Dune: Fedaykin
Matt Philips
What is the nature of the Fedaykin? What size were they originally, did
they grow, if so, to what size? Hiring policy, duties, etc.? How many were
there at the time of their disbanding in _Children_?
Please, textual support only.
Larry Caldwell
In article <01bc3283$e9474d40$ab9e...@mphilips2.student.princeton.edu>,
"Matt Philips" <mphi...@princeton.edu> wrote:
> What is the nature of the Fedaykin? What size were they originally, did
> they grow, if so, to what size? Hiring policy, duties, etc.? How many were
> there at the time of their disbanding in _Children_?
Are you not aware that the Fedayeen are a real organization in the Islamic
world? If you want their original size, check a history book or write
to Yasser Arafat.
They are not "hired."
> Please, textual support only.
Try a newspaper sometime.
-- Larry
Class of 96
Mr. Caldwell:
As Mr. Philips' post states in the title and speaks of in the body is
Frank Herbert's _Dune_, not anything to do with the actual
Fedayeen. The two newsgroups to which he posted furthers the point of
referring to _Dune_ and not any current organization.
I take issue with your "holier than thou" attitude, when you are
clearly not paying attention to the data available before making your
off-topic reply.
Christian
Larry Caldwell (lar...@teleport.com) wrote:
: In article <01bc3283$e9474d40$ab9e...@mphilips2.student.princeton.edu>,
Bob Goudreau
Larry Caldwell (lar...@teleport.com) wrote:
: In article <01bc3283$e9474d40$ab9e...@mphilips2.student.princeton.edu>,
: "Matt Philips" <mphi...@princeton.edu> wrote:
: > What is the nature of the Fedaykin? What size were they originally, did
: > they grow, if so, to what size? Hiring policy, duties, etc.? How many were
: > there at the time of their disbanding in _Children_?
: Are you not aware that the Fedayeen are a real organization in the Islamic
: world? If you want their original size, check a history book or write
: to Yasser Arafat.
: They are not "hired."
:
: > Please, textual support only.
: Try a newspaper sometime.
Larry, how about answering him instead of insulting him? I happen to
read newspapers extensively, and I also read the _Economist_ magazine
for much better coverage of world events (including the Islamic world)
than US newspapers typically provide. But I must confess that I've
never come across the term "Fedayeen", and I would appreciate an
explanation of who they are, and what Yasser Arafat (who is primarily
a secular political leader, not an Islamic religious leader, BTW) has
to do with them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Goudreau Data General Corporation
goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com 62 Alexander Drive
+1 919 248 6231 Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, USA
Joseph Askew
Bob Goudreau (goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com) wrote:
: Larry, how about answering him instead of insulting him? I happen to
: read newspapers extensively, and I also read the _Economist_ magazine
: for much better coverage of world events (including the Islamic world)
: than US newspapers typically provide. But I must confess that I've
: never come across the term "Fedayeen", and I would appreciate an
: explanation of who they are, and what Yasser Arafat (who is primarily
: a secular political leader, not an Islamic religious leader, BTW) has
: to do with them.
Fedayeen is an Islamic term that means someone who fights for the
Faith. Try translating it as Crusader if you like. Any number of
groups use the term. It is the formal name of the more leftist of
the two main opposition groups in Iran. They are pretty much all
dead now I believe. The other still lives on and uses the closely
related word "Mudjahedin". The original groups of Palestinians who
used to cross back over the Israeli border after they had been
ethnically cleansed in 1948 used the word to describe themselves.
Islamic politics failed in 1948 and haven't done well since (until
1979 at least) so the Palestinian groups that emerged after 1967
use secular terms for themselves. Especially as some of the main
groups are led by Christians (such as George Habash and the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine). Yassir Arafat on the other
hand started off as a member of the Islamic brotherhood as a young
student in Cairo. Only later did he discover secular politics. Which
doesn't mean he isn't also an Islamic leader when he wants to be.
Transliterations from Arabic or Farsi are notoriously difficult but
if you want to look the two Iranian groups up they are usually spelled
Fadayan-i Khalq (a Marxist group with Islamic over tones) and
Mujahedin-i Khalq (an Islamic group with Marxist over tones - where
but Iran could you get two opposition groups that happen to be both
Islamic and Marxist?)
