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Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.Oxford, UKMUWOThe Muslim World0027-4909© Blackwell Publishing 200410.1111/j.1478-1913.00064July 2004943Book ReviewsJuly 2004943

Book Reviews

Book ReviewsBook Reviews

Two Hours That Shook The World: September 11, 2002: Causes and Consequences

By Fred Halliday

London: Saqi Books 2002

Fred Halliday is a well-known expert on modern Iran and other parts of the Middle East with an impressive list of publications and a lifetime of scholarship. This is his contribution to deciphering the background of the events of September 11, in which he tackles many current precepts often used to explain the latest violence against the U.S. This is also a learned, though opinionated, effort to disentangle many issues by engaging in some profound historical analysis. Throughout this, he is anxious to demonstrate his independent judgment by being often acutely critical of both Islamists and their detractors. As an example, he begins by relating that he had agreed with a bin Laden supporter who asserted on an al-Jazira television program that the destruction of the Buddhist statues at Bamiyan was justified by the world’s silence when the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem was set on fire. His views on what he terms the historical contexts of September 11, namely colonialism and the Cold War, are based on his conviction that we should all be concerned more with human welfare, or “the stuff of the United Nations Development Programs,” than with disputes over old places such as Jerusalem, Kosovo or Ayodhya. The fact that religious disputations and rhetoric have captured the popular imagination should be blamed on the failure of Arab intellectuals and the Islamic world in general to confront what he calls “the half arguments and demagogy of the Islamists.” Thus, rather than accept the Islamists’ constant refrain about colonialism and the Cold War, one should understand that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism is due to the West Asian crisis, or the collapse of state systems which left large territories without any semblance of government. It was in these areas that fundamentalism rose to challenge the state, Halliday asserts, making no reference whatsoever to economic disparity

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between the developed and developing countries as possibly contributing to this crisis. His rejection of the Islamist critique of continued Western neo-colonialist control of their region simply ignores the core of that argument, namely that colonialism and the Cold War permanently underdeveloped their lands, which led to their radicalization. Halliday is simply not willing to concede the role of economics in defeating the ideal vision of the globalists and modernizers of our times.

The author’s contention that Iran’s Islamist regime has demonstrated the limits of state fundamentalism and its failure to export its ideology is more credible. This analysis also explains the author’s insistence on treating the fundamentalist phenomenon as the product of anarchic forces with no world vision beyond reveling in their own violence and the havoc it is releasing on the world.

Halliday is perfectly justified, however, in his debunking of the theory of cultural clash as an explanation for the diversion of views between the Islamists and the globalists, a theory that he attributes to both sides. But while he admits the truth behind the Islamists’ blaming of the U.S. for its own violence and violation of international standards of conduct, he goes out of his way to defend the American democratic experiment and its openness to immigrants, as well as the most recent U.S. wars. Here is where one reads the startling statement that “The USA fought these wars in the 1990s — Kuwait 1991, Bosnia 1995, Kosovo 1999 — all in response to aggression against Muslim people.” Kuwait 1991? What about the U.S. desire to seek quick military solutions in order to establish control over the oil of the region and position itself in such a manner as to be ready for the next war for the region’s resources? Could one really lump these three wars together and ignore U.S. strategic interests in bolstering its leadership of NATO in the wake of the development of an economically-integrated Europe?

His commendable rejection of the thesis of militant Islamists then goes beyond generalizing about the good intentions of U.S. foreign policy when he launches a discussion about how to avoid violence from above and below. Here he recommends that oppressed people learn what is morally permissible as a form of legitimate resistance under the terms of the Geneva Conventions, which recognize certain types of organized struggles from below. This form of resistance should be guided by proportionality. Halliday knows of course that all of these ‘legitimate’ forms of resistance often failed to persuade such intractable oppressors as the Israelis. Whenever any talk of resisting legitimately arises, go tell it to the Israelis. In other words, are we not today beyond the point of civilized forms of struggle in certain areas simply because the aggressors show no sign of bowing to international legitimacy?

