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Muslim Reformist Action in Nineteenth-century Tunisia

This article revisits the origins of the Islamic reformist movement that arose in response to the challenges presented by western civilization in the nineteenth century. Tunisia was chosen because the spirit of reform manifested itself in the form of intellectual activity and socio-political action. The article highlights the features of the Tunisian experience before the French occupation in 1881, reveals the cooperation and complementary relationship between religious scholars and statesmen that gave the reform efforts their substance and form, and discusses the dynamic of the forces that were in play and helped determine the attempted reforms’ fate. 

• Mohamed ElTahir ElMesawi

The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan

Steven Salaita, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006. 234 pages.

In The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan, Steven Salaita explores not just similar, but identical aspects of settler colonialism in the New World and the Holy Land. Indeed, on both continents ethnocentric colonial discourse forged the “noble savage” and “chosen people” dichotomy. On this basis, the author compellingly argues that the United States and Israel are not merely bound politically and strategically, but also historically and philosophically: both have transformed theological narratives into national histories. In this groundbreaking comparative analysis of the Holy Land pathos (labeled “pernicious mythology” and “messianic extremism”) across national boundaries, Salaita explicates theManifest Destiny process of “wresting Edenic land from savages in the name of prophesy and progress” (p. 119).

• Steven Salaita

Freedom and Orthodoxy: Islam and Difference in the Post-Andalusian Age

Anouar Majid, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004. 270 pages.

Freedom and Orthodoxy is a brilliant apology for dismantling the hegemonic and false pretensions of western universalisms in favor of a world in which local groups (e.g., religious communities, regions, and nations) are allowed to construe their own strategies for cultural, political, and economic flourishing. A Moroccan intellectual teaching in the United States (chair of the Department of English, University of New England) and a leading young cultural critic who writes in a lucid and often elegant English prose, Anouar Majid’s French cultural background also shines through, judging by his abundant use of French sources (though not one in Arabic).

Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society

Yossef Rapoport, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 137 pages.

Through a very meticulous reading in numerous Arabic sources, Yossef Rapoport, author of Marriage, Money, and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society, challenges the commonplace assumption that women in medieval Arabic society were subordinated to male domination. Drawing from the rich Arabic literature written during the Mamluk period (1250-1517), he not only skillfully depicts marital life in Cairo, Damascus, and Jerusalem, but also reveals novel facts that might undermine common stereotypes of women in medieval Islamic society. For example, not only was there a high rate (about 30 percent) of divorce in these three Mamluk urban societies, but women were also single-handedly capable of providing for themselves and their children. Elite women were economically independent, thanks to the generous dowries they received upon marriage, while lower-class women worked for their living, particularly in the textile industry. True, “repudiation” (talaq) was a unilateral privilege reserved for the husband only; however, there were many cases of consensual separation (khul`).

• Yossef Rapoport

The Role of Popular Muslim Movements in the Indian Freedom Struggle

We all know the old adage that “history belongs to the victors.” In the case of Muslim India, this is reflected in the historical accounts ofMuslim South Asia’s decline during the eighteenth century and its final defeat in 1857. Written mainly by European and Hindu historians who often had no contacts beyond the Mughal court’s outer fringes, they could hardly be expected to present theMuslim interpretation of events. Closer to our own time, the success of M. K. Gandhi’s (1869-1948) non-violent mass movement, which finally forced the British out of India, has overshadowed earlier Muslim efforts to obtain the same goal. In this article, a glimpse is offered into this often ignored history in order to remind people that Gandhi’s movement did not arise in a vacuum, but rather in a particular historical context in which Muslims had played a prominent role.

• Altaf Fatima

Indian Sufism since the Seventeenth Century: Saints, Books, and Empires in the Muslim Deccan

Nile Green, London: Routledge, 2006. 210 pages.

Based on his doctoral dissertation submitted to the University of London, the present book is a wonderful study of the Sufis of Aurangabad (and, more generally, in the Deccan realms of Hyderabad’s Nizams) and their consequent legacy in independent India. Green builds upon earlier research on the Muslim Deccan undertaken by Carl Ernst (Sufism at Khuldabad, which is adjacent to Aurangabad) and Richard Eaton (Sufis of Bijapur) and brings to the fore insights from religious studies on the nature of holy men and their interaction with politics, words, and worlds.

• Nile Green

The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shi`ite Islam

Liyakat N. Takim, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. 215 pages.

This substantially revised version of a dissertation completed at the School of Oriental andAfrican Studies in 1990 focuses on the disciples (rijal) of the Imams in the Twelver Shiite tradition, arguing that they developed, through the routinization of charisma, a distinct type of religious authority in the eighth and ninth centuries based on their special relationship with the Imams, but to some extent independent of them. It investigates an important chapter in Twelver Shiite religious history while touching on questions of religious authority and orthodoxy in Islam that remain poorly described in scholarship to date.

• Liyakat N Takim

Mekka in the Latter Part of the 19th Century

C. Snouck Hurgronje, Leiden: Brill, 2007. 326 pages.

The annual spectacle of millions of pilgrims flooding Makkah has captured the imagination of generations of readers. This interest in the hajj, however, has not necessarily produced quality scholarship. From crude ethnographic summaries to careful narratives of spiritual attainment, the literature has been inconsistent at best. Brill’s republishing of Dutch scholar Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje’s (1857-1936) forgotten work offers the modern reader not only an invaluable window into the hajj as practiced before the age of mass communication, but provides a hitherto neglected discussion on the social, cultural, political, and economic impact that the experience had upon Muslims.

• C Snouck Hurgronje

Empire and Elites after the Muslim Conquest: The Transformation of Northern Mesopotamia

Chase F. Robinson, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 221 pages.