Joseph
--
"Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall inherit the Earth"
- President Bill Clinton
Larry Caldwell
In article <5gp7oh$l...@dg-rtp.dg.com>,
goud...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Bob Goudreau) wrote:
> Larry, how about answering him instead of insulting him? I happen to
> read newspapers extensively, and I also read the _Economist_ magazine
> for much better coverage of world events (including the Islamic world)
> than US newspapers typically provide. But I must confess that I've
> never come across the term "Fedayeen", and I would appreciate an
> explanation of who they are, and what Yasser Arafat (who is primarily
> a secular political leader, not an Islamic religious leader, BTW) has
> to do with them.
Ok. Pull out the dictionary.
Fedayee n. pl. -yeen An Arab commando operating especially against
Israel. [Arabic _fedayun_ < fidayi, one who sacrifices himself for
his country < fidda, redemption.]
Fedayeen are holy warriors of god. There are PLO Fedayeen, Jordanian
Fedayeen, etc. A question like, "How are they hired," completely
misses the significance. The Fedaykin in Dune followed Paul because
he was The Prophet. In any Jihad (holy war) the Fedayeen are in the
forefront, eager to kill and willing to die if they have to. Death
in Jihad is a guarantee of paradise.
I have no idea how you missed the term, since it is common in both
print and on the evening news. Arafat's credibility as a world
leader depends much on his ability to control the Fedayeen in the
PLO. However, my suggestion to ask Yasser Arafat how many Fedayeen
there are was a joke. There are as many as you see. Fedayeen are
not recruited or hired, they are called by god.
-- Larry
Matt Philips
Okay, allow me to rephrase my original question:
What is the organization structure of the Fedaykin as set by Frank Herbert
in the _Dune_ chronicles? What are the group's operating procedures? What
was their original size, their mazimum size, and the size at the time of
the group's disbandment by Alia? Specifically, were the original men
choosen to be in the group the only members? Or were their ranks
replentished from time to time?
Any textual support from the books (DE is considered useful but not
authoritative) is much appreciated.
I am NOT looking for any modern day associations beyond the entomology
already provided to us by Mr. Caldwell (and others who seem more accurate
and less sarcastic).
Larry Caldwell
In article <5gp55c$bsf$1...@cnn.Princeton.EDU>,
cla...@flagstaff.Princeton.EDU (Class of 96) wrote:
> As Mr. Philips' post states in the title and speaks of in the body is
> Frank Herbert's _Dune_, not anything to do with the actual
> Fedayeen. The two newsgroups to which he posted furthers the point of
> referring to _Dune_ and not any current organization.
Mr. Philips also obviously wants references outside of Dune, since the
dearth of references is Dune.* is not good enough for him. Frank Herbert
didn't make this stuff up, you know. He based Dune on existing history
and cultures.
> I take issue with your "holier than thou" attitude, when you are
> clearly not paying attention to the data available before making your
> off-topic reply.
If the topic is myopia, you are right on target. Sorry, intentional
ignorance is not my style. Was that an apology? Let me rephrase that:
I'm sorry you're an idiot.
-- Larry
Bob Goudreau
lar...@teleport.com (Larry Caldwell) wrote:
: > Larry, how about answering him instead of insulting him? I happen to
: > read newspapers extensively, and I also read the _Economist_ magazine
: > for much better coverage of world events (including the Islamic world)
: > than US newspapers typically provide. But I must confess that I've
: > never come across the term "Fedayeen", and I would appreciate an
: > explanation of who they are, and what Yasser Arafat (who is primarily
: > a secular political leader, not an Islamic religious leader, BTW) has
: > to do with them.
:
: Ok. Pull out the dictionary.
:
: Fedayee n. pl. -yeen An Arab commando operating especially against
: Israel. [Arabic _fedayun_ < fidayi, one who sacrifices himself for
: his country < fidda, redemption.]
Well, it's nice that your dictionary covers this. Please don't assume
that the rest of us are being lazy in asking you to define the term; my
rather massive Random House Dictionary of the English Language has
no such entry.
: Fedayeen are holy warriors of god. There are PLO Fedayeen, Jordanian
: Fedayeen, etc. A question like, "How are they hired," completely
: misses the significance. The Fedaykin in Dune followed Paul because
: he was The Prophet. In any Jihad (holy war) the Fedayeen are in the
: forefront, eager to kill and willing to die if they have to. Death
: in Jihad is a guarantee of paradise.
