Alexander McCall Smith Quotes
I would certainly never consider myself a Renaissance Man; I'm not fit to look at the dust from the chariot wheels of many of those who have gone before me.
This was a radical speech for the time, suggesting reforms that had been unthinkable to most Turks. Although it is not prohibited by the Koran and early Islamic artists made some of the greatest paintings and depictions of people, fundamentalists gained control of Islam and interpreted any statue as an idol that could be worshipped and this generalized to Islamic art in general where people ceased to be depicted and even animal depictions were rare. Muslim art developed incredible geometric intricacy but tended not to depict anything that is real. This extended to photography and illustrations in books including textbooks. At the same time, not unlike some Christian and Jewish Fundamentalists, the Muslim fundamentalists opposed science and the teaching thereof on the grounds that all authentic knowledge was in the Koran and anything else was not only false but also heretical. So this speech was a type of “declaration of war” against the established religious order and culture.
Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British-Zimbabwean writer and Emeritus Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on British and international committees concerned with them. He has since become known as a writer of fiction, with sales of English-language versions exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages. He is widely known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. "McCall" forms part of his surname.