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When Halliday finally gets to summarize the history of anti-Islamism in such parts of the world as India, he proves himself a scholar of wide-ranging interests. His descriptive narrative of the rise of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS) in India and the anti-Islamic policies of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is both compelling and on the mark. If anything, it demonstrates the irrationality of ethnic extremism but also its manipulation of history to make its case. His analysis of the racism inherent in the European outlook of the early Zionists who colonized Palestine also goes a long way to explain the nature of this conflict.

The author’s clear preference for civilized debate and reconciliation over violence and chaos also emerges in his discussion of the Oslo 1993 peace talks. There again he proves unwilling to grapple with the dilemmas facing the suffering and oppressed Palestinians by suggesting that the Oslo agreement offered possibilities of a better life than the present violence and hatred which govern their lives as well as those of the Israelis. This argument of course denies the strange circumstances of that peace which, in realistic terms, simply failed because of the asymmetry of the power of the negotiating sides and U.S. determination to prevent Israel from coming to terms with its colonists and hegemonic past. Halliday offers his thoughts on the “Zionism is racism” debate in a similar spirit of denial by disagreeing with the Arab contention that Jews had no right to their own statehood. What is really disturbing about this argument is its refusal to review the Arab thesis in full, a thesis that distinguishes between the Jewish people’s right to live in peace in Palestine and their questionable right to establish a state at the expense of the historic Palestinian right of self-determination.

Generalizations about Palestinian nationalist claims are only matched by those about Iraq’s motivation for invading Kuwait. Here, we are offered this incredible statement, which is very surprising in a work of scholarship and presumed independent opinion: “Why did Saddam invade Kuwait? He did so for a very simple reason: he was running out of money so he decided to rob his neighbor.” This reductionist logic mars several sections of this book and conceals the complexity underlying issue such as the Kuwait-Iraq dispute in the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq War, which can better be explained by reference to the historical record detailing such things as the disputed border oil fields, Kuwait’s manipulation of the price of oil and its demand for immediate debt repayments.

In conclusion, one has to admit that this is an informative book on a variety of topics, although the author’s argument at times appears to follow a reductionist line of thought. The book is also a civilized treatment of most of the controversial questions bedeviling people of the Middle East today. My major complaint, however, revolves around his consistent refusal to come to

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terms with the gross injustices under which the people of the region live and to concede that civilized solutions are often impossible to execute.

Ghada Talhami

Lake Forest College Lake Forest, Illinois

July 2004943Book ReviewsBook ReviewsBook Reviews

Daughters of Abraham: Feminist Thought in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

By Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad and John L. Esposito, eds.

Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001

This collection of half a dozen essays covers a lot of territory, from general methodology to exegetical hermeneutics to historical revisionism and back again. In so doing, it treats both the ideal and the real, the splendid and the ugly, in the realm of feminist religion in the Abrahamic traditions.

This wide range is due not only to the fact that essays presented were papers delivered at a Georgetown University conference, but also to the care taken to assure representation from not only from established scholars, but also from a relatively newer voice (I have Hibba Abugideiri specifically in mind here), who holds her own admirably well.

If I have any reservations about any of the writing, it is perhaps due to my own Christian heritage: indeed, the two essays presented by Christian writers seemed a little less fresh, not as cutting-edge or compelling. But this may reflect a shortcoming of the reviewer, not of the authors.

Levine’s “Settling at Beer-lahai-roi” begins with a discussion of what makes for an open, even-handed approach to feminist studies in religion. Although Levine affirms the usefulness of allegorical interpretation of scriptural figures, she warns against reading too much into any narrative and calls for a self-awareness that will help preclude the insertion of the inherent biases of the researcher into any interpretive study. She also insightfully suggests that one’s conclusions may often have unintended and unwarranted repercussions, and therefore cautions against making sweeping generalizations which may do violence to other aspects of the message. Would that her acumen was shared

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by some of her colleagues (the present volume not included), who are all too often high-handed, using scripture polemically rather than faithfully.

Rather than simply making her methodological arguments theoretical, Levine progresses to a variety of treatments of Sarah and Hagar. There is no single meaning to their lives and relationship, no one single moral to be learned from them, no final word about them. The richness and complexity of their stories, which includes not only their own lives but the lives of so many others they touched — Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac, Dinah, Rebecca

inter alia

— allows for a vast scope while remaining within the bounds of reasoned and measured scholarship.