Thanks for the definition. With regard to the Jihad reference, what
is the distinction between Fedayeen and Mujahideen?
: I have no idea how you missed the term, since it is common in both
: print and on the evening news.
Your continued assertions that this is the case do not make it true.
I certainly don't agree that this word is common in mainstream English
language print media or TV news, in the US at least. "Islam", yes;
"jihad", yes; "mujahideen" even, yes -- but no, one doesn't often
stumble over the word "Fedayeen". I don't have a subscription to
Nexis, but compare the results of the following word searches in Alta
Vista:
Arafat 19082 references
Jihad 8894 references
Mujahideen 1020 references
Goudreau 780 references
Mujahidin 156 references
Fedayeen 46 references
Fedayin 5 references
"Fedayeen"/"Fedayin" simply doesn't seem to appear as often as you
imply.
Tamer A. Abdelgawad
In article <ZKcGz0O5...@teleport.com>,
Larry Caldwell <lar...@teleport.com> wrote:
>Ok. Pull out the dictionary.
>
>Fedayee n. pl. -yeen An Arab commando operating especially against
>Israel. [Arabic _fedayun_ < fidayi, one who sacrifices himself for
>his country < fidda, redemption.]
>
>Fedayeen are holy warriors of god. There are PLO Fedayeen, Jordanian
[snip...]
A quick correction. As can be seen from the dictionary definition, the
word "fedayeen" has nothing to do with god. It evolved as a description
of the (initially) secular Arab comandos. Anyone who sacrifices
themselves for their country can be called a "fedayi" regardless of
religious affiliation. The word hasn't seen much use lately because the
Arab armed resistence movement has become almost exclusively of a
religious nature, for which the word "mujahedeen" is more appropriate
since it refers to "jihad" or holy war. I hope this clarifies any
confusion.
BTW, if memory serves, many of the made-up words that Herbert used in
Dune were Arabic or directly derived from Arabic. I suppose it's
reasonable with the desert planet setting and all.
>
>-- Larry
--
Tamer Abdelgawad <ab...@troi.cc.rochester.edu>
Laura Barnes
Tamer A. Abdelgawad wrote:
> BTW, if memory serves, many of the made-up words that Herbert used in
> Dune were Arabic or directly derived from Arabic. I suppose it's
> reasonable with the desert planet setting and all.
Did Herbert borrow from other sources too? For instance, the nervous
system control practiced by the BG called "prana-bindu" if memory
serves seems to come from Hindi. Pran and bindu are upper and lower
energy in Hindi, practiced by Yogis to maintain control of their
nervous systems (if memory serves).
-=Owen=-
Paul Atreides
On this thread many people are calling everything "borrowed" but in my
opinion this is how Herbert would want us to see the future. We all
know that over the past few thousand years, history has become lost
and distorted. I imagine quite a few words we use today has deviated
from it's original meaning. Imagine many thousands of years into the
future to Arrakis' time. I think Herbert did a great thing by using
words that mean simular things but are not exactly the same. One of
the points of Dune that always facinated me was the O.C. bible, look
how the religions became distorted(with help from the Missionara
Protectiva, perhaps). With the way that some of these threads argue
over the meaning of Fedaykin(or whatever it's orginal spelling is
today) it appears to me this word IS on it's way to be "distorted" :)
---------------
Stephan Krause
us...@usul.net
Usul's Homepage: http://www.usul.net
---------------
Keep Dune alive, protect the spice, protect the Mahdi!
Erich Schneider
Laura Barnes <lba...@bsw.infi.net> writes:
> Did Herbert borrow from other sources too? For instance, the nervous
> system control practiced by the BG called "prana-bindu" if memory
> serves seems to come from Hindi. Pran and bindu are upper and lower
> energy in Hindi, practiced by Yogis to maintain control of their
> nervous systems (if memory serves).
They may indeed be words in Hindi, but most terms relating to yoga are
Sanskrit in origin. "Prana" is the "positive" energy drawn into the
body through breath (it has a complementary "negative" energy called
"apana"). "Bindu" means "point" and is used to refer to "one-pointed
concentration".
--
Erich Schneider er...@bush.cs.tamu.edu http://bush.cs.tamu.edu/~erich
Laura Barnes
Erich Schneider wrote:
>
> Laura Barnes <lba...@bsw.infi.net> writes:
>
> > Did Herbert borrow from other sources too? For instance, the nervous
> > system control practiced by the BG called "prana-bindu" if memory
> > serves seems to come from Hindi. Pran and bindu are upper and lower
> > energy in Hindi, practiced by Yogis to maintain control of their
> > nervous systems (if memory serves).