Perhaps one would not expect a history of “Islamic rule” in the seventh and eighth centuries in what is now the Middle East to illuminate any contemporary debate on Islam, in particular about whether there is an innate civilizational clash between it and the (Christian) West. And yet this modest study manages to do that, if only tangentially and coincidentally, and if read with some reservations. Cambridge historians are renowned for their preoccupation with elites, generally of provinces far removed from the centers of power, and hence their single-minded focus on the “politics of notables” of relatively minor localities. From such provincial concerns, however, emerge more universal claims about, for instance, the nature of British colonial rule in India or of Islamic rule in the Middle Ages. Chase Robinson, following this tradition, assesses – as “critic and architect” – the changing status of Christian and Muslim elites following the Muslim conquest of northern Mesopotamia.

• Chase F Robinson

Worlds of Difference: European Discourses of Toleration C. 1100-C. 1550

Cary J. Nederman,University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000. 157 pages.

This is an appealing and clearly written account of how European thinkers from late medieval to early modern times reflected upon and explored the question of what to do about people of different religions and cultures. In other words, how should their divergent opinions be understood and, eventually, what practical dispositions should be taken toward them? Cary Nederman devotes the introduction and first chapter to an excellent, detailed explanation of the book’s focus and goals. Simply put, he is intent upon challenging two currently dominant views: that toleration emerged in Europe only at the time of the Reformation, and that it is ineluctably linked with the kind of political liberalism usually associated with John Locke. To this end, he calls the reader’s attention to expressions of religious, and even somewhat political, toleration that appear early in the twelfth century and continue well into the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, he does not succeed in this ambitious, even appealing, stratagem as fully as he would have wished, for he admits in passing that he is content to “offer illustrations,” instead of a “comprehensive account,” of this phenomenon.

• Cary J Nederman

The Arabic Cultural Influence on the Balkans: An Outline

It was with great pleasure that I accepted the invitation from Dr. Yahya Mahmud bin Junayd and Dr. Awadh al-Badi to be with you today. I am very happy to be able to speak to you on this special occasion about an important and very large topic: the Arabic cultural influence on the Balkans. I am particularly glad to be speaking on this theme in the hall of this eminent institute, the King Faisal Centre for Islamic Studies and Research.

I will begin by saying that I shall not deal at length with either the history or the geography of the Balkans, for I am justified in assuming that the audience I am addressing today is familiar with these, at least in outline. I shall therefore proceed at once to the topic itself.

• Enes Karic

From Cairo to the Straits Settlements: Modern Salafiyyah Reformist Ideas in Malay Peninsula

Early twentieth-century Malay Peninsula witnessed the emergence of Islamic reform movements. The Malay reformists who were discontented with the socio-economic and political conditions of the Malays criticised the Malay elites and called for “reformation” of their society. The Malay reformists derived inspirations for their reformist ideology from the leading Middle Eastern reformists, Muhammad Abduh, Rashid Rida and others, known as salafiyyah. Available data suggest that the transmission of salafiyyah ideas in particular, and Middle Eastern reformism in general, to Malay Peninsula were made possible by many factors. Of these factors, the roles of the haramayn, the centres of learning in Cairo and the invention of printing machines have been least explored. This study attempts to fill in the void in the existing literature.

• Hafiz Zakariya

Toward the Islamization of History: A Historical Survey

History, or more properly the writing of history, had been during the times of the ancient Greeks and Romans an elitist activity, meant for glorifying the class of power, position, and birth. Parts of these histories were fabulous in nature. The Muslims (Arabs) introduced the idea of history as factual record. During the Middle Ages, history writing slipped into what it was in the Greco-Roman times. In the 16th century, the middle class, those with accumulated capital, wrote histories. A colonial history, too, developed, enshrining a European view of history that still continues in school curricula. The 20th century saw changes. The writing of history became an imperialist necessity. When imperialism collapsed, the focus disappeared. History became miniaturized and atomized. The entry of television and information technology brought instant histories. Islamic history writing accepts history as an instrument of Allah's will and mode of living the good life. 

• NMMMahroof

Education and transmission of knowledge in medieval India

The various regions of the Indian subcontinent came into contact with the Islamic cultural tradition in the seventh century CE. Indian scholars were able to leave a mark on the world of Islamic scholarship especially in the fields of ḥadīth and other connected disciplines, significantly underlining their recognition for contributions in the Islamic East. An attempt has been made to analyse and to understand the processes of transmission of knowledge through formal and informal means, including the transfer of accumulated experience to the next generation and even the passing of “intuitive knowledge” to the seeker of knowledge. It has been argued that the level of Indian scholarship in certain disciplines was at par with the level of scholarship in the Islamic East. It has also been examined that during the medieval period Sanskrit based studies flourished at important Hindu pilgrimage centres such as Benaras, often described by European travellers as the Athens of India. The Royal and private libraries functioned with firm footings. Finally, it is shown that education and transmission of knowledge was organized in a manner that owes much to the best of Greco-Arab tradition.

Source: http://www.iium.edu.my/intdiscourse/index.php/islam/article/view/278/213

• Saiyid Zaheer Husain Jafri

Book Review: Doing history: Research and writing in the digital age.

Doing history: Research and writing in the digital age, with its extensive coverage of the fundamentals of research, is capable of transforming a budding historian and a novice reader not only to a great one but also to a great reader, as well as a critical thinker and citizen. In their systematic approach to the writing of history, James Madison University Professors of History, Galgano, Arndt, and Hyser endeavour to explain to a beginner in the field of research the process of choosing a topic, locating sources, analyzing and interpreting such sources, and “then presenting the findings in an organized and clear manner” (p.ix).