Are the Calormenes metaphorical?

So, I "minimized evil" because I pointed out that the Calormene faith is definitely not the Muslim faith, even though there are other similarities? Interesting. The Calormenes are polytheists and thus they can't be Muslims. That has nothing to do with good or evil.
 
That's interesting, MrBob. I'd not made that connection, but it's quite reasonable - that Calormen would be sort of a synthesis of Hindu idols and something-like-Ottoman culture. Tash clearly resembles some of the more gruesome figures from the Indian subcontinent and Indochina.

I think it's clear that the spirit animating Calormen was parallel to the spirit animating modern Islamism - i.e. that of antichrist. Notice that the Calormenes speak of Aslan as a demon in the form of a lion. They're denying His incarnation as a beast (something Aslan explicitly reaffirms to Bree at the Hermit's house). This is very much like how the Muslims deny Jesus' suffering and death, and is precisely the definition of the spirit of antichrist as defined in 2 John 1:7. But it is true that the externals of the Calormen religion don't square with the externals of Islam.
 
Tear of the Lion, my comments are not directed at you. I thought I made that clear. But I will say that, as POTW points out, the Calormenes can still represent the spirit of Islam. By your argument I could say Aslan cannot represent Chirst because Aslan is an animal...or a great many other number of arguments. At any rate, I don't want to bear the responsibility for getting this board off topic, as that is a huge NO-NO. Most of my frustrations I vented had nothing to do with members or their posts, but the great posts I read merely brought things to mind.
 
Hmm, I'd not thought of the possibility of an Indian origin for the Calormenes before - but actually now you mention it it makes a lot of sense. The pluralist idea (Tash and Aslan are the same) sits much better within Hinduism than Islam too.

Do we all assume that the Calormenes arrived in the Narnian world from our world in the same way as the first Narnians and the first Telmarines did? I ask because the (much disputed) timeline of Narnian history says that the Calormenes originated from Archenlanders. That strikes me as unlikely, given the racial differences, but I wondered where people think the Calormenes may have come from, and when.

Peeps
 
... Tash clearly resembles some of the more gruesome figures from the Indian subcontinent and Indochina.

Here is a frieze of an Assyrian god with the head and wings of a bird (I have seen one just like this in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art). Shades of Tash!

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So, I "minimized evil" because I pointed out that the Calormene faith is definitely not the Muslim faith, even though there are other similarities? Interesting. The Calormenes are polytheists and thus they can't be Muslims. That has nothing to do with good or evil.

I recently read The Song of Roland for the first time, and I wonder now whether Lewis could have developed Tash from how Islam is (inaccurately) depicted in some medieval sources. Lewis, of course, would have known that they were incorrect, but there could be a literary connection regardless. Muslims in Roland are supposed to worship three Gods--Muhammed, Termagant, and Apollo--and practice black magic. While the Telmarine religion doesn't follow this structure exactly, considering Lewis's scholarly interests, I think there may be some connection. Possibly with Victorian depictions of the Ottoman empire as well--but either connection seems like it is too distant to prove that Lewis was intentionally trying to demonize Islam as such.

The Calormenes seem to have a relatively traditional pantheon of gods with one supreme god, and Lewis would have known perfectly well that their religion was very different from Islam. It seems more like the Calormenes were based on a mishmash of cultures from the Middle East and possibly India. The idea of an Assyrian connection is interesting, Benisse--that photograph does look almost exactly like Tash is depicted in the books.
 
Interesting theory, Glenburne -- Lewis borrowed freely from world mythology and legends, so such medieval perceptions could well have been another source for constructing the world of Calormen.
 
They are certainly-at the same time they aren't an exact copy. They have at least three gods, and have a very dry culture-very much how GK Chesterton imagined the Carthaginians.

They are a mixture of Carthage, Caliphate era Islam, maybe Mughal India and so on.

I think the Calormenes were supposed to be renegade Archenlanders. IIRC.
 
Admittedly though, they do at least make storytelling am academic subject. That's a point in their favor. I always remember Lewis's comment about how everyone in Calormen wanted to hear students' stories, while no one in England wanted to read students' essays.
 
