As I am getting older, I find myself less and less interested in the kind of books—mainly academic, mainly about history—I’ve spent a lifetime reading. Instead, like some other authors around my age, I tend to wander off into fiction. Partly this is because good fiction can tell you as much or more about the manifold, endlessly varied and endlessly fascinating, aspects of human life as nonfiction can. And partly because authors of fiction tend to be better, often much better, writers than academics are. To adduce just one example, the Iliad as the ancient Greeks used to know it and as we know it today is almost entirely fiction. Agamemnon, Achilles, Hector and the rest never existed. Nor, presumably, did the beautiful Helene. Yet a book that can teach one more about fighting, war and life in general is very difficult, probably impossible, to find.

That said, I want to draw your attention to an extract from a two-decade old work of fiction that I happened to read just recently and that has resonated with me. For more information about the author and his work, go to the tags of the present post. The speaker is an Egyptian in his fifties. Described as an “intelligent and often funny man” he has long lived in England where he is “brilliantly successful” at his work, genetic engineering. But he still retains a soft spot for his native land.

“‘Islam,’ [he says to his French interlocutor] ‘was born deep in the desert amid scorpions, camels and wild beasts of every order. Do you know what I call Muslims? The losers of the Sahara. That’s what they deserve to be called. Do you think Islam could have been born in such a magnificent place?’ (with genuine feeling, he motioned again to the Nile valley). No, monsieur. Islam could only have been born in a stupid desert, among filthy Bedouins who had nothing better to do – pardon me – than bugger their camels. The closer a religion comes to monotheism – consider this carefully, cher monsieur – the more cruel and inhuman it becomes; and of all religions, Islam imposes the most radical monotheism. From its beginnings, it has been characterized by an uninterrupted series of wars of invasion and massacres; never, for as long as it exists, will peace reign in the world. Neither, in Muslim countries, will intellect and talent find a home; if there were Arab mathematicians, poets and scientists, it is simply because they lost the faith. Simply reading the Koran, one cannot help but be struck by the regrettable mood of tautology which typifies the work: There is no other God but God alone, etc. You won’t get very far with nonsense like that, you have to admit. Far from being an attempt at abstraction, as it is sometimes portrayed, the move towards monotheism is nothing more than a shift towards mindlessness… Note that Catholicism, a subtle religion, and one which I respect, which well knew what suited human nature, quickly moved away from the monotheism imposed by its initial doctrine. Through the dogma of the Trinity and the cult of the Virgin and the One God! What an absurdity! What an inhuman, murderous absurdity! … A god of stone, cher monsieur, a jealous, bloody god who should never have crossed over from Sinai. How much more profound, when you think about it, was our Egyptian religion, how much wiser and more humane … and our women! How beautiful our women were! Remember Cleopatra, who bewitched great Caesar. See what remains of them today …’ (randomly he indicated two veiled women walking with difficulty carrying bundles of merchandise). ‘Lumps. Big shapeless lumps of fat who hide themselves beneath rags. As soon as they’re married, they think of nothing but eating. They eat and eat and eat! …’ (his face became bloated as he pulled a face like de Funès). ‘No, believe me, cher monsieur, the desert has produced nothing but lunatics and morons… Nothing great or noble, nothing generous or wholesome; nothing which has contributed to the progress of humanity or raised it above itself.’”

This was published in 2005. But can anyone really maintain that things were different before—or that they have become different since?