>
> They may indeed be words in Hindi, but most terms relating to yoga are
> Sanskrit in origin. "Prana" is the "positive" energy drawn into the
> body through breath (it has a complementary "negative" energy called
> "apana"). "Bindu" means "point" and is used to refer to "one-pointed
> concentration".
Okay, so he borrowed from sanskrit right? Isn't that the ancient
language of India? Is it also an ancient language of the middle
east? Also, doesn't this mean that some of the things that the BG
did (nervous system control) are practiced even today by holy men?
-=Owen=-
F.A. Qureshi
In article <ZKcGz0O5...@teleport.com>,
lar...@teleport.com (Larry Caldwell) wrote:
>Fedayee n. pl. -yeen An Arab commando operating especially against
>Israel. [Arabic _fedayun_ < fidayi, one who sacrifices himself for
>his country < fidda, redemption.]
>
>Fedayeen are holy warriors of god. There are PLO Fedayeen, Jordanian
>Fedayeen, etc. A question like, "How are they hired," completely
>misses the significance. The Fedaykin in Dune followed Paul because
>he was The Prophet. In any Jihad (holy war) the Fedayeen are in the
>forefront, eager to kill and willing to die if they have to. Death
>in Jihad is a guarantee of paradise.
I think Herbert's prime reference may have been more the legend of Hassan I.
Sabbah (or the old Man of the Mountain) and his team of assasins, the
Feyd-a-kee, a offshot from the Shia branch of Islam.
According to popular legend (that was perpetuated by Edward Fitzgerald in the
introduction to his 'translation' of the works of Omar Khayyam), Hassan
Sabbah, sick of the decadent behaviour of the Sunni princes of the arab
penisula, decided to create a team of fanatical followers whose main hideout
was in the castle of Mahout in Persia (now Iran).
There these assasins were treated with Hashish and women and made to belive
that they were living in Paradise until Sabbah called them up and asked them
to assasinate another arab prince to gurantee their stay in Paradise. This
they did with almost fanatical devotion.
This is a re-telling of some romantic European legend (from memory). There is
a book called The Assasins (the author I forgot but it was published by
Al-Khalifa in London) which explored the historical basis behind the legend
of the Feyd-a-kee. If anyone saw Terry Jones excellent BBC1 series on The
Crusades, they tried to dispell some of the myths behind this group and
also had interviews with some of Sabbah's descendents.
>I have no idea how you missed the term, since it is common in both
>print and on the evening news. Arafat's credibility as a world
>leader depends much on his ability to control the Fedayeen in the
>PLO. However, my suggestion to ask Yasser Arafat how many Fedayeen
>there are was a joke. There are as many as you see. Fedayeen are
>not recruited or hired, they are called by god.
OT: Arafat's credability (who is not very popular with Palistinian's I know)
is increasing now that Israel has started it's policy on building settlements
in the occupied terrortory. In the past, Arafat has always had some trouble
controlling the 'extremist' movement inside the main Palistinian organisation
(as will happen in all rebel organisation, i.e. A friend of mine fought in
the war in Nigeria and some of the stories he tells would crack a normal
naive view of what humans can be capable off under extreme pressure, Zaire is
probably showing the same as well), but blame also has to be appropraiated to
Israel for doing a U-Turn in the peace process in the region (a discussion
that is very OT on this newsgroup).
Suffice to say that the issue of extremist's dissatisfaction with their
victory was quite well explored in Dune Messiah.
(oh yeah Larry, thanks for your reply to my query a couple of months ago,
I've been a bit busy and never had time to properly thank you).
Faisal A. Qureshi
Troy N. Terry
Laura Barnes wrote:
>
> Tamer A. Abdelgawad wrote:
> > BTW, if memory serves, many of the made-up words that Herbert used in
> > Dune were Arabic or directly derived from Arabic. I suppose it's
> > reasonable with the desert planet setting and all.
>
> system control practiced by the BG called "prana-bindu" if memory
"Pay no attention to them. They like to call out random
phrases in Italo-Arabic from time to time."
-- From Doon, by Ellis Weiner.
Pax,
T. Terry