Berner’s concerns are not as scriptural as they are liturgical. In “Hearing Hanna’s Voice: The Jewish Feminist Challenge and Ritual Innovation,” she traces the limitations of traditional Jewish liturgical practices for realizing feminist content and values in Judaism. Pointing to real innovations, such as the development of the Bat Mitzvah, Berner argues for the inclusion of specifically feminist practices that are new to Judaism, rather than simply “making room” within present practices, for a feminist voice. While Berner’s concern is a feminist one, her approach can be generalized to other missing elements and voices, not just within Judaism, but within other religious practices. Whereas she treats the male/female dichotomy, for example, one can posit other “pairs” of voices — priestly/prophetic, cultic/spiritual, and so on. Berner is to be commended for offering a paradigm that can be applied beyond the scope and object of her present study.

Laffey and Ruether skillfully avoid placing the blame for Christian patriarchy, hierarchy, and anti-feminist biases on Christianity’s predecessor tradition. Yet such is at least implicit in Ruether’s argument, where she notes that Third World feminists hearken to “indigenous, pre-colonial religious traditions” to find the wherewithal to counteract aspects of Christianity that women find objectionable. The same can be said for Laffey’s discussion of the story of Balaam’s ass, which effectively removes the story from its inherent Jewishness to transform it into a model of eco-feminist interpretation. Perhaps this is inherent to Christian commentary on Hebrew scripture, whether that commentary be eco-feminist or from a more traditionalist mode. And, in defense of Laffey, she notes that her discussion “touches merely the tip of the iceberg.”

Abugideiri, the first of the two Muslim essayists, has obvious admiration for the second, Sonbol. Indeed, the manner in which Abugideiri wrote hastened my interest in reading what Sonbol had to say, though Abugideiri is worth reading in her own right. In addition, it should be noted that Abugideiri is neither an apologist for, nor a parrot of, Sonbol’s views. Drawing on work of a number of others, including Stowasser on women in Islam, Abugideiri finds her own voice in “Hagar: A Historical Model for ‘Gender Jihad’ ” to discuss the leadership, within American Islam, of three women who can be seen as

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having drawn upon the figure of Hagar paradigmatically. In so doing, these women have been leaders in Islamic reform.

To be sure, while the Islamic Hagar is recognizable to Jewish and Christian observers, she is not a mere duplication of the character as found in Genesis. Therefore, the lessons and the conclusions which Muslims will find in the figure of Hagar will necessarily be different from those, say, discussed in Levine’s opening essay in this volume. The only reservation that this reviewer has is a conclusion that the reforms engendered by American Islam could be exported to influence Islam as practiced in majority Muslim areas. Historical development suggests that this view is highly optimistic.

The closing essay, Sonbol’s “Rethinking Women and Islam,” is absorbing and eminently readable. Focusing on selective applications of texts, law, and tradition, Sonbol demonstrates that the image of Islam as a religion that denies women equal rights is historically inaccurate. Her discussion of nineteenth century Ottoman legal practices and records adroitly reads between the lines, showing that Islam was inherently friendly to women’s rights

per se

. Then, in a

tour de force

discussion of the historical record, Sonbol links the decline in women’s rights in the Muslim world with the coming of imperialist powers who had what this reviewer terms “Victorian attitudes” towards the place of women, both in society and in the home. Turning, then, from a historical discussion to a textual analysis of Qur

’a

nic passages, including the section on the “right” of men to marry four wives simultaneously, Sonbol highlights the misunderstanding and therefore the misapplication of such texts. Her presentation is convincing.

Steven Blackburn

Hartford Seminary Hartford, Connecticut

July 2004943Book ReviewsBook ReviewsBook Reviews

Muslim Faith and Values: What Every Christian Should Know

By Robert Hunt

New York: GBGM Books of the General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2003.

Since so many books of introduction to Islam are being published these days, one might ask whether this one has any claim to distinction. Some of its features are:

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1. It is written specifically for Christians and invites them, by means of skillfully formulated study questions at the end of each chapter, to view their own faith in light of Islam.

2. The author suggests elements of comparison between Islam and Christianity in an irenic and respectful way, clearly avoiding a polemical tone.

3. Readers find testimonies to Muslim faith and values from various periods of history in short literary extracts of prose and poetry included with each chapter.

