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***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Over on the Peterson Obsession Board, one or two of the usual suspects are wondering exactly who it is that pays for all my traveling.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n One of them declares, as if he actually has the faintest idea of what he is talking about, that my travels are paid for by The Church \u2014 cue lightning, thunder, and the terrified neighing of horses \u2014 because, of course, I earned lots and lots of cash as a highly-compensated apologist.\u00a0 (His claim is untrue, of course, and is probably a conscious but entirely casual lie of the kind that is favored and indeed celebrated there.\u00a0 I earned my salary for decades as a full-time professor of Islamic studies and Arabic, and I have never earned a dime of salary as an apologist.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I can help these poor souls, if they want to be helped.\u00a0 However, it should be noted that I\u2019ve explained this all before, to no avail, so there\u2019s no guarantee that this attempt will be any more successful than the previous efforts have been.\u00a0 When one is determined to misunderstand something, accurately understanding it becomes much more difficult.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n My wife and I like to travel.\u00a0 We knew that about ourselves even before we were married.\u00a0 Our wedding occurred shortly after my return from six months in Israel, for example.\u00a0 And we spent our first four married years living in Egypt, where our first child was born, and we traveled from there to Russia and Kenya and Cyprus and, multiple times on the way to and from Cairo, in Europe.\u00a0 I retired last year from teaching at BYU, and one of the elements of our planning for retirement was to allocate a substantial chunk of our savings to . . . travel.\u00a0 Moreover, we have family located in various places not only in the United States but abroad, and we like to see them from time to time.\u00a0 (If that irritates my critics, well, they\u2019ll just have to go on being irritated.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So we travel a fair amount on our own dime.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But we also accompany tour groups.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 Partially because, as explained above, we like to travel.\u00a0 And partially because people have asked us to do so.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s why we\u2019re here in Israel at the moment.\u00a0 We arrived a day early, because I always prefer to be at least slightly less jet-lagged than those I\u2019m leading \u2014 they\u2019re free to fall asleep on the bus; I\u2019m not \u2014 but the rest of our group will be arriving here this afternoon.\u00a0 We have an orientation meeting planned for after dinner tonight and the festivities get fully underway fairly early tomorrow morning.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Why would a company ask us to accompany a tour like this?\u00a0 Not because The Church \u2014 cue lightning, thunder, and the terrified neighing of horses \u2014 has ordered them to do so.\u00a0 At least, I\u2019m aware of nothing to suggest that.\u00a0 No, the reason is more likely this:\u00a0 The company calculates, whether correctly or not, that having me accompany a tour will attract people to sign up for that tour, thus enhancing the company\u2019s financial bottom line.\u00a0 It\u2019s as simple as that.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n What are my duties?\u00a0 I\u2019ll use Israel as an example:\u00a0 I speak at every site, giving historical background for it, including Islamic and modern political background, and connecting it (where applicable) to the scriptures.\u00a0 I also speak on the bus while we\u2019re traveling from one site to another.\u00a0 I\u2019m available to talk with members of the group at every meal.\u00a0 On at least one night during the tour, I give a fireside.\u00a0 And I speak while we\u2019re out in a boat on Lake Kinnereth, in the Galilee.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n What do I get for doing this?\u00a0 In order to persuade me to accompany their tour group, the company pays travel, lodging, and food expenses for me and my wife.\u00a0 (Actually, they never pay quite enough to fully cover all of our expenses, but what they cover gives us a pretty substantial discount for such trips.)\u00a0 Some who accompany tours are also paid a sum in addition to their expenses.\u00a0 I never have been.\u00a0 Perhaps I\u2019m simply stupid.\u00a0 And perhaps that may change, now that I\u2019ve retired.\u00a0 But this hasn\u2019t proven a particularly good path to wealth for me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Is what I\u2019m doing uncommon?\u00a0 Not even close.\u00a0 Plenty of LDS-oriented travel companies do the same thing.\u00a0 Is it peculiar to Latter-day Saints?\u00a0 Hardly.