HADO. Encounter with a Book. Globalisation; (cycle of things as part of an <instance> of life)

The recurrence of things in one’s life

Doha, Qatar, 07/06/2025

Just before leaving Hong Kong, without any particular reason, I simply felt to deepen more into a period of time I personally had thought to be an important historical juncture: 1500 – 1600. A collision of elements which would beget Globalization. The embrion. A point where the elements and impulse of Glabalisation would meet. A point which would make, what we call now Globalisation, inevitable. Not that such a thing was a sort of “Providentially “historic inevitability (progress); or something part of some “human nature” evolutionary necessity, at which humanity had to arrive. But simply a collision and a come-together of elements which create a phenomenon, an impulse, a force, which would start producing a series and concatenation of derivations / events leading to something we now see in shape and form (not necessarily the bottom).

1517, Red Sea: Portuguese – Ottomans

1498 Portugal arrived in the Indian Ocean. By 1504 the Portuguese were already plundering Muslim ships and blockaded the Red Sea. The entire spices world trade was disrupted in favour of the first European Power. Mamluks: the losing power, crushed between the Portuguese and the Ottomans. As the loss of the Red sea and the Indian sea diverted trade to Lisbon, instead of Alexandria.

1517 – Ottomans took Egypt from the Mamluks, as result of the internal revolts and struggles due to the economic crisis brought about by the Portuguese blockade in the Red Sea.

Juncture: The Ottomans in conquering Mamluk Egypt, as result of the economic crisis and the stagnation of the port of Alexandria, a consequence of the Portuguese dominance in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean; inherited by default the conflict with the Portuguese. Clashing with Europe in two fronts.

The centuries-long war in Europe between the Ottomans (the Muslim world) and the Europeans converged now at the other side of the continent: The Indian Ocean. With Egypt at its centre point. The war between the two continental powers got closed in a cycle, extending the conflict to the other side of the continent and dragging into it other nations and regions as India, the Persian Gulf, Indonesia, etc. The Portuguese as the spearhead for the rest of the European powers which were to follow, would expand at the same impulse and movement until Japan, The Philippines, China, etc. What would ultimately give give way to what we know now as Globalisation.

THE BOOK

After a few months, time zones and countries, we entered exactly when the Qatar’s International Book Fair was held. Of course, I wanted a local author for my read. I directly went to Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s Stand. We had already been there at the National Library. At first sight, I felt attracted to this particular book, from the fact that it had Portuguese sails on the cover page. After a close inspection, I read it was a fiction book written by Abdulaziz Al-Mahmoud. Exactly about this period of time.

The <coincidence> struck me indeed. And it is not that I would find in the book exactly what I had thought about this period of time; perhaps, indeed. But it is the fact of how certain things recur when there has been an intuition and an intention over that intuition. And action over that intuition. It is how things/knowledge and understanding expand, accumulate; changes of direction leads to places; it gives certain directions and influences one’s life. Or perhaps, it simply finds its conclusion.

But certainly, it is how one grows.

COINCIDENCE ???

Since 2019 I adopted the habit of having a daily dose of History every morning; together with my morning coffee. And sometimes during my daily ferry journey home (35 mins). And so it might have been following Mongol history or the Byzantines (I have no clear recollection), but around 2021, without any particular reason, but simply that curiosity and passion for a my favourite past-time: history, I came across the battles of the early Muslim expansion, and so I simply follow the trend which was stretching in that way. I rarely choose what to study in a deliberate manner or as a matter or popular trend or media-dominated themes. Best things in life tend to apparently approach you by themselves; they come as if by chance, as if rolling into one’s path. What you actually would do with that <chance>, that is something else; that is already your choice.

And so the expansion and deepening on some topics which had approached, appeared and came; starts being as how Aristotle said: once you put something on the thing, from that it follows a sequence of derivations and ………… They are the result of a cumulative sequence of going /looking/ pursuing certain direction or impulse. And so does history too. And so inevitably one goes in the flow of events. And in so following the Medieval clash of the Persians, the Romans and Islam, one inevitably comes to Seljuks and thus the Ottomans and………….

• I did not know by then, that my next exploration would be the Middle East, as I had never been interested in it. Not even when living in Hong Kong and having many students from here.

• I did not know that I was going to forge friendships in here. That I would meet people with who we would discuss, talk, exchange ideas and valuable time and found a mutual understanding based on that previous knowledge I acquired without any particular reason, but simply the love to know and the passion for history.
• I did not know I was developing an understanding and a capacity to respect people different, and similar at the same time to me.
• (to my new good friends in Doha, who I met at the book fair. A spiritually and intellectually enriching encounter)

But,

Was I attracting something or Something pointing out something

• <Law of attraction>, some may call it:

but certainly the law of attraction has always had little to do with “deliberately wanting to attract something in particular into one’s life” (as if being “owner of one’s own ………”; or praying for something), so there one might see the poor soul trying to put himself on good behavior or arranging things in his life only for the sake of attracting that, what he wishes (oft-times oblivious of the origin of the “wish” itself).

But deliberations have almost nothing to do with <attracting or repelling> this or that. This process usually passes inadvertently and rather unconsciously through one’s mind/self. But usually known, a-posteriori, by the concrete results and products of this unconscious process in one’s existence. And from these (the results/events) usually by the apparently negative ones: the ones one did not desired.

• <Fate>: some others might claim:

but this is a much larger and general conception in which one’s existence may be enclosed. Even though, there are indeed shorter, specific episodes / <instant> in one’s existence, which show and indicate certain traits or points where some past and present actions meet in an apparent coincidental conscious similarity. A point in the present where you can see the clear convergence of a past (recent past) event, trend, pattern, joining this present <instant> of time. So to make the entire present juncture a significant or meaningful fateful <instance>. Clearer still, if this present instance of convergence is far away in space (a different region or culture) from where the previous events started and took place, but still the same code clearly recurs.

But, not dwelling in categorizations or boxes, let us just say that:

certain events, similar in nature and contents, but separated in time and oft-times in space, bringing a recurrent theme or content, so to make it obvious to the conscious and thus oddly significant; might indeed bring something meaningful to one’s life.