A Master of Djinn 4: Prejudice

RichardAbbott

I hadn't realised until rereading this after finishing Babel that various kinds of prejudice are such an important secondary theme here in this book too - not just European prejudice about Egypt but several kinds of internal Egyptian prejudice as well. Do you feel these were handled well?

Apocryphal

Yes. I think there’s this propensity for westerners these days to assume that discrimination and bigotry is a one way street perpetuated by whites against everyone else (to the point where I often see the term ‘reverse-racism’ used, like there’s only one intended direction for racism), but the reality is that this exists all over the world, and it likely always has.

clash_bowley

Agree entirely with Apocryphal here! This was very well handled, and I wish there was more of it handled this way in fiction.

NeilNjae

I think it was handled well. It was interesting that Clark decided that the Egyptian Old Gods were against Islam, but the presence of (pre-Islamic) djinni wasn't a problem. Was it explicit that most djinni were Moslem?

clash_bowley

Djinn are like humans, and can follow any faith. Many are Muslim, but many are Christian and Jewish as well. The vast majority of Djinn are held to belong to one of those. These three faiths were called Religions of the Book, and Islam holds that all three followed the same God and were true revelations. Isa (Jesus) is the second highest prophet in Islam, and Musa (Moses) is also held in great reverence. But other religions were Idolatrous, and followed false paths. So this is the three religions of the Book (The Torah, the New Testament, and the Quran) against the idolaters.

RichardAbbott

Also the Qur'an has a number of verses explicitly talking about djinn, some in complimentary and some in dismissive terms. So I guess Islam has always had a mixed relationship with the concept of djinn and their place in the cosmos

clash_bowley

That may be because Iblis is not a rebel angel, but an Ifrit who rebelled against Allah.

Apocryphal

That’s consistent with what I read about Djinni, that they can be of several faiths. They’re more or less like humans, but magical because they have a different origin story.

On the matter of Egyptian priests being against Islam, that doesn’t surprise me. Fundamentalist Islamic groups like the Taliban and IS are bent on destroying the ancient past because it was heretical, or because it’s somehow heretical to be interested in it. But that’s not universal, obviously. Their genuine interest in the past in Egypt, of course, and other places (like Suleymania museum in Iraq). But I think there’s a reason most archaeology and writing on ancient cultures is by Westerners.