Status Updates From الطريق إلى مكة

“Whenever the world was dark around me and I could not
see my way out of the dangers and difficulties that beset me, I would sit down
and compose an ode to Jawhara; and when it was finished, the world was
suddenly lighted, and I knew what I had to do.” (Pg 153)

“It was at this moment that I became aware how near their God and their
faith were to these people. Their prayer did not seem to be divorced from their
working day; it was part of it - not meant to help them forget life, but to
remember it better by remembering God.” (Pg 120)

“It is not a mere noble tradition which enables the Arabs to be hospitable [to guests] in so effusive a way: it is their inner freedom. They are so free of distrust of themselves that they can
easily open their lives to another man. They need none of the specious security of the walls which in the West each person builds between himself and his neighbour.” (Pg 108)

I’m just at the beginning and I can already sense this will be one of my best reads

“all our (Europe/Europeans) machines and skyscrapers could do nothing to restore the broken wholeness of our souls” (pg 96)

Interesting insights on the perspective (and shortsightedness) of the Zionist project in the 1920s from pages 89-95.

Interesting commentary on Muslim prayer pages 86-87.

“On the cultural side, the outcome was the creation of a human type whose morality appeared to be confined to the question of practical utility alone, and whose highest criterion of right and wrong was material success.” (Pg 70)

“The average European - whether democrat or communist, manual worker or intellectual- seemed to know only one positive faith: the worship of material progress, the belief that there could be no other goal in life than to make that very life continually easier or, as the current expression went, ‘independent of nature’.” (Pg. 70)

Such an unexpected read. And so breathtaking.