As the title indicates, author Hunt goes beyond a factual description of Islamic beliefs and practices in order to set forth a variety of ways in which Muslims have responded to the revelation of God through the Prophet Muhammad. These patterns of response reveal what the author calls the ideals and values of faith in Islam. He interweaves accounts of beliefs and practices with historical, biographical, legal, devotional and literary material from writers, activists, leaders and thinkers, both men and women, from many lands. Hunt tries to be as inclusive as possible within the limits of a small book for popular readership. Not all readers will agree with his choice of Muslim expressions of faith, but they must admit that he tries to give as wide a scope as possible to his presentation of Islamic values and ideals.

The book contains chapters on theology, the life of the Prophet, the Qur

’a

n, a sketchy treatment of Islamic history and a detailed discussion of Islamic law.

Unfortunately, the text contains a number of mistakes. Without being exhaustive, I call attention to the following, which go beyond typographical errors:

1. Zakat is assessed on wealth, not merely on income (p. 33).2. Khums, the tax emphasized by the Shi

‘

a, should be distinguished from zakat (p. 168).

3. Dhanb (p. 153) and surah (p. 88) are singular nouns, not plural.4. The third school of law listed on page 134 should be written Shafi

‘

i, and the Shi

‘

i school probably intended should be Ja

‘

fari.5. Although Muhammad Iqbal was born in the nineteenth century, his

career more properly belongs to the twentieth (p. 126).6. The fourth caliph’s name is

‘

Ali bin Abi Talib (pp. 108 and 111).7. The name of the Prophet’s wife is Khadija (pp. 57 and 106).

R. Martson Speight

Cromwell, Connecticut

July 2004943Book ReviewsBook ReviewsBook Reviews

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Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life. Hindus and Muslims in India

By Ashutosh Varshney

New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002

This is a remarkably good book. The empirical research is impeccable; the analysis is careful; and the argument is persuasive. The issue is simple: Why is it that certain towns in India erupt into communal violence and others do not?

To answer this question, Vashney combined a careful analysis of the

Times of India

covering the period 1950–1995 with interviews within carefully selected cities. These interviews operated on two levels — the elite (i.e., the leadership of the city) and a cross-section of the city taken from every strata.

The cities chosen all had similar percentages of Hindu-Muslim populations. The first pair was Aligarh and Calicut; the second pair was Hyderabad and Lucknow; and the third pair — Ahmedabad and Surat — was the most interesting. This latter pair come from Gandhi’s state — Gujarat.

The book weaves together a riveting description of the history and culture of these cities with a fascinating analysis. The argument that emerges is that there is a direct link between the structure of civil society and ethnic violence. By “civil society,” Vashney means the social gap between the family and the State: so all forms of social activity are part of civil society, including political parties insofar as they operate as a vehicle for association in a city or a town. Now in a small village, everyday and informal ‘civic communication’ might be sufficient to keep the peace when tension occurs, however, Vashney shows, in a city this is not enough. For peace in the city, there is a need for what he calls “associational civic engagement.” In other words, there is a need for structures and organizations, in which Hindus and Muslims are members, to become a bulwark against potential communal violence. So, for example, in the 1920s and 30s in both Ahmedabad and Surat the following organizations were strong: the Congress Party, the Gandhian voluntary associations, and the Business associations. (In Ahmedabad, the labor unions were also strong.) The net result in both cities was peace. In the 1980s and 90s, the Congress party was in decline; the Hindu BJP was on the increase. Correspondingly, the Gandhian voluntary associations were in decline and the Hindu nationalist organizations were on the rise. The net result was two cities that became unstable. As a result, Ahmedabad had violence throughout the 1980s and into the 90s. Meanwhile, December 1992 in Surat saw 197 people killed. It was only the

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strength of the business associations in Surat that saved Old Surat; all the killing took place in the shantytowns.

This book deserves a wide readership. It is a milestone on the road towards a better understanding of coping with diversity in the city. It is, in many respects, a vindication of the work of the political theorist Edmund Burke, who stressed the importance of the “little platoons” (the organizations between the State and the individuals). Human life everywhere needs the community that these organizations provide. However, in addition, Varshney argues, these “little platoons,” provided they are properly constructed, can save many lives.

