9 h 46 minAudiobook15 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What happens when a traveller’s knowledge of distant cultures meets the prejudices he carries with him?
The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam gathers three studies by Richard Francis Burton, the Victorian explorer, soldier, linguist and consul. His subjects are Jews, Roma and Islam. Across these pages, years of travel and language study meet the strong opinions of a man whose curiosity does not free him from prejudice.
The collection offers a record of how one learned and opinionated Victorian sees these peoples. The Jew backs a charge historians have long rejected. The Gypsy approaches Roma through Romani and kinship. El Islam draws on Burton’s study of Muslim law and practice, alongside his experience of pilgrimage in disguise.
What you’ll discover
- A traveller’s searching eye Follow the interests that draw Burton across questions of religion, culture and language.
- A troubling first study Examine how Burton’s account of Jews repeats prejudice and supports a rejected accusation.
- Language and kinship Explore Burton’s fascination with Roma through his attention to Romani and kinship.
- Islam through close study Encounter his writing on Muslim law and practice, informed by language study and travel.
- A Victorian viewpoint Read critically as learning and prejudice sit side by side in Burton’s work.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy Victorian travel writing, the history of ideas about race and religion, and the study of how Europeans described the East, the Romani people and the Muslim world.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Burton paints the Jews as a people of vitality
- Englishmen know the Jew only from the surface
- Jewish communities of the Holy Land and their future
- The Talmud chapter reads a vast law through hostility
- The blood accusation and what history concludes
- Gypsies and the Jats of India
- Gypsy trades and tongues from Persia to Egypt
- Gypsies in Europe and America: laws, music and survival
- Burton's history of religion and defense of Islam
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- 15-minute summary
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- Hardcover
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Der Jude, der Zigeuner und der Islam
by Sir Richard Francis Burton · 1898
Victorian explorer Burton turns his eye on Jews, Gypsies and Islam, mixing travel notes with fierce opinion.
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In short
This book gathers three studies by Sir Richard Francis Burton, the Victorian soldier, consul, linguist and traveler. They deal with the Jews, the Gypsies and the faith of Islam.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Burton paints the Jews as a people of vitality
The book opens with the Jews, and Burton begins by calling them a people worth the attention of every student of race. He says there are about six million Jews in the world, and that the number grows faster than that of other peoples. He praises their long lives, their resistance to plague and their ability to settle in any climate. He cites German statistics on how long Jews and Christians live, and tales of epidemics that passed them by.
Burton then asks why this should be so. His answer is a toughness bred by ancient law, with its fasts, feasts, long walks to Jerusalem and strict diet. He argues that the weak died and the strong survived. He also says that Jews kept their blood pure by marrying within the family, and he claims this made them an unmixed stock.
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What is The Jew, The Gypsy and El Islam about?
It collects three essays by Richard Burton. One portrays Jewish communities and law, one traces the Gypsies from India to Europe and the Americas, and one defends Islam and places it among the world's religions.
Is the section on the Jews accurate?
No. It repeats hostile stereotypes, reads the Talmud through selected passages and lists accusations of ritual murder that historians have shown to be false. It is best read as a record of Victorian prejudice.
Where did the Gypsies come from according to Burton?
Burton argues that they came from India and are linked to the Jats of the Indus valley. Scholars of the Romani language agree that the language has northern Indian roots, though his racial theories belong to his own time.
The author
Richard Francis Burton
1821–1890 · British explorer and travel writer
Sir Richard Francis Burton was a British explorer, army officer, writer and translator. He was born in Torquay, England, in 1821. He served in India and later lived in Trieste as British consul. He published Vikram and the Vampire in 1870 and The Book of the Sword in 1884. He died in Trieste in 1890.
More by Sir Richard Francis Burton
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