British Society for Middle Eastern Studies

Islam: The View from the Edge by Richard BullietReview by: Bruce StanleyBritish Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Nov., 1997), pp. 283-284Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/195787 .

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REVIEWS: GENERAL

ISLAM: THE VIEW FROM THE EDGE. By RICHARD BULLIET. New York, Columbia University Press, 1994. 236 pp.

One of the key propositions of social network analysis is that innovation comes from the periphery of social networks rather than from the encrusted and conservative centres of power. Although Richard Bulleit's book Islam. The View From the Edge is at one level an historical study of the evolution of Islamic society, the subtitle hints at the underlying affirmation of this fundamental understanding of network dynamics. While tracing the development of Islamic authority systems from the sixth through to the fourteenth century CE, Bulliet also raises structural questions about power, legitimacy and innovation, and encourages alternative paradigms of thought about Islamic history.

The core argument is that one of Islam's most distinctive characteristics is the question-and-answer motif: that 'Islam, to greater extent than any other major religion, has been shaped by the questions Muslims have asked and by the willingness of Muslims to seek out their own religious authorities'. This method of developing clarity for believers has meant a constant search for authoritative systems that can address the questions of the faithful in a meaningful and legitimate manner. Under the impact of a changing environment, the challenge for Muslims has always been to establish, legitimize and maintain Islamic authoritative systems. In fact, Bulliet argues, the complex evolution of religious authority systems is a process that is never finished, and alternatives do arise. 'The questioning persists, but the authoritative respondents change', he suggests. Conflict between dominant and alternative approaches within Islam continues until the present day.

One of the great values of this book is the way it traces the alternatives that arose particularly during the first seven centuries of Islam, and then evaluates the implications of this search for answers in the modern world. The reader is shown the 'variability over time of the parties deemed capable of answering questions authoritatively': the Companions of the Prophet evolving into the hadith and the muhaddithun; the rise of the madrasa and the Sufi sheikh; the development of the various schools of law, the fatwa and the mujtahids; or the conflicts today among the sharia, the ayatollah and the mutfi. It is fascinating to see the complexity of these shifts, and the interaction of the dominant and the secondary approaches.

Bulliet might easily have approached the evolution of authority from a traditional central perspective. The analytical tendency of most work on such issues is to identify the formal centres of power in social networks, and to assume uncritically their authority, power and legitimacy. Certainly the conventional wisdom on Islamic history has focused our attention on a limited set of patterns of formal political power emanating from the Caliphate, the Arab empires, and the central schools of law. Yet the true worth of this book lies in the way it rejects such a view, gently points up the fallacies such a perspective engenders, and intentionally takes up a 'view from the edge'.

By this the author means, at one level, the view primarily from the Iranian edge, where new converts to Islam were struggling to understand what they must do to become true Muslims. The presentation of Iranian integration into Islam and the historical research that underlies it is particularly impressive. At a deeper paradigmatic level, Bulliet is exploring 'a dispersed, nongeographic, social terrain where Muslims created different localized models of Islam in relative isolation from the institutions of the centre'. Such a view allows us to see the complexity of religious authority systems and their patterns of linkage with society from a new perspective, and to realize that much of the innovation, creativity and vitality of Islam arose from the edges of its social networks.

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REVIEWS: GENERAL REVIEWS: GENERAL

Seen from this perspective, from the grass roots and from that of converts rather than through the prism of the rise and fall of Arab empires and caliphs, the struggle to establish and maintain religious authority seems quite different, and so does the history of Islam between the sixth century and the fourteenth century CE. Rather than conceptualizing Islamic authority systems as a linear, unchanging and unitary system dating from the Age of the Companions, it is possible to see the establishment of a near consensus on the structures and themes of Sunni Islam throughout the Islamic world post-twelfth century CE as the product of innovation in response to environmental changes within Iran (or the edge) in the eleventh century. Retrojecting the appearance of this conformity and consensus backwards into the early periods of Islamic history distorts the complex reality of the earlier centuries, too strongly emphasizes political power structures such as the caliphate, and misses the vitality and flexibility of the Islamic motif.

The implications of this alternative vision are also significant for our interpretation of current Islamic trends. Evaluating contemporary movements within the Islamic community simply from the view of central networks of political power and authority can lead to crucial misunderstandings: i.e. rejecting Islamist movements as an incon- sequential phenomena; attributing greater stability to regimes such as Saudi Arabia than actually exists; mistaking the decline of the ulema for the victory of Western secularism; missing the vitality of Islam's regeneration.

A more complex perspective improves our evaluation by allowing us to see the multiplicity of religious authority systems competing within Islam today. For Bulliet, the existence of this multiplicity is a sign of great vigour: 'we are currently living through one of the greatest periods of intellectual and religious creativity' in Islamic history. It also may mean, he argues, increