In an Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler's Tale

Amitav Ghosh's In An Antique Land is a hidden history of India and Egypt during the 12th century in the disguise of a traveler's tale. Amitav accidentally stumbled upon some letters of correspondence between Abraham Ben Yiju, a Jewish merchant living in India, and Khalaf ibn Ishaq from Egypt in 1132. In the margins of these letters Ben Yiju's slave Bomma was often mentioned in passing with a special note of affection. No sooner had Amitav discovered about Bomma than he, out of volition, ventured out to Egypt, sifted through fact and conjecture, through a large number of letters and manuscripts referring to the trade between the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean, piecing together Bomma's journey from India to Egypt.
In 1980, Amitav arrived in Egypt and over a span of five years he stayed in the villages of Lataifa and Nashawy. While Amitav diligently tried to fill in the details of the slave's life, whose record in medieval history was completely out of the ordinary, he befriended with enthusiastic Muslims who found him fascinating but incomprehensible. Amitav's landlord, Abu-Ali, was an obese, inimical, petulant man who was diligent in exploiting all moneymaking possibilities of his strategically located house. Shaikh Musa, who referred Abu-Ali obliquely to his avarice and acrimony, always watched out for Amitav and cautioned him to evade certain people in the village. Ustaz Sabry, a well-read history scholar who taught in Nashawy, and his students Nabeel, who aspired to work in the government but left stranded in Baghdad, Iraq at the outset of the Gulf War, cultivated with Amitav a friendship that later proven to be indomitable.
Amitav did not always meet the usual hospitality. To the eyes of Muslims for whom the world outside was still replete with wonders, a Hindu was uncivilized for the practice of "burning the dead". Villagers often stigmatized Hindus and admonished Amitav to civilize his country and people. Others attempted to convert him into the study of Quran. Even the children jeered at his lack of perspicacity in politics, religion, and sex. In one occasion, at the house of Imam Ibrahim, the healer and prayer leader of Nashawy, Amitav unwarily trespassed on some deeply personal grief that haunted the Imam and his family for years. The unfortunate and unintentional solecism incurred in the Imam an enmity toward Amitav.
In An Antique Land unveiled the mystery of Bomma whom Ben Yiju adopted into his service as business agent and later incorporated into his household. In unraveling the life of this Indian slave across some 800 years, Amitav deftly sheds light on the life of his master Ben Yiju and nature of patron-client, master-apprentice relationship in disguise of a master-slave one during the 12th century. The relics about Bomma was limited but the unexpected outcome of the search manifested a compendious picture of his master, Ben Yiju, who as a junior associate, partnered with a merchant Madmum. The letters between these two were full of instructions and certain peremptoriness prevailed beneath the usual courteous language. Madmum's warm and occasionally irascible tone suggested that Madmum regarded Ben Yiju with an almost paternal affection.
In An Antique Land delivers a tale of a quest that moves between the present and the past, between Amitav Ghosh's own life and the slave's. The narrative is rich in layers, cultural overtones, historical relics, and anecdotes. Readers will find arresting images of India and Egypt hidden under a deceptively plain surface of prose. 4.0 stars.
Matthew Yau (10Q_boi)

This book takes its title from the first line of Shelley's poem "Ozymandias": "I met a traveller from an antique land". None of the other reviewers, for whatever reason, have mentioned this extremely piquant fact. The reason for its piquancy is that Ghosh here explores the same theme as Shelley does in his poem: The passing of all things earthly.

Though it is more evident in Shelley's poem, the dual narratives in the book, one set in Aden, Malabar and other entrepots of a millennium past, one amongst the "fellahs" of Egypt in the decade leading up to the Persian Gulf War in 1990, point the reader to contemplate the ever-shifting sands of history and temporality, the ever-changing relationships of religion to religion, country to country, person to person.

The passage on Malabar, once a great trading centre, is exquisite:

"There is nothing now anywhere in sight of the Bandar to lend credence to the great mansions and residences that Ibn Battuta and Duarte Barbosa spoke of. Now the roads and lanes around the wharfs fall quiet after sunset; shipping offices shut their doors, coffee-shops pull down their shutters, and only a few passengers waiting to cross to the sand-spit remain. The imagination balks at the thought that the Bandar once drew merchants and mariners from distant corners of the world."

And, likewise, at the end of the book, during the onset of the Gulf War, when a great exodus of Egyptians - including Ghosh's friend Nabeel - are trying to make it back into Egypt, the scene portrayed on the TV set, conveyed in the last sentence in the book, is equally Shelleyan:

"There was nothing to be seen except crowds: Nabeel had vanished into the anonymity of History."

