Modern Islam & Politics
Reprinted from the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Summer  2002 (with changes in orthography to HTML standards).
Copyright 2002 by the Middle East Studies Association of North America
Between the State and Islam, edited by Charles E. Butterworth and I. William Zartman. (Woodrow Wilson Center Series) 256 pages, index. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2000. $49.95 (Cloth) ISBN 0-521-78352-6

This collection of essays on the relationship of Islam to the state is especially welcome, not merely for confronting authoritarian political discourses in the Arab and Islamic worlds, but also for bringing relief from the commentary of amateur analysts despondent over the absence of progressive and critical movements among Arabs and Muslims.

The articles in Between the State and Islam are somewhat eclectic. Nevertheless, the editors have done a masterful job in giving thematic unity to topics that are as diverse as the relative failure of the Arab world to assimilate modern technological innovation, and the impact of audio-visual technology on political identity in North Africa. Butterworth’s introductory essay is simultaneously a critical review of Orientalist and post-Orientalist discourses on Islam and the state, both of which he rejects as reductive, and an optimistic recognition that there is no reason for harboring an a priori pessimism as to the political future of Islamic politics. Zartman’s concluding essay tempers Butterworth’s optimism by suggesting that in the fight between the political religionist and the secular democrat, all that can be expected is a modus vivendi resulting from mutual exhaustion, a position precluding the emergence of a Rawlsian overlapping consensus on political fundamentals in the Islamic world.

In between these two essays is a rich variety of articles on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Antoine Zahlan’s essay attributes the failure of Muhammad ‘Ali’s attempts in Egypt to assimilate Western technology not to vague cultural constraints rooted in ‘Islam,’ but rather to the Egyptian state’s deliberate choice of economic and social policies which failed to provide sufficient incentives for the creation of the indigenous human capital necessary to master the new technology it was so busy acquiring. Serif Mardin’s essay on political identity among the Volga Tatars is a masterful reconstruction of how the cross-currents of European Enlightenment and the Naqshbandi-led revival of classical Islamicate literary culture helped shape the political and religious identities of two important Tatar Muslim intellectuals. Said Bensaid Alaoui’s essay is a helpful reminder that for nineteenth-century Arab-Muslim religious intellectuals, their encounter with Europe was an occasion for launching a moral critique of their own indigenous political traditions.

The essays in part two share common ground. As‘ad Abu Khalil’s piece focuses on anti-conformist Arab intellectuals who challenge the romantic mythologies of Islamist political movements. Iliya Harik outlines the evolution of leftist and nationalist parties from one of hostility to pluralistic democracy to one of at least a tepid embrace of pluralistic party politics. Ibrahim Karawan’s essay treats the dilemmas facing leftist and secular political parties in their simultaneous competition with autocratic governments and Islamist movements which have been able to gain adherents among those who would be expected to be their natural constituency. Timothy Piro’s essay on the role of professional institutions as mediating actors in contemporary Arab political regimes suggests that these institutions are robust channels for expressing political demands, and are increasing the strength of civil society vis-ā-vis central governments. Finally, Jean Leca, Meriem Verges, and Mounia Bennani-Chraibi explore the relationship of mass media to its consumers in Algeria and Morocco.

The book’s principle weakness is its near exclusive focus on Arab intellectuals and regimes. In the future it is important that the experiences and thoughts of non-Arab Muslim intellectuals, such as those of Malaysia and Indonesia, be given greater attention, as well as the experience of Muslim intellectuals living as minorities, whether they be in liberal democracies, developing states, or in post-Communist regimes.

Mohammad Fadel
Attorney at Law, Sullivan and Cromwell


The Brilliant Proof, by Mirza Abu’l-Fadl Gulpaygani. 80 pages, appendix. Los Angeles, CA: Kalimat Press, 1998. $14.95 (Cloth) ISBN 1-890688-00-2


