Hasan

In this week’s blog Leo Africanus is the focus and the character Hasan is the subject. Through this section of the book we see his many travels as a trader. One part I wanted to highlight was the part when he arrives home to find that his father had passed away. After finding out about his father dying he proceeds on his travels, one place he goes is Tlemcen where he thinks Huran is at. The books follow him through his travels and at one point he stopped outside of Cairo. He could not proceed further without Nur with him so he waits for her. As he waits he sees that the ottoman patrol bring in a local governor from a local providence. They bring him there because he was not letting provisions in and such. This is interesting because the ottoman patrol decides that then and there they would hang the man. He was okay with them hanging and took it like a man. Only the rope broke three times on him. Until finally the rope did not break and he was publically hung by the ottoman patrol. Following that later in the book, Hasan is on the boat back to Tunis and as the garrison is inspecting the boat the a child runs off into the solider, as this happen Hasan stands up and helps the child out and the soldiers releases him, saying that his name is the same as his boy, who he hasn’t seen in months.
Interesting enough, this section sheds light on some similar life styles that we have today. Specifically how the soldier says that he has not seen his family in months. That is something that in common today. If you look at the war we are currently in, or conflict, soldiers of the United States are on tour of somewhere near a year, and only come home every couple months to see their family as well. I also found it interesting how they dealt with death. We talked about it on Wednesday session, but to see someone publicly killed is today is not norm. The norm today is death is supposed to be peaceful and private. If someone were killed today like a hanging in a town square, that would be seen as just wrong.
I would like to see the book go more in depth of how the ottoman soldiers were, were they strict or were they seeing it as a job? I am just curious because it seem pride in ones country back in the 15th and 16th century was the reason for die, unlike today it is fighting for pride, but money is still a big issue for signing up.