Before proceeding, I should make it clear that I know very little about Islam-the-religion. In the cultural explorations of my youth, I gave the Koran a try, but found it perfectly unreadable. The closest I have come to a re-try in the decades since was reading Robert Spencer’s 2009 book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to the Koran.
There was nothing about Islam in my formal education. English people of my generation, however, born when the British Empire was still a going concern, took in random commentary from those of our elders who had served in some role, civil or military, in the maintenance of that empire. They generally spoke of Islam with respect, though Churchill was a famous exception.
Reviewing Paul Scott’s tetralogy of novels, The Raj Quartet, some years ago, I made the following observation.
I note in passing here the impression Scott gives—I get a whiff of it in Kipling, too, and in the Flashman books — that the British, especially the military ones, preferred Muslim Indians to Hindus, as being more manly. Doublethink must have been active here, as some of Britain’s most prized Indian troops — the Gurkhas, for example — were Hindus. The preference is plain, none the less. Perhaps it was just imperialist fellow-feeling with the subcontinent’s previous proprietors, or perhaps it was solidarity between monotheists.
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