The Order of Light

by Haroon Moghul

Very good

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Haroon Moghul is the author of “The Order of Light” and “My First Police State.” His memoir, “How to be Muslim”, is due in 2016. He’s a doctoral candidate at Columbia University, formerly a Fellow at the New America Foundation and the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, and a member of the Multicultural Audience Development Initiative at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Haroon Moghul is a Senior Correspondent at Religion Dispatches and a novelist. He writes extensively on international affairs, religion and culture.

Reviews

[Leo Africanus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The source of one of my favourite literary scenes wherein Egypt disintegrates into the brink of chaos and revolution looms as Hosni makes a terrible slip on public television. He is celebrating yet another term in power and his audience, the Egyptian masses, are stuperose - any semblance of choice comprehensively wrestled from their hands. He goes on to introduce himself with the usual grandiose honorifics but when it comes to his name he pronounces it 'Khosni' rather than Hosni and the irreparable damage is done.

The masses pick up on this seemingly innocuous error and interpret it as a predilection for Hebrew over its Semitic cousin Arabic providing sufficient evidence for them to conclude that Hosni is in fact an agent of their nuclear neighbour and they take to the streets!

[Gv · Rating 1 out of 5]

I kept waiting for the action promised in the blurb to begin, but it was more than halfway through the book before you find out anything happens. The "hero" of the book (if you can call him that) is a young man of Pakistani-American origin, in Egypt for the summer. He indulges in a whole bunch of intellectual onanism and existential angst about what it means to be a Muslim and how he is failing to be a good Muslim.

Everything is about being a Muslim. e.g. An acquaintance drops in to meet his room-mate. Said roommate is in the shower. Our hero in internal monologue thinks why am I forgetting Muslim protocol. And asks "Will you sit down? Would you like a drink?" Erm. What do atheists, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists and Rastafarians around the world do?

So our hero goes on and on and on about girls. How he is never going to score one. How he doesn't want to learn Arabic. How he really hates McDonalds and how unislamic they are while eating there all the time.The abiding mystery of this book is - who the heck decided to publish this? And why in heaven's name did I spend good money on it? And from where did I find the perseverance to finish it.

I"m trying to think of one good thing to say about this one. Oh! I have it - It's going to make the rest of the books I read in 2018 seem awesome!

[Hena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite an interesting book. The author clearly has much to say about Islam and Muslims. This book makes me want to go to Cairo.

[fahad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Started off as quite amusing, the went a little OTT, but ended a nice thought-inducing Sufi tip. A little over-written I think.

[Aycha Tammour · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think it is a good read overall. I liked his sense of humor throughout the book. It might be however more suitable for a younger age group -perhaps teens to early twenties.