For Lust of Knowing

Still enjoying dipping in and out of Robert Irwin's 'For Lust Of Knowing', although fiction is taking up more of my time at the moment. Yet much of Irwin's book reads with the vim of fiction, and I'm more and more getting the sense that Irwin's decision to frame what is in many ways a consideration of Islam through the veil of Orientalism is in itself an artful ploy; it enables him to direct a complex issue sensitively without raising controversy. He does so beautifully.

"The past and present achievements of Arab culture are so considerable that they do not need to be exaggerated or to be defended from all and every single possible kind of criticism. As for Islam, a religion that embodies essential truths about the nature of the universe and man's relation to God has nothing to fear from the most advanced techniques of Western textual criticism".