There are three countries and three postings that left an everlasting impression on me: Papua New Guinea, Burma, and Saudi Arabia. Last night I was searching the internet for "Sivarai", a collection of short stories about Papua New Guina which had been recommended to me by another expat from my New Guinea days.
Somehow, I also encountered a clip of a DVD about the work of the 'kiaps" in New Guinea - click here - but, more surprisingly, I finished up with Tom Holland's "Islam- The Untold Story" which left me spellbound.
In it, historian and novelist Tom Holland raises some fascinating questions about the evidence pertaining to the origins of the Muslim religion. Is it possible that all three "religions of the book" will go down in history as having their foundations exposed as mythic in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries?
I plan to read Holland’s book "In the Shadow of the Sword" but already I've spent an hour listening to this radio interview which is far superior to the video documentary as it covers more detail and explanation of the thesis in its first 30 minutes than is broached in the entire doco.
Will the weekend be long enough to do it all? Perhaps I should listen to this book on tape while sitting on the ride-on mower cutting the grass.
