eastern Texts Initiative (METI), which, umm, well, I conceived and founded and led for many years. \u00a0METI produced bilingual editions of books (mostly Islamic, but also sometimes Eastern Christian and Jewish) from the classical Islamic world. \u00a0The books were printed at Brigham Young University Press and distributed by the University of Chicago Press.<\/p>\n The volume in question in this particular case is Bradley J. Cook and Fathi H. Malawi, eds., Classical Foundations of Islamic Educational Thought: A Compendium of Parallel English-Arabic Texts<\/em><\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n Education has always been an important pursuit in Islam. The Prophet Muhammad enjoined his followers to \u201cseek knowledge, even unto China.\u201d Within the religion, educational theory and practice were founded on the work of itinerant teachers who taught the fundamental tenets of the faith in exchange for lodging and other services; Qur\u2019anic schools where masters of the Qur\u2019an tutored pupils; and centers of higher learning in Baghdad, Damascus, Alexandria and elsewhere, where Islamic theology and jurisprudence were developed and taught. In this volume, Bradley J. Cook, with assistance from Fathi H. Malkawi, has drawn together and introduced selections from the writings of eminent Islamic thinkers on the subject of Islamic educational efforts, presenting the original Arabic texts alongside their annotated English translations.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Unfortunately, a few years after my enforced departure from the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, where I had chosen to house the otherwise rather free floating METI project, it was transferred by the Maxwell Institute to the massively expensive E. J. Brill Publishing in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n The volume compiled by Cook and Malawi features what I still consider the best single line that we ever published in the METI project.\u00a0 But, first, just a tiny bit of prefatory material:<\/p>\n Al-Ghaz\u0101l\u012b (d. AD 1111), who was one of the most significant figures in the history of Islamic thought, a legendarily brilliant philosophical theologian and legal thinker who spent most of his life in Iran and Iraq but who also sojourned for a significant period in Jerusalem, is talking about extremely poor students, and, in that context, attributes the following remark to Jesus:<\/p>\n \u201cEven though I managed to raise the dead, I have never been able to cure an idiot!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (See al-Ghaz\u0101l\u012b, \u201cO Son!,\u201d trans. David C. Reisman, in Classical Foundations of Islamic Educational Thought<\/i>, ed. Bradley J. Cook and Fathi H. Malkawi [Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2010], 103.)<\/p>\n Now, I\u2019ll admit that my first inclination when I came across the passage was to say that this alleged statement can\u2019t possibly be authentic.\u00a0 And that\u2019s still probably correct.\u00a0 But al-Ghaz\u0101l\u012b is entirely serious, and he plainly regards the statement as genuine.\u00a0 Furthermore, his citation of it takes us back fully a thousand years or more, halfway to the time of Jesus.\u00a0 So . . .<\/p>\n I have to confess that I rather like the idea that the Savior might have said such a thing.\u00a0 It humanizes him a bit.\u00a0 Surely, with all those long walks from Nazareth to Capernaum, and from Capernaum to Jericho, and from Jericho to Jerusalem, and from Jerusalem back up to Capernaum or Nazareth, it can\u2019t all have been immortal sermons and solemn earnestness.\u00a0 (Can it?\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m just not fit for heaven.)\u00a0 There must have been some small talk.\u00a0 And the image of Jesus trudging along with the disciples down those dusty paths and confiding, at the end of a tough day, \u201cYou know, Peter?\u00a0 I can raise the dead, but I just can\u2019t cure idiots\u201d is oddly appealing to me.<\/p>\n Still, alas, it\u2019s probably bogus.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n We had lunch this afternoon with a kinsman who shall remain nameless here because his only criminal offense, so far as I\u2019m aware, is being related to me by marriage. \u00a0Otherwise, he is innocent, and he doesn\u2019t merit an assault from my Malevolent Stalker, my Mini-Stalker, or any other member of that curious menagerie.<\/p>\n In the morning, we attended a stake institute class in Mesa that is taught by a friend (who shall be unnamed for different but analogous reasons). \u00a0It\u2019s spring break here, and so she indicated that her numbers were down a bit. \u00a0(They\u2019re normally up around seventy, she says.) \u00a0Understandably, most (but not quite all) of those in attendance were women, and the focus of the course that they\u2019re attending this year \u2014 it\u2019s our friend\u2019s seventh year of teaching stake institute, and the subjects have varied fairly widely in previous years \u2014 is on women in the Old Testament. \u00a0Today\u2019s lesson, very substantial, very well prepared, and very well taught, focused on the pleasant and rather pastoral story of Naomi and Ruth. \u00a0Class members seem to have come prepared, having read the biblical text for the week. \u00a0There was good discussion, and I\u2019m delighted that such a class is offered during a weekday here, in at least this stake: I don\u2019t know how widespread such stake classes are in the Phoenix area or beyond; I wish that all stakes in the Church offered such an opportunity. \u00a0It would greatly enrich the intellectual and spiritual life of Latter-day Saint women.<\/p>\n Eight episodes of Becoming Brigham<\/em><\/a> are now up for your viewing pleasure. \u00a0The eighth one<\/a> went up yesterday. \u00a0New installments, with one planned exception or perhaps two, will continue to be posted every Monday into the middle of 2027.<\/p>\n Posted from Scottsdale, Arizona<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 My attention was caught by this article in the Deseret News: \u00a0\u201cPerspective: Iraq\u2019s future is visible every day in the faces of its young people:\u00a0We take the war seriously. But I mostly see ordinary people continuing to do their best to build stable lives, educate their children and contribute to their communities\u201d Why? \u00a0Because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":105146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[39748,39742,3325,39739,24139,39745],"class_list":["post-115321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arbel","tag-boaz","tag-galilee","tag-naomi","tag-ruth","tag-wadi-hammam"],"yoast_head":"\n<\/a>
Wikimedia Commons public domain image<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>