Though, at points, annoyingly disjointed, this volume manages - when considered as a whole - to convey the fleeting nature of human endeavour and so to remain true to its title's source.

Although I was immediately fascinated by the historical and literary detective story of the 12th century Jewish merchant and his Indian servant, I did not fully understand Ghosh's mission in writing this book until nearly at the end. Then it became clear to me. This book is an elegy for a way of life that is forever lost. In the 12th century, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus worked in tandem as traders and merchants, with the only reprisals being angry remonstrances rather than armed violence. What we call sophisticated Western civilization has changed all of that.

Just as Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the Indian Ocean ended the medieval way of cooperation, the quiet life of the Egyptian villages in which Ghosh lived also ended -- within our lifetimes. As televisions and refrigerators came to those villages, so did anger, strife, and urbanization. There was money to be made during the Iran-Iraq war if you were a young Egyptian man, but you would never return to your village.

This book was slow-moving in places but ultimately unforgettable.

This book is quite unique as it blends a travel account with the analysis of the history that covers the area from the Middle East to India. Ghosh, an accomplished scholar in social anthropology, provides a personalized view of the subject. Trading in the middle ages had many socio political implications and had many human tragedies. Indeed, slave trading can be seen as the worst form of human tragedy that we can imagine today. But in those days people of different religions and background profited from it.
Ghosh also provides a very readable history of the study of history, how the documents and information related to these periods were discovered. He has been very successful in holding the reader's attention. The book is worth reading.

The indian author came upon old manuscripts to traces of a juwish-arabian merchant of the 12nd century. He travelled into the Egypt of our days, takes residence in a small Arabian village, dives into the life of the locals and seeks fort he connection to the arabian middle ages with its lively cultural and economic relations.
Here the author tries to bring to a relationship the arabian-muslim and indian-hindu cultures, or rather make visible what was once related. A rare and strange undertaking!
It is also laudable when somebody like Gosh plies such a thing with such a fervour almost sacrificially. But for the author, himself a Hindu, it is only conclusive, after he had set this goal under the knowledge of the old manuscripts to explore the life story of the late merchant who swang between the worlds like the author himself.
The reader follows, hears a lot about the life style and life philosophy of the Egyptian Fellas. The author disposes of sufficient humour to set skilfully counterpoints to the at that time fertile interactions of the cultures, because the Fellas regard the Indian culture as backward. But their arguments show their own backwardness. The author can even renounce to take a position himself. So striking is the credo of the muslims a testimony of their ignorance and backwardness.

Well done depiction of Egyptian village life! And even believable! But the uneducated of other cultural circles do not show more interests or understanding for the others. For this intra-cultural clash, as well sympathy-courtship for humanity in the social intercourse, the author pays a high expense. I doubt that so many people are interested to hear what a certain Jewish merchant in the 12th century in Mangalore, South India had to do and if his mistress did well.

The subtitle "A journey into the past of the Orient" is correct, but awakens expectations that are not satisfied. The courtesy-book-recensions of certain magazines and news-papers are mere exaggeration. Widely the book is simply boring and this I say as somebody who has travelled a lot in the Orient and India.
An example is when he explains the custom of burial. The Fellas ask him why the Indians burn theirs. He answers, he does not know, it is just the custom and it was already the custom before he was born. He had nothing to do with it!
Typical Gosh! He does not take a position when it comes to ideology. Only once he is drawn out when India is called backward. No, India is superior to Egypt, has more bombs etc.

The idea for this book was good, the execution seems to be mostly not inspired. The book has to be for ingrained Orient-fans, - perhaps. At least the author seems to have researched very thoroughly. That deserves acknowledgement, but this is what a reader who does not want to read a novel expects.
Well done is the passage about the possession of the Malabar coast by the Europeans. The Indians only had the choice between resistance and submission, cooperation was not offered to them.
Incapable to compete in trade with only commercial means, the Europeans attempted to bring it under control with aggressions. They unleashed violence in dimensions unknown to the coast. Nothing much has changed one thinks rather often when reading the book.

If National Geographic stories reconstructing a stone-age human from its fossilized remains dug out of the ashes of a volcano (such as in physical anthropology) fail to engage your fascination, chances are that this story will seem more academic to you than the home work assignment to watch History Channel. I am one such history-averse person and the book was too slow to start. However, I finished it with a renewed respect for social anthropology and its relevance to the world we live in. The way a story of a 12th century Egyptian trader can be relevant to the social, cultural, political and business of our times is hard to ignore and not take heed of. Besides, it is fascinating to learn how a small set of information sources with varying degrees of reliability can be connected like dots that reveal the story of a 800 year old human life in all its aspects.

