Two Score and Ten

This essay was inspired by the realisation that many in our community do not read and those who do, like the author of these words, are considered slightly bizarre or eccentric. I hope therefore to show with these words of mine some of the reasons why I am such a bibliophile and the aesthetic, intellectual and sensual pleasure books have afforded me and, simultaneously, this will be a chance for me to recommend fifty of my favourite books and authors and why I have selected them. I realise that many of you might puzzle over the inclusion of some of them but I hope that these, at the very least, will provide a good basis for impassioned debate; and if, with this essay, I can convince even one solitary bibliophobe to go out and read a book I will have been more than recompensed.

Without further ado then, let me begin by stating that it always puzzles me that given that the first Qur’anic verse to be revealed began with the word, “Read!” why reading is so scarce as a pastime amongst Muslims nowadays. It should come as no surprise, therefore, for me to list the Qur’an as the first book of my half-century. The original, even as a work of literature, is unmatched and its Arabic untranslatable in its eloquence and fluency of expression and therefore I will recommend as the first book in my list a translation. Translations exist in most of the world’s languages but the Urdu translation of Imam Ahmad Raza Khan, entitled, (1) Kanz ul Iman is unmatched, amongst single-volume editions for its expressiveness, scholarly rigour and accuracy. This then is my first book. My second book is also by the same author, and one which I have dipped into countless times: (2) Hadayiq e Bakhshish (Gardens of Salvation), a slim masterpiece of Urdu and Farsi na’atiyya poetry.

If I had to select one book only about Islam, other than the Qur’an, from all the books ever written it would, without doubt, be (3) Ghazali’s Ihya Ulum al-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences), which is his magnum opus and a veritable encyclopaedia which has at its root the confluence of the esoteric and exoteric sides of Islam. A companion piece would have to be al-Ghazali’s spiritual autobiography, al-Munqidh min al Dalal, excellently translated, in a recent edition, as (4) Ghazali’s Path to Sufism. Sticking with Sufism, I would also have to say that two books which have had an enormous impact on my spiritual and religious life are (5) Rumi’s Masnavi e Ma’navi (if you cannot read Persian than Nicholson’s translation is the most complete and scholarly English translation available) and (5) The Secret of Secrets by Shaykh ‘Abd al Qadir al Jilani, poetically translated into English by Shaykh Tosun Bayrak al Halveti and published by the Islamic Texts Society. This first section of books about Islam would not be complete without mention of Martin Ling’s seminal biography of the beloved Prophet (upon him be blessings and peace), (6) Muhammad: His life based on the Earliest Sources and Aisha Bewley’s magisterial translation of Qadi ‘Iyad’s Kitab al-Shifa, (7) Muhammad: Messenger of Allah. Ibn Hazm the Andalucian’s (8) Ring of the Dove (Tawq al Hamamah), translated by Arberry, that doyen of translators, is a book which first made me realise that classical Islamic scholarship discussed all sorts of topics both sacred and profane.

Among fantasy fans, Tolkien’s (9) The Lord of the Rings has a stature akin almost to that of scripture and, despite more than a half-century of imitations, stands alone as the primus inter pares of fantasy fiction. It is one of my most favourite books and I have read it countless times. Its evocation of a more honourable, traditional, heroic world has resonance for many and I believe explains its enduring popularity in this post post-modern, morally confused era. Another book I read as a precocious teenager which still burns powerfully in my adult mind is (10) Frank Herbert’s Dune, a huge science fiction space opera with a heady mix of philosophy and mysticism thrown in and centred around a theme of environmental change. Although I no longer read as much sci-fi as I used to, I would still include (11) Arthur C Clarke’s Songs of Distant Earth in this list of books which have had a profound effect on me. Although much less well-known than his (12) 2001: A Space Odyssey (due to the Kubrick connection), I have not read a more poignant description of Man’s eventual journey away from Planet Earth and into the vast cosmos. This links nicely to the next book on my list, a non-fiction science book, (13) Carl Sagan’s Cosmos; I was still in upper school when I read this and it influenced my choice of career, the fascinating descriptions of the planets in our solar system, especially Jupiter and the vivid drawings of artists’ impressions of possible life-forms in the gaseous Jovian atmosphere, propelling me into a career as a scientist (which, ultimately, was unsuccessful, and not suited to my more emotional, mystical and aesthetic nature.) Another writer who captivated me as a boy was Isaac Asimov and I read almost everything, fiction and non-fiction, by him I could get my rather large hands on. His (14) I, Robot then is also in this list.

As I write this I am not surprised to find that a lot of the books are those I read in my teenage years. Another one dating from that time, though at its closing stages, is (15) David Zindell’s Neverness a very imaginative hard sci-fi epic and also (16) Raymond E Feist’s, Faerie Tale, a dark, disturbing mixture of faerie and horror about demonic possession and far superior to anything I read by Stephen King!

