I picked up a copy of Early Ideas of Evil and Devil by Sami Said Ahmed at the UW library. It was published by the university of Baghdad and was dual language English and Arabic, (i think). I thought as I was having so much trouble finding unbiased authors on the subject this book should offer me an interesting alternate perspective.
I know I had made a good find when in the introduction Ahmed was looking at the origins of different names for Satan and stated, "Belezebub was a god of Healing whose center was the city of Acre in Palestine and was frequented by patients primarily of incurable diseases". This was a man who was able to correct all the mistakes written in the book I had just finished reading. He knew who Pazzuz was, and that he was used as an amulet to help women in childbirth. He also said explicitly how evil was a culturally relevant phenomena and was presented differently in different societies and how not everyone had a devil. Oh what a refreshing burst of rationality the book was.
Ahmed divided his work into chapters looking at Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, India, Zoroasterianism, Old and New Testament, and Greek and Rome. He showed how most religions did not have a specific evil deity, but looked at which could be classified as the most evil, or the most like Christianity's Satan. His first suggestion for Greece and Rome was Zeus, which seemed kind of funny until he pointed out all the horrible things Zeus had done. The book was interesting in not only did it cover the mythology and history of the gods, but it also looked at demons in the different cultural contexts, and also magic and divination. It was interesting to note that even though he had a very well researched perspective, most of the texts that he quoted from were early 20th century texts by English or American authors.
I think the chapters on Ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, and India were my favorites. However he also spent time in his conclusion talking about Islamic beliefs in Satan and the devils. The early Islamic concept of demons was one I'd not heard of before. It was fascinating, they were the muses, all good poetry was said to have been inspired by demons, and they were interacting with mankind, as good or evil demons, who could be killed, but were older and superior to man. It was fascinating and something I'd never heard of before.
The only regret I have about this book was that it was too short. The English text was only 120 pages long. But it was a lovely overview, largely unbiased, and with some interesting and new perspectives to read about. But alas no pictures.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
verlaine。我们先去大学的图书馆我借一点儿书，真去书店我买一本中文书“故事”和一本英文书“中文语法”。以后我们去了咖啡馆，我喝一杯咖啡。我们聊了三个小时的天。以后我们去吃日饭晚饭。我和我丈夫坐公共汽车回家。晚上十一点我和我丈夫去跳舞，这个夜总会叫“汞水银”挤满人的，我们看了我的朋友们，我们跳了一个小时舞。我们三点半回家。