MJJG 24-33 -

[Becky Lindroos]

Thank you, Raphael.  I checked some more too.  And I found the footnote on page (ta-da) 15 of the Kindle.  It makes sense now - or at least some.  

It looks to me like Reed might have been around some people who did read the Koran in English/Arabic form - notably Muhammed Ali (?) and Marvin X (old Black Panther current writer, poet). And Reed wrote the newish biography of Muhammed Ali (2015).  
  
https://blackbirdpressnews.blogspot.com/2015/06/marvin-x-interviewed-by-ishmael-reed.html

“In America, this literary tradition continued under the wretched conditions of slavery with the English/Arabic narratives of Ayub Suleimon Diallo, Ibrahima Abdulrahman Jallo, Bilali Mohammad, Salih Bilali, Umar Ibn Said. (Note:There is some suggestion that David Walker, Frederick Douglas, Booker T. Washington and Benjamin Banneker may have  been descendants of Muslims.) In 1913, Noble Drew Ali, established his Moorish Science Temple in Newark, New Jersey, later Chicago, and created his Seven Circle Koran, a synthesis of Qur’anic, Masonic, mystical and esoteric writings. 

> 3) by linking the Mu’tafikah with the Sodomites and Gomorreans (?) and both with the Bohemians, is he disparaging them? Or - since he seems to be sympathetic - is condemnation of the “cities of the plain” not part of his program?

No - not to me.  Not in 1972 (1920) . I can’t imagine that Reed would be sympathetic to the Mu’tafikah or the Bohemians  while getting all judgmental about their sexuality. 

Becky 


> On Nov 23, 2020, at 12:02 AM, Raphael Saltwood <PlainMrBotanyB at outlook.com> wrote:
> 
> The Nook book has a footnote on pg 15
> 
> “Mu’tafikah - According to the Koran, inhabitants of the ruined cities where Lot’s people had lived. I call the inhabitants “Mu’tafikah” because just as the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah
> 
> were the Bohemians of their day, Berbelang and his gang are the Bohemians of the 1920s Manhattan.”
> 
> 
> While the serendipitous sound of the word didn’t make it *less​* likely for him to use, he didn’t make it up:
> 
> https://books.google.com/books?id=t-bBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PR13&lpg=PR13&dq=meaning+of+tafikah+arabic&source=bl&ots=I3DQtM7CWD&sig=ACfU3U0old7s2N0CfjKRfVrY1NpXAxd3Zg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjRmP-j-ZftAhXXTTABHfOpACcQ6AEwDnoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=meaning%20of%20tafikah%20arabic&f=false
> 
> “Al Mu’tafikah” - overthrown cities
> 
> 
> This prompts a slew of questions:
> 
> 1) how interested was Mr Reed in the Koran - enough to read it in Arabic? Big dialogue coming up at the rent party including Koran commentary.
> 
> 2) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lot_in_Islam
> 
> Slightly different take as noted in article.
> 
> 3) by linking the Mu’tafikah with the Sodomites and Gomorreans (?) and both with the Bohemians, is he disparaging them? Or - since he seems to be sympathetic - is condemnation of the “cities of the plain” not part of his program?
> 
> 
> Spoiler alert - sort of - in MJ,
> 
> It’s probably important that
> 
> monotheism is (like the excluded middle) bad sh*t
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Becky wrote:
> 
> In the book, Berbalang is the head of the “Mu’tafikah”which is busily trying to liberate cultural artifacts from museums and centres of “Art Detention” in order to return them to their originating cultures.
> 
> Best I can think is that Mu’tafikah is a slang deterioration of “mutha-f’ker.”
> 
> Apparently within Mu’tafikah, Berbelang represents the Black race, Thor Wintergreen represents the White race , Yellow Jack is a Chinese American and Jose Fuentes is a Mayan seaman.  They are all part of Mu’tafikah.  (More references are coming up.)
> 
> Becky
> 
> 
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