Some of the revelations in the book that left me agape were: the rich history of trade between Indian and Egypt that made a lasting impact on the evolution of both countries and her peoples; the complex way in which the social temper and cultural identity of a country are entrenched in religion, thus making religion the primary tool for governing powers to achieve political and business goals in ways that are irreversibly divisive; the power of a united few with a disruptive agenda over the divided many with a peaceful one.

Apparently, this book is part of the course reading for anthropology students at UC, Santa Cruz (and possibly many other universities worldwide), as I found out from a student sitting next to me in the plane. However, Amitav Ghosh's extensive research goes beyond anthropology and throws light on relevant topics of today such as Iraq & the Middle East, the cultural divide between Jewish, Muslims, Christians and Hindus, the Indian identity, and the massive social changes that conservative rural Muslims are grappling with.

i picked this book after hearing a friend talk about his trip to egypt.. i expected a more descrptive kind of book about egypt and was pleasantly surprised with the novella flavour that it actually has.. the author introduces very ordinary characters from present times living through their life.. he juxtaposes this with accounts of the life of a jewish merchant and his indian slave from the 10th century.. and then draws parallels between the social issues during the two time periods which seem surprisingly similar..
but the part that i thourougly enjoyed in this book was the village life and characters from the egyptian village and the real life struggles that they were going through.. made me want to hop on the next plane to egypt and see these ppl for myself..

All my attempts to classify this book proved futile. A scholarly view of scientific mode dissecting the anthropological evolution over nearly a millenium, or a novelist, rather a painter of words, discovering the microscopic fragments of history, weaving subtle bonds with the present. A literary work of a social antrhopologist, or a research work of a novelist, either way it is a unique moving book with universal appeal, revealing the common bond that unites mankind, over nearly a millenium and a few tens of thousands of miles, and succeeds in what it sets out to achieve, to show that uniformity and universality of humankind, something the author believes in himself. One word to describe it, BEAUTIFUL, that is what I felt after finishing it.

The world was multicultural before nation states, nationalism and the monomania that accompanied them. Very interesting view of how the world was before the Indian Ocean was militarized by Europeans.

What do Egypt and India have in common? They are both predominantly rural, poor countries where ordinary people hanker after the trappings of modernity yet live immersed in the myths and practices of age-old traditions. But they also share a rich history of trade and migration, especially belonging to the Middle Ages. Such are the two strands from which Amitav Ghosh has woven In an Antique Land.

Gosh, otherwise a novelist, spent a number of years in rural Egypt in the 1980s on a historical research trip. Since his training was in anthropology, he also made meticulous notes of his everyday environment. The result is a volume that is both travel and history writing, and both sociological and private testimony. Gosh gives us Egyptian village life in moving detail: its family clans, its festivals, its preoccupations with money, jobs, marriage. The writer was there, took the time to learn the dialect, befriended his hosts and took a genuine interest in their lives. And if he was a Hindu, this only made him an attraction among a friendly and curious public. His book shines with simple but quirky anecdotes, and with dialogues more telling than any long rendition. Meanwhile, in filigree, Gosh also unfolds the story of Abraham Ben Yiju, an eleventh-century Jewish merchant, and that of his slave and business associate from Mangalore. Ben Yiju's tale provides a certain symmetry to the author's, since, originally from North Africa, the medieval merchant lived for a long time on the Malabar coast. But it is also genuine, and Gosh takes his reader through the fascinating story of the Cairo Geniza, one of the largest troves of medieval manuscripts ever unearthed, once attached to a synagogue.

In an Antique Land is anything but opinionated. Its writing is full of reserve and gentle understanding, and nor does it condemn. Yet at the same time it is subtly subversive of certain historical commonplaces: about the contributions of Western discovery, trade, and modernity or about Jewish-Muslim antinomy, for example. The trade routes that freely joined the Mediterranean to India and beyond were destroyed by monopoly-seeking Europeans. Gosh shows us a lost world that peacefully spanned two civilizations across the Indian Ocean and, through his portrait of contemporary Egypt, he shows how it still resonates, or how its loss is still to be felt on either side. Perhaps this is not news for readers already versed into pre-modern world history. Yet even for the knowledgeable, this gem of a book is sure to be filled with discoveries.