Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Benjamin of Tudela at Baghdad Reading
Benjamin is very biased towards the Muslims and his view point cannot be taken seriously. He often describes the power that the leaders of the Muslim religions have and when he talks about others he almost condescends them.he describes the caliph as a benevolent man even though he has not met every all of them and therefore he is making judgements on stuff he doesn't have any idea on. He clearly favors Baghdad describing it as an almost heaven like land that cannot be found anywhere in the whole land of Mesopotamia. He also says wise men live there, and this clearly isn't factual and just another judgment he makes that has no evidence.
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What is it about Benjamin's background that would account for this bias about Baghdad? He is describing only one caliph, not all, so why would you assume that this caliph can't be a good leader? You point to areas of his bias, but you need to have reasons behind that bias...you assert that there can be no wise men living in the city, why do you think that there can be no wise men living in Baghdad? You also omit his description of Constantinople as a comparative point, which weakens your assertions.
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