When I went to university I had to take some courses in physics as part of my bioengineering degree and it was then that I came across (17) Genius, James Gleick’s brilliant biography of Richard Feynman, the great Nobel laureate. I was inspired to read Feynman’s own work and the most fun was (18) Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman? His Lectures on Physics (19), though difficult and mind-stretching, is another book I cannot forget though I did not read all of it but only those parts relevant to my studies. As an undergraduate, being away from home and parents for the first time, in the great British tradition, I was exposed to many new experiences and lifestyles, and my horizons were vastly expanded. This stretched to reading- genres too and it was here that I first came across Anais Nin’s writing via her (20) Little Birds, still the most beautifully written erotica I’ve ever read. Another book of hers which I would like to include is (21) Henry and June, a section of her Unexpurgated Diaries detailing her affair with Henry Miller (a book I only read last year). This book contains some examples of exquisite erotic
writing and psychoanalysis and it also introduced me to Miller’s oeuvre, who is, for me, the greatest prose master in English alongside Joyce and Nabokov (of whom more shortly). Therefore let me include here also Henry Miller’s (22) Tropic of Cancer and (23) Tropic of Capricorn, both of which contain amongst the most astonishingly beautiful of all prose in English I’ve ever had the aesthetic pleasure of reading. The only writer (other than Joyce) I’ve read to date whose English prose matches and even exceeds that of Miller is Vladimir Nabokov and I include both his (24) Lolita, probably the greatest novel I have ever read, and (25) Ada in the list of my favourite works of fiction.

Part 2: Books 26 to 50
At University in London I also discovered, for myself, my Islamic and Urdu heritage and aside from the classics of Islamic literature already listed, I also read the incomparable (26) Ghalib’s Divan for the first time, Iqbal’s (27) Kulliyat e Urdu and Arberry’s translation of Iqbal’s greatest work, his mystico-philosophical Persian epic poem, (28) Javidnama, (The Book of Eternity). At this time I was also enthralled by (29) Umrao Jan Ada of Mirza Hadi Muhammad Ruswa, which remains my favourite Urdu novel. Slightly later in time, I came across (30) Imtiaz Ali Taj’s Anarkali and devoured it, intoxicated by the refined language and the sheer romanticism. These remain my favourite Urdu works of literature along with Faiz Ahmad Faiz’s complete works (31), Nuskhahaa e Wafa.

Alexander the Great was one of my teenage heroes and (33) Mary Renault’s Alexander Trilogy (Fire from Heaven, The Persian Boy, and Funeral Games) remains the most vivid and best-written of the many historical novels I have since read although I must include Amin Maalouf’s wonderful retelling of the life of Umar Khayyam in (34) Samarkand and (35) Leo Africanus, the same writer’s recounting of the extraordinary life of Hassan al-Wazzan. In the same category, although much more complex and fiendishly clever, is Orhan Pamuk’s (36) My Name is Red, a murder mystery set in the Ottoman Caliphate during the reign of Sultan Selim I.

As a desi, I have read most of the well-known desi (mostly Indian but a few Pakistanis too now) novelists writing in English but most of their work I find unremarkable. A few exceptions however have been Gita Mehta’s hypnotic (37) A River Sutra, Vikram Seth’s massive tome, (38) A Suitable Boy and his, superlative, (39) An Equal Music which is set in Venice, Vienna and London. Any talk of Venice needs must make mention of (40) Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, one of the great love stories and works of art of the twentieth century and the only homoerotic work in this list.

Recently, I have become greatly attracted to Japanese literature and this was primarily due to a present of (41) Yukio Mishima’s Spring Snow, which I was given on my twenty-eighth birthday. The fine, exacting brilliance of Mishima’s metaphors and his haunting predilection with Beauty and Death mirrored some of my own thoughts and I was hooked. I have since proceeded to read all four of his (42) Sea of Fertility Tetralogy (Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, Temple of Dawn, and Decay of the Angel) and it remains one of the most powerful works of literature I have come across. Other Japanese books I will include are Haruki Murakami’s semi-autobiographical novel (43) Norwegian Wood. Staying in the Orient I would also include (44) Hong Ying’s K: A Love Story, an erotic novel based on the factual love affair between Virginia Woolf’s nephew and the wife of a well-known Chinese academic as well as (45) The Last Emperor, a biography of Pu Yi, China’s ill-fated last Emperor and the basis for Bertolucci’s epic. Another unforgettable biographical work is (46) Malcolm: The Autobiography of Malcolm X and that masterpiece of Orientalist research and scholarship, (47) Louis Massignon’s The Passion of al-Hallaj, the unrivalled multi-volume biography of the Sufi saint and martyr Husayn ibn Mansur al Hallaj.

Finally I would like to include (48) The Adventures of Ibn Battuta and (49) The Perfumed Garden by al-Nafzawi, a medieval manual of sexual instruction from North Africa translated by Richard F Burton. Lastly, but not least, I would like to include (50) James Joyce’s Ulysses which is a difficult yet stylistically wonderful work of English prose and widely considered the greatest novel of the twentieth century.

Although I could continue this list, I shall end here with the hope that I have passed onto the reader something of the wonder of books and why I hope to continue reading till the end of my days.