A Closer Acquaintance with Cairo
In his surviving letters to his brother Richard and his close friends, he wrote with warm intimacy and trusting candor, but near the end of his life Lane retrieved and destroyed as many of his letters from Egypt as he could, and none remain from the 1820s. What remains are mostly scattered notebook references and sketches, the material for his books, Description of Egypt and Modern Egyptians, the latter deriving as much from Lane's first trip to Egypt as his second one, and the notes to the Arabian Nights. These sources are usually insufficient to construct a chronological narrative. The biographer's task is like reconstructing a mosaic where most of the tesserae have been shattered or lost, trying to put the remaining pieces in their right relationship so some of the overall patterns will appear.
Until recently, Copts had been subject to humiliating restrictions, but these had been lightened to Muhammad Ali, to the resentment of many Muslims, who envied them for their exemption from conscription.
Lane could have passed as a Muslim in an unclothed state, since, as we happen to know from a chance remark he made years later, he had himself circumcised. Lane made no mention of it in his notes or published writings so we cannot be sure exactly when he underwent that operation, but apparently it was when he was an adult and for the specific purpose of fitting into Egyptian life.
Lane insisted that they treat him as a Muslim. So much so, that he would pray with them in the Mosques and avow his own inherited Christian beliefs about Jesus and the Virgin Mary. The ethics of this are questionable. Said criticizes him as downplaying his own apostasy and heresy in the effort to appear convincing before his English readers. [How often do we all do this in our lives? Is this fair?]
Jinn, superstitions and Islam. Abu-l-Qasim's story of the Persian, living in India, who was seeing a woman at night only to discover that she was a jinn, when she appeared before in one night in a different form.