Samuel Huntington didn't say anything new, even though it was something mistaken. When he warned there would be a "clash of civilizations" there was an older prejudice behind his assumption. And perhaps too, a more ancient obsession.

I'll quote a dialogue from a novel written by a mysterious writer named Kurban Said, a work published in 1937 in Vienna and enthusiastically received. Here is told of how a young Muslim man of noble birt