Other Useful Resources for our 'Understanding Islam' Course

Contents

• DVD Used in Our Course
• Christos Hatzis' "Constantinople" Production
• The play "Nathan the Wise"

DVD Used in Our Course

• a PBS DVD: Islam: Empire of Faith
  • of course, we've all seen this excellent DVD in the course and probably don't need it further
  • however, I note, for the record, that it can be obtained for US$30 on this PBS website
  • I am amazed at how deficient our normal education in Canada about this whole subject -- we learn something about Greece and Rome, the kings of England, the European wars, and Champlain's voyages -- but nothing about the Golden Age of Islam flourishing while Europe was in the Dark Ages -- it was wonderful to be able to begin filling this knowledge gap

Christos Hatzis' "Constantinople" Production

The composition is by Christos Hatzis, a Greek-born composer, who is a professor at the University of Toronto. The instrumental performers were the Gryphon Trio (piano, violin, and cello -- and aided by some electro-acoustic effects), who accompanied two singers: mezzo-soprano Patricia O'Callaghan and Middle Eastern contralto Maryem Hassan Tollar, with elaborate choreography and rapidly changing projected images (which sometimes made you think you were in a cathedral, sometimes in a mosque). Of course, the City of Constantinople is a good metaphor for the commingling of Christian and Muslim cultures -- and that's basically what the piece is about. When you hear Tollar's quartertones in Arabic blending with O'Callaghan's Eastern Orthodox Easter Chant in Greek the effect is mesmerizing. It is a beautiful and compassionate work of art and makes one want to embrace all the different peoples on this planet -- which is surely critical at this particular point in world politics. It's also a great piece to come out of Canada -- where the focus has always been on celebrating cultural diversity and not graying it down to uniform melting-pot homoganeity.

More information can be found on:

the Gryphon Trio website

Some of you may have seen the Gryphon Trio when there were here with the Friends of Music in Port Hope on Oct 30/04 (when they played a few Constantinople excerpts -- but without the stunning multimedia effects) -- their website doesn't mention their future plans as yet

the Tapestry New Opera website

Tapestry New Opera produced this work in partnership with the Gryphon Trio and Music Toronto -- but again their website doesn't mention their future plans as yet

Christos Hatzis' website

This website contains much usful discussion, reviews, and explanatory essays -- see in particular this Hatzis' essay on "The Aesthetics of Cultural Inclusion" -- again the website doesn't announce future plans -- but Hatzis told me that strong interest has been expressed in the U.K. and Europe and a Middle-Eastern tour may happen as early as next October.

The play "Nathan the Wise"

• if you ever get a chance to see the play "Nathan the Wise" by Gotthold Lessing, do see it
  
  
• it was done by SoulPepper in Toronto a few months ago (one of the most moving stage plays I have seen in Toronto for many years)
  
  
• the play was written in 1779 two years before Lessing's death and first performed in 1783 (in Germany) two years after his death
  
  
• In the play's plot, Nathan is a rich merchant in Jerusalem. An infant girl (Recha) is placed into his custody by a monk. The secret of the child's identity is known only by Nathan, the monk, and Nathan's Christian servant (Daya). Nathan raises her to respect God, but without teaching her the trappings of any religion. While Nathan is away on a business trip, Recha is rescued from death by a German knight who had come to Jerusalem as part of the Crusades. She falls in love with him. Nathan returns and when he tries to thank the knight, he is spurned because the knight disdains friendship with a Jew. But the knight yields to Nathan's pleas and visits Recha, with whom he falls in love.
  
  
• The servant informs the knight that Recha was born a Christian. Obsessed by a sense of sacred duty he turns to the Christian Patriarch of Jerusalem for advice. He is repelled by the latter's self-righteousness and inhumanity (the character is drawn quite negatively). The knight then visits the Sultan, Saladin. When he denounces Nathan, he is rebuked by the Sultan who tells him not to be a Christian at the expense or injury of Jews or Moslems. Nevertheless, the Sultan pledges to bring the lovers together. But the play ends with the revelations that Recha and the knight are really sister and brother and that their father was the Sultan's brother.
  
  
• Recha's transformation from "Jew" to "Christian" to "Moslem" within minutes as each secret unfolds is only one of Lessing's messages on religious tolerance. A stronger lesson unfolds in the play when the Sultan summons Nathan and asks him, What human faith, what theologic law Hath struck you as the truest and best? Nathan, suspecting a snare (if he says Judaism he offends Moslem ruler and if he says Mohammedanism he risks being forced to convert or being accused of lying), invents the parable of The Three Rings.
  
  
• OK -- that's enough for now -- it is a great play about tolerance -- see it -- or you can buy the book from Amazon.com