Reprinted here, with a new introduction, is an article originally published in 1912 by the Baha’i News Service in Chicago in response to a Christian missionary’s polemic attack on the Baha’i faith published the year before. Rev. Peter Z. Easton, whose “Baha’ism—A Warning,” appeared in the British magazine Evangelical Christendom, had served as a missionary in Azerbaijan for many years beginning in 1873, and was angered at the warm reception afforded Abd ul-Baha, the son of the founder of the Baha’i faith, by an Anglican minister at St. John’s Church in Westminster on 17 September 1911. Easton’s piece, included in the work as an appendix (pp. 73-80), characterizes the Baha’i faith and Babism, the movement from which it sprang, as the latest manifestation of “Persian pantheism,” a tradition including, in his view, the movements of al-Muqanna’, Babak, the Qaramitah, and the Assassins, “who for 170 years, from 1090 on, inaugurated a reign of terror compared with which the French Revolution was child’s play” (p. 78) They are based, he holds, on the utter and unquestioning obedience of the devotee (murid) to the guide (murshid). Baha himself, the founder of the faith, is called a “betrayer, assassin, and blasphemer.” In short, Easton characterizes Babism and Bahaism as anathema and the adherents to the faith as violent and satanic fanatics.

In Beirut later that year, Easton’s article was presented to Mirza Abu’l-Fadl Gulpaygani (1844-1914), a Twelver Shiite jurist who had converted to the Baha’i faith and become one of its most prominent scholars. He immediately authored a Persian refutation under the title Burhan-e lami’ and had it sent to the United States, where ‘Abd ul-Baha had it published along with an English translation. The refutation addresses Easton’s attack under four rubrics: 1) accusations against Baha’ullah, 2) pantheism, 3) attitude toward despotic government, and 4) distinctive or superior features of the Baha’i faith. Gulpaygani dismisses Easton’s accusations against Baha’ullah as slanderous and berates him for listening to the evidence of Baha’ullah’s enemies alone. Baha’ism is not, he argues, pantheistic, but rather monotheistic, rooted in the Abrahamic faiths and based on their successive prophecies. Baha’ullah, rather than supporting despotic government, urged the establishment of popular consultative and representative institutions. Finally, ten features of Baha’i faith are presented as distinctive and improvements over other religious doctrines: 1) rejection of oral tradition in favor of established texts, 2) rejection of divisive interpretation of God’s word, 3) emphasis on the unity of mankind and avoidance of divisive doctrines, 4) prohibition of slavery, 5) considering work in allowable professions as a form of worship, 6) mandatory education of both sexes, 7) prohibition of cursing, insults, swearing, and blasphemy, 8) prohibition of arms except in extreme circumstances, 9) establishment of local Houses of Justice, parliaments, and constitutional governments, and 10) a new fractional inheritance system. This short work provides an interesting view of the Baha’i faith and its adherents’ struggle for acceptance in the early twentieth century.

Devin Stewart
Emory University


Contemporary Debates in Islam: An Anthology of Modernist and Fundamentalist Thought, edited by Mansoor Moaddel and Kamran Talattof. 382 pages, bibliography, index. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. $55.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-312-22580-0

Starting from the assumption that Islamic modernism and fundamentalism represent two antithetical worldviews, in Contemporary Debates in Islam, Moaddel and Talattof have compiled a representative anthology of texts from both ideological currents, covering a wide field of subjects. For the editors, gender relations, legal reform, political theory, the attitude towards science, everyday manners, and the attitude toward non-Muslims are the key issues that separate modernism and fundamentalism, and hence they are given the greatest attention. Economic concepts, a field too often neglected, have not been forgotten. It also becomes clear which subjects are relevant for only one current (conspiracy theories in the case of fundamentalism, historical criticism in the case of modernism). The compilation allows the reader to discern differences inside fundamentalism, for example, outright rejection of majority rule vs. appeals to ‘the people,’ or obsession for technology (a manifesto of the “Front islamique du Salut”) vs. Luddism (Al-e Ahmad). Nevertheless, Moaddel and Talattof are not inclined to hide the problematic aspects of fundamentalism from their readership. The texts selected are unlike those in some other anthologies in that they are long enough to enable the reader to comprehend complete arguments.

The compilers do miss some subtleties in the debate. In the section on modernism, for example, texts showing that at-Tahtawi and Sayyid Ahmad Khan made basic concepts and discoveries of modern science acceptable would have rounded out the picture. An article by Maududi showing his admiration for Western totalitarian movements would have helped flesh out the fundamentalist section.

