http:\/\/www.deseretnews.com\/article\/865625662\/Visiting-the-Grand-Mosque-of-Abu-Dhabi.html<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Please be sure to go through Bill Hamblin\u2019s photographs, taken quite recently, which accompany the online version of the column.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I recently heard a very prominent Israeli archaeologist speak. \u00a0His remarks were excellent, stimulating, and insightful. \u00a0There was one point, though, where I wondered whether I might have to stand up, object, and cause a stir.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Speaking about Jerusalem\u2019s Temple Mount, he pointed out, quite correctly, that the Dome of the Rock was essentially built by Christians, even though it\u2019s a famous Muslim building (indeed, the oldest extant example of \u201cIslamic architecture\u201d). \u00a0It\u2019s in the octagonal form of a Byzantine Christian\u00a0martyrium \u2014\u00a0<\/em>a topic on which I\u2019ve written at least one or two newspaper columns and on which I\u2019ve taught.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
So far, so good. \u00a0But he wasn\u2019t finished yet.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Arabs were, he said, \u201cbarbarians.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was a very crude and misleading way of putting things, but it still contained some truth: \u00a0The Arabs of the seventh century were, many of them, essentially nomads. \u00a0They had a great tradition of poetry \u2014 which weighs nothing and takes up no space in a saddle bag \u2014 but they had no tradition of great architecture or urban planning.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then, however, he said \u201cYou know what they\u2019re like today!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was an outrage. \u00a0Had he pursued the topic even twenty seconds further, I would have felt obligated to raise a vocal and strenuous objection. \u00a0Fortunately, though, it was just an aside, and he instantly moved back to his actual topic. \u00a0He\u2019s a genial fellow, he was a guest, and I decided in the end to let it pass.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I mention it here because his attitude on the matter is not only insulting but false and historically illiterate. \u00a0The Arab and Islamic world developed a spectacular<\/em> architectural tradition in the years and centuries following the completion of the Dome of the Rock in AD 691.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Grand Mosque of Abu Dhabi is a contemporary example of that tradition, without which the world would be a much poorer place.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 With all of the ugliness and cruelty coming out of the Middle East and the Islamic world these days \u2014 e.g.,\u00a0this \u2014 it would be easy to conclude that cruelty and ugliness represent\u00a0Islam and the Middle East. \u00a0 But they aren\u2019t the whole story. \u00a0Here\u2019s a Hamblin-Peterson column in the Deseret News, published […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a>