114 Adel Guindy, Hikayat al-Ihtilal , in translation,“Stories of the Occupation: Correcting Misunderstandings,” (Cairo: Middle East Freedom Forum, 2009), 17.
115 Philip Khuri Hitti, ed., The Origins of the Islamic State (New York: AMS Press, 1968), 340.
119 In contrast to modern interpretations that portray the European traveler as a prototypical “Orientalist” with an axe to grind against the “Other”—specifically non-whites and non-Christians—in fact, Polo occasionally portrayed the few Christians he encountered in a negative light (such as those of the island of Socotra) and frequently praised non-Christians, including Muslims. For example, he hails the Brahmins of India as being “most honorable,” possessing a “hatred for cheating or of taking the goods of other persons. They are likewise remarkable for the virtue of being satisfied with the possession of one wife.” He refers to one Muslim leader as governing “with justice” and another who “showed himself [to be] a very good lord, and made himself beloved by everybody.” William Marsden, trans., The Travels of Marco Polo (New York: The Modern Library, 2001), 298, 317, 332.
124 “Islamic Group Beheads Assyrian Priest, Crucifies 14 Year Old Boy in North Iraq,” Assyrian International News Agency, October 12, 2006, http://www.aina.org/news/20061012004656.htm .
155 Mary Abdelmassih, “Islamists Demand Placing Coptic Church Funds Under Egyptian State Control,” Assyrian International News Agency, August 31, 2012, http://www.aina.org/news/2012083019958.htm .