five dials is a great recent literary discovery courtesy my favorite of dubai’s twitterati – @esperanca. i have been virtually leafing through issue one today and enjoyed Robin Yassin-Kassab’s account of revisiting syria:
The same discourse that restricts thought makes life bearable, and more than bearable. Where else would you find such hospitality, such manly gentleness, such generosity and dignity?
The problem with turning religion into repeated legends and tales of the ancestors, with unreflective and near-masturbatory veneration of the Prophet’s companions and the rulers of old and the ulama, is that the universe is bigger than the Arab zone, time is longer than 1,400 years. Too much religion and too much certainty can domesticate the real and smother the spirit.
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