Ian Markham

Hartford Seminary Hartford, Connecticut

July 2004943Book ReviewsBook ReviewsBook Reviews

Spirituality in the Land of the Noble: How Iran Shaped the World’s Religions

By Richard C. Foltz

Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2004

In an era of post-modernist theory and deconstructionism, it is refreshing, to this reader, at least, to come across a work of unabashed constructionism, or synthesis. Richard C. Foltz, in this very readable survey of religion in Iran, has set for himself the admittedly ambitious goal of exploring the contributions of Iran to the development of “the world’s religions” (actually, only some of them, albeit those with the most followers). Arguing that Iranians have “played an unexcelled role in influencing, transforming, all of the world’s universal traditions” (Preface, p. x), Foltz undertakes this review beginning with the origins of Iranian religious thought in the fog of proto-Indo-European and proto-Aryan religious concepts as best philologists can reconstruct them, and tracing Iran’s religious history up to the nineteenth century Babi movement and the development of the Baha

’

i faith. He appends a final chapter reflecting on the status of religion in the Islamic Republic of Iran, including that of the small minority communities of Zoroastrians, Jews, Christians and Baha

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is.

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This book is organized more or less chronologically according to the appearance of the various traditions in Iran, although Iranian pluralism and the diversity of Iranian religious traditions make it difficult, for example, to discuss early Islamic heterodoxies without reference to their predecessor movements in pre-Islamic Iran, particularly those of the Parthian and Sasanian period. Thus, there are successive chapters on pre-Zoroastrian Iranian thought; Zoroastrianism (including brief excursi on Mithraism and Zurvanism); Judaism; Buddhism; Christianity; Gnosticism (with subsections on Manichaeism, Mandaeism, Mazdakism and its spiritual heirs in the early Islamic period); Islam (including Ithna

’

‘

Ashari and Ismaili Shi

’ism, as well as Sufism); the Babi Movement and the Baha’ i faith; and the concluding chapter on religion in contemporary Iran.

No scholar, save perhaps giants such as Ehsan Yarshater and Richard N. Frye, can claim a depth of knowledge of traditions as diverse and covering such a wide historical span as these. The linguistic demands alone are overwhelming. It is therefore, to be expected that Foltz must rely heavily on secondary sources. These he has chosen judiciously, with full acknowledgment in his very helpful bibliographic essays appended to the main body of the text. I was particularly impressed by Foltz’ skillful summation of scholarship on the controversial topic of the development of Zoroastrianism. His own reconstruction avoids extreme positions, of which there are many and of such diversity that one may at times wonder if scholars are dealing with the same phenomenon. Foltz’ reconstruction is sensible, consistent and comprehensible. Such synthesis is an art. The reader also benefits from a helpful glossary of religious terms referred to in the book.

If I have any quibble with this book, it is with the subtitle, “How Iran Shaped the World’s Religions.” This book is a valuable resource, bringing to light Iranians’ profound contributions to major religious traditions — and for this scholars and would-be scholars of world religions should be grateful — but I’m not sure that the author makes the case that Iran has “shaped” them. The strongest case can be made for the influence of Zoroastrianism on Judaism, and then by extension on Christianity and Islam, and this may be Iran’s greatest contribution to the actual content of these great religious traditions. These contributions are as various as the traditions themselves, and have no fundamental common feature beyond the fact that very creative and intelligent people who inhabited a particular geographic area and shared, for the most part, a common linguistic background, made them. Iranians have been life affirming, productive Zoroastrians, and they have been ascetic, other-worldy Manichaeans. They have been patient and thorough expounders of Islamic law, and they have been Sufis whose antinomian mysticism tested the margins of Islamic latitude.

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This may seem a small point, but it is important, I believe, to avoid any hint of Iranian “essentialism.” While Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism are both characterized by ethical and cosmological dualism, these dualisms are so radically different as to suggest entirely different origins, entirely different thought worlds, thus gainsaying any suggestion of a common “Iranian dualism.” Iran’s great contributions to the religions of the world has been Iranians, a gift that is sufficiently rich in and of itself, to merit the world’s appreciation.

Dale BishopHartford Seminary Hartford, Connecticut