For the modernist section the editors have chosen authors who have been active in Egypt (al-Afghani, ‘Abduh, Qasim Amîn, Farid Wajdi) and South Asia (Chirag ‘Ali, Shibli Nu‘mani, Amir ‘Ali), giving the latter region its due weight. Unfortunately neither Iranians nor Arab Shiis were included. In the fundamentalist section the geographical base is broadened by the inclusion of authors and organizations from Algeria, Jordan, and especially Iran (Khomeini, Mutahhari, Shari‘ati).

Only one major objection can be raised against the editors: their thesis that fundamentalism completely superseded modernism from the 1920s onward is questionable. Major clashes between fundamentalism and modernism in the post-World War II era deserve mention in the introduction (for example, the expulsion of Fazlur Rahman from Pakistan, or the Abu Zayd trial in Egypt). Also, the transcription is haphazard even by recent American standards.

Neither deficiency, however, minimizes the achievement of Moaddel and Talattof. Although most of the texts have been translated into English before, the editors deserve our gratitude for arranging them in such a properly thought-out manner. Contemporary Debates in Islam will do a good service for undergraduate students, adult education, as well as those students and scholars in the field of political or religious studies who lack the linguistic abilities to read the original sources.

Martin Riexinger
Albert-Ludwigs Universität, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

Legacy of the Prophet: Despots, Democrats, and the New Politics of Islam, by Anthony Shadid. 340 pages, index, bibliography. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001. $26.00 (Cloth) ISBN 0-8133-3779-8.

Shadid’s Legacy of the Prophet makes the past come alive. From the Prophet’s Medina to the back alleys of Cairo, Istanbul, and Qum, the author effectively weaves historical Islam into a clear and straightforward description of its contemporary politics. Shadid’s main concern in Legacy of the Prophet is a transformation which he believes is underway across the Muslim world in the message and the style of Islamic politics. A fundamental element of this transformation is the failure of militant Islam’s past which, Shadid contends, has yielded today to a new generation of activists who struggle to find a more successful future through democratic politics. Through his descriptive analysis of this phenomenon, Shadid hopes to convey the far-reaching importance of the change for both the Muslim world and the West. Although delivered in short, self-contained segments, the various parts of each chapter are held together by Shadid’s wonderful journalistic narrative style.

Shadid begins by exploring the question of Islamic identity (ch. one), and various interpretations of Islam (for example, Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb), including competing secular ideologies like Nasserism (ch. two). Next Shadid explores the course of the militant movement in Islam which he poses as the counterpart of political Islam (ch. three). The course of the movement is discussed through the preachings of the Cairene Shaykh Abd al-Salam al-Farag and his influence embodied in the phenomenon of Afghan Arabs, in men like Ali al-Rashidi and Osama bin Laden. In chapter three, Shadid brings to the fore the militant movement’s streak of nihilism and shows how violence in itself became meaningful. This chapter also draws a clear distinction between militant activity that recognizes no borders, and which is thus divorced from any coherent ideology or agenda, and militant movements that are cast in a national setting. It is the latter, Shadid argues, that are undergoing a nascent democratic transformation. The former are shown to have “neither strategy nor goal in the attacks they devise, disengaged as they are from the countries in which they had originally sought to change” (p. 91). In chapter four, Shadid proceeds to describe the flip side of localized militant movements. Here the reader is introduced, “behind the backdrop of violence,” to a fusion of activism of social welfare and religion. The focal points of the chapter are Palestine, Lebanon, and Turkey where such movements form, according to Shadid, a successful basis for the ascent of political Islam in transformation from militancy to democratic activism. Chapters five and six continue the book’s theme of transformation, serving as case studies of experiments of Islam in power in the Sudan and Iran. In chapter seven Shadid unfolds the stories of thinkers in Iran, Egypt, and Turkey who constitute a new generation of intellectuals and scholars. These thinkers seek to borrow from the West, adapting its attributes to govern an indigenous society that is democratic yet remains religious. Molded by secular education, their goal is to bring a flexibility that will allow religious concepts to address problems of modern governance. Finally, in chapter eight, Shadid ties together the chapters of the book as he describes the scenes he sees of “a compelling search for identity, a reinterpretation of Islam and the emergence of democratic movements” (p. 252). These are the scenes of a changing legacy.

Dr. Rebecca B. Molloy
Independent Scholar