\u00a0 If you look in issues of the Biblical Archaeology Review,<\/em> for example, you\u2019ll see advertisements for dozens of tours to be accompanied by Professor X of Such-and-Such University or Dr. Y of This-or-That College.\u00a0 You\u2019ll also see analogous tours advertised in the alumni magazines of Harvard and Stanford and UCLA, and such magazines as Scientific American<\/em> advertise accompanied tours to such places as Tierra del Fuego and the Galapagos Islands.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The critics of my travels don\u2019t seem to get out much.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Why did I decide to study Arabic? \u00a0Nobody in particular has been asking that question, but one of the functions of this blog for me is to serve as a sort of repository for autobiographical fragments. \u00a0Someday, for example, my kids may find such things interesting. \u00a0Or, at least, some psychiatrist<\/em> might care.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So, again, why<\/em> did I decide to study Arabic?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Well, for one thing I was fascinated by the Middle East, throughout its history \u2014 and the dominant language of most of the Middle East is Arabic, and has been for many centuries. \u00a0And there weren\u2019t many Latter-day Saints looking seriously at things Arabic and Islamic back then.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n But another thing that caught my attention, perhaps rather oddly, was the sheer elegant beauty of the Arabic script, long before I could read it or even sound it out. \u00a0And I\u2019m not really talking about calligraphy. \u00a0No, it was the ordinary printed look of ordinary Arabic that captivated me. \u00a0I hadn\u2019t yet really seen artistic adaptations of the script.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Once I got into the study of the language, though, I became impressed by other aspects of it. \u00a0One of the aspects that intrigued me, and still intrigues me, was the brilliance of the triconsonantal root system on which Arabic is based.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The vast majority of Arabic words are constructed from a body of three-consonant roots that convey a basic meaning.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n The root j-l-s<\/em>, for example, relates to the idea of \u201csitting.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Thus, jalasa<\/em> means \u201che sat.\u201d \u00a0A jalsa<\/em> is a \u201csession\u201d (a \u201cseating\u201d) of a legislature or a committee, or some such thing. \u00a0The word jilsa<\/em> refers to a manner<\/em> of sitting. \u00a0A majlis<\/em> is a gathering or a conference room.\u00a0 Or a legislative body.\u00a0 A jaliis<\/em> is a table companion, a person who sits with another at some sort of party. \u00a0A jaliisa<\/em> is a \u00a0feminine table companion. \u00a0And so forth.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Likewise, the root k-t-b<\/em> connotes the concept of \u201cwriting.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n So, kataba<\/em> (\u201che wrote\u201d), kattaba<\/em> (\u201cto cause\/order someone to write something\u201d), kaataba<\/em> (\u201cto carry on a correspondence\u201d), aktaba<\/em> (\u201cto dictate\u201d), takaataba<\/em> (\u201cto write to each other\u201d), iktataba<\/em> (\u201cto make a copy of something\u201d), and istaktaba<\/em> (\u201cto have a copy made by someone\u201d).\u00a0 Likewise,\u00a0kaatib<\/em> (\u201cwriter,\u201d \u201cscribe\u201d), kitaab<\/em> (\u201cbook\u201d), kutayyib<\/em> (\u201cbooklet\u201d), kitaaba<\/em> (a \u201csystem of writing\u201d), kitaabi<\/em> (\u201cliterary\u201d or \u201cscriptural\u201d), maktuub<\/em> (\u201cwritten\u201d), maktab<\/em> (a place where writing is done, e.g. a \u201cdesk\u201d or an \u201coffice\u201d), maktaba<\/em> (\u201clibrary\u201d or \u201cbookstore\u201d), miktaab<\/em> (\u201ctypewriter\u201d), mukaataba<\/em> (\u201cexchange of letters\u201d), mukaatib<\/em> (\u201ccorrespondent,\u201d \u201creporter\u201d), and etc.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s an ingenious system.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n And, of course, Arabic is related to Hebrew.\u00a0 For example, the <\/span>Hebrew Bible (aka the Old Testament) is often known among Jews as the TaNaKh<\/em>, which is an acronym derived from the names of its three traditional divisions: the <\/span>Torah (Instruction, or Law, also called the Pentateuch), the <\/span>Nevi\u02beim<\/em> (the Prophets, cognate with Arabic nabi<\/em>, \u201cprophet\u201d), and the Ketuvim<\/em> (the \u201cWritings,\u201d recognizably from the same Semitic k-t-b<\/em> root mentioned just above).<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 *** \u00a0 Over on the Peterson Obsession Board, one or two of the usual suspects are wondering exactly who it is that pays for all my traveling. \u00a0 One of them declares, as if he actually has the faintest idea of what he is talking about, that my travels are paid for by […]<\/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-94966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n