What we need to constantly remind ourselves is that Lewis was not writing allegory in the strictest sense of the word. There is no simple correspondence between things in the Narnian world and our world. Narnia and Archenland are not meant to 'represent' medieval Europe, nor does Calormen 'represent' the medieval Islamic Empire. They are unique creations that only represent themselves. In HHB for example Narnia is contrasted with Calormen in that in Narnia 'no maiden is compelled to marry against her will.' But such practices were common in medieval Europe and continued right up to the Victorian age. Lewis is not trying to whitewash the past as some have claimed because Narnia was never intended to represent anything in our world, Rather it is his vision of what an ideal Christian (or its otherworldly equivalent) society might be like.

That does not mean of course that we can't look for influences but these will not be simple and straightforward. Narnia obviously has a culture based in part on medieval Europe but there are all sorts of elements from different mythologies. Calormen is a veritable hodgepodge of different influences: the Arabian Nights of course but there are also Hindu, Babylonian and others in the mix. There are also more modern influences, for example the word Tisroc and the phrase 'may he live forever' which some claim is based on the phrase 'peace be upon him' that Muslims use when referring to their prophet, is actually 'borrowed' from E. Nesbit's book The Amulet, in which a group of English children discover a magical amulet that transports them back in time to ancient Babylonia. The king of Babylon is called the Nisroc and his subjects say 'may he live forever' when referring to him
 
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What we need to constantly remind ourselves is that Lewis was not writing allegory in the strictest sense of the word. There is no simple correspondence between things in the Narnian world and our world. Narnia and Archenland are not meant to 'represent' medieval Europe, nor does Calormen 'represent' the medieval Islamic Empire. They are unique creations that only represent themselves. In HHB for example Narnia is contrasted with Calormen in that in Narnia 'no maiden is compelled to marry against her will.' But such practices were common in medieval Europe and continued right up to the Victorian age. Lewis is not trying to whitewash the past as some have claimed because Narnia was never intended to represent anything in our world, Rather it is his vision of what an ideal Christian (or its otherworldly equivalent) society might be like.


Well said!

Anyone poking around in the TDL archives should be able to find the link to my own fanfic novel of the early Narnian world. There I offer my own concept of how Calormenes might have come to be.

Meanwhile, in the real world, though Christian-based civilization took a long time to renounce forced marriage, the ISLAMIC world still routinely practices it RIGHT NOW.
 
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Thanks Hermit for your insights.
(Plus you referenced ♥E. Nesbit♥ in your post!
I love her children's novels especially her fantasies and tales of faerie -- as apparently Lewis did too, since he referenced her Treasure Seekers at the beginning of Magician's Nephew)
 
Thanks Hermit for your insights.
(Plus you referenced ♥E. Nesbit♥ in your post!
I love her children's novels especially her fantasies and tales of faerie -- as apparently Lewis did too, since he referenced her Treasure Seekers at the beginning of Magician's Nephew)

I love Nesbit's books too. Actually the book I referred to was actually called The Story of the Amulet, rather than just The Amulet. Sorry about that!
I still vividly remember a BBC production of The Phoenix and the Carpet, shown on Sunday teatime when I was a child. Sadly, the BBC doesn't seem to do that sort of production anymore.

To get back on topic, I don't think the accusations of racism against Lewis will stop any time soon. Frankly I'm sceptical that some of the people making such a claim even believe it themselves, but as one of the best known Christian apologists of recent times Lewis is too tempting a target to resist
 
This is a good place to repeat something I have said elsewhere.

Before Mister Lewis ever invented the Calormene aggressors as bad guys, he FIRST invented the Telmarines, many of whom were evil, as WHITE people. This is enough, all by itself, to expose the charges of racism as the malicious lies they are.
 
Lest we not forget that Jadis was the most evil and it didn't sound like the rest of her family by her generation were exactly on the good side, she was merely more evil than they were based on the reactions of Digory and Polly to the statues in Charn. The statues started out nice, but got more stern, arrogant, and cruel as the pair walked down the hall.

MrBob
 
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