| Reprinted from the Middle East Studies
Association Bulletin, Winter 2001 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards). Copyright 2001 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America |
Visible Islam in Modern Turkey, by Adil Özdemir and Kenneth Frank. (Library of Philosophy and Religion) 259 pages, notes, appendices, bibliography, index. New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. $75.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-312-23479-1 Islam in modern Turkey is, relatively speaking, understudied, and one welcomes a book whose stated aim is introducing the subject to the interested visitor to Turkey. But Visible Islam in Modern Turkey goes into far more detail than most of the contemporary westerners who visit Turkey will care to know about. Its likely audience will be other scholars and students of Turkish Islam. The chapter titles of the book are informative and accurate: “The Present Juncture in the Spiritual Journey of Muslims in Turkey,” “A Brief Faith History of Islam,” “Expressions of Faith and Identity” (includes circumcision, prayer beads, weddings, and so forth), “Religious Orders,” “Fasting and the Breaking of the Fast Holiday,” “The Funeral Prayer and Burial,” “The Call to Prayer,” “The Pilgrimage,” “Almsgiving and the Animal Offering,” “The Sacrament of Prayer,” “Cleanliness and Purity,” “Mosques and Architecture,” and “Religious Functionaries.” There are fifteen useful, small-print appendices that extend the discussion of various topics. Although my overall evaluation of Visible Islam is positive, I have some critical comments but want to frame them with appreciative remarks. I did learn quite a lot from this book—both additional information about and interpretation of many matters with which I was already familiar. Three criticisms: 1) the book is not really about “visible Islam” in Turkey. It is not an ethnography. It is in many respects an ideal and idealized view of mainly urban, male, Sunni discourse and practice, interwoven with an intriguing discussion of the conflict between a secular state that requires Islam to be ‘private’ and ‘individual,’ on the one hand, and an Islam that is ‘traditional’ and ‘social’/‘corporate,’ on the other; 2) a terminological disagreement: the authors throughout use the term ‘sacrament’ for major practices of Muslim observance and piety. Many Christians as well as religious-studies scholars will likely find this an unfortunate choice of terms. Or to state the issue somewhat more positively, the authors should have told us in explicit detail what they mean by ‘sacrament;’ 3) like many scholars of Islam, the authors do not, in my judgment, adequately discuss the gendered nature of religious practice in contemporary Turkey, for the most part ignoring or providing only brief (relative to male practice) notice of women’s religious activities. The authors do, however, recognize that gender is a contested subject in contemporary Turkish Islam and provide an appendix, “Gender Issues in Islamic Worship,” that is articulate and informed by a broadly conservative, elite Sunni perspective. Indeed, this conservative, elite, male, urban, Sunni perspective pervades the book. These criticisms noted, Visible Islam in Modern Turkey is a useful, clearly written account of Islam in modern Turkey. It belongs, I think, in any academic library covering Islam, and has the accessibility to a broad audience that would make it appropriate, given the availability of a less expensive paperback edition, for adoption in courses on Islam, both undergraduate and graduate. Glenn Yocum Whittier College Religious Minorities in Iran, by Eliz Sanasarian. (Cambridge Middle East Studies, 13) 224 pages, notes, bibliography, index. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000. $59.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-521-77073-4 Ideology, variation/diversity, conformity/adaptability, protest/resistance, open exchange, and segmentation/marginalization―these are the major themes that stand out in Eliz Sanasarian’s Religious Minorities in Iran, which focuses on state-minority relations in Iran between 1979 and 1989. Her approach of incorporating theoretical questions and analysis while not adopting a single, preconceived conceptual framework works very well throughout the study. Sanasarian effectively demonstrates the difference in minority policy between the contemporary Iranian regime, which has adopted pluralism, and the Pahlavi state, whose goal was homogenization. The state’s pluralism remains, however, as Sanasarian shows, exclusive and coercive with differing policies for the recognized religious minorities (RRMs)—Armenians, Assyrians and Chaldeans, Jews, and Zoroastrians—and for the non-recognized minorities—nonethnic Christian converts, and Bahais. State policy in the 1980s provided rights to the recognized minorities in exchange for subjugation and segmentation. “Intense state intrusion” (p. 18) occurred, for example, in education, industry, trade, and social life. The non-recognized minorities, of course, did not benefit from such rights. In both cases, Sanasarian explains that while prejudice and hostile stereotyping were not inventions of the state, such views became dangerous when they became part of state ideology. Contrary perhaps to what one might assume, state policy, while ideologically driven, was not and is not always and the same everywhere. Sanasarian clearly indicates with many examples that there is a great deal of diversity and variation in implementation and enforcement at different levels of the state, that is, officials, institutions, courts, and so forth, and in different parts of the country, especially in areas further from the center, that is, Tehran. Two other features characterizing state-minority relations are the open exchange of views and protest against and resistance to state policies. RRMs continually challenged exclusion, negative representations, and discriminatory practices. Sanasarian explores how their responses were a mixture of accommodation and assertive representation of their communities. In these attitudes and in their attempts to stand out and identify and legitimize themselves, their response was the same. Nevertheless, each community’s particular response differed. For example, Jews oscillated between quietism and rejection of Israel and emphasized their religious identity. The Zoroastrians, on the other hand, were the most confident and outspoken as indigenous inhabitants with a pre-Islamic connection to Iran. And Armenians “mastered the art of adaptability” (p. 149), almost insulating themselves from the rest of society. Sanasarian concludes with a discussion of the larger issue of the perils of marginalization not only for the non-Muslim communities but also the Muslim population, which is placed under political and social control in part through the state policies and treatment of minorities. Sanasarian’s analysis is cogent and clear. She provides appropriate historical background and explanation of terms and concepts. Her arguments are convincing and supported by sources, both written and oral. Her original and significant study answers many questions and raises more for future investigation. It is a great contribution to our field and offers much to our understanding of state-minority relations and minority responses. Religious Minorities in Iran should be well-received by specialists and non-specialists alike. Houri Berberian California State University, Long Beach |
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