I read The Haj 35+ years ago. It explained much of what had been going on in the Middle East, in a time not far removed from the 6 Day War and the Yom Kippur / October War, which latter carried the possibility of escalation into superpower confrontation and nuclear war. The entire U.S. military went to DEFCON 3 for a time.
The passage that always stuck with me was:
‘“So before I was nine I had learned the basic canon of Arab life. It was me against my brother; me and my brother against our father; my family against my cousins and the clan; the clan against the tribe; and the tribe against the world. And all of us against the infidel.”
It still explains much.
And I guess I must have read it soon after it came out in paperback, and not 35+ years ago. I was thinking I read it in college, but not for a class.
From the beginning of the book. That passage stood out to me, too.
I just watched this video and posted it to FR:
...David Pryce Jones on Islamic Radicalism [truncated title] [YT Video link 19 minutes of talk]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3594833/posts
I stumbled upon this man’s name, David Pryce Jones, by looking up one of my old FR pages. I had totally forgotten about him. I must have heard him on a talk show, probably Prager, long ago. So I Googled him and found this video. Anyway, it just happens to tie in very nicely to this chapter of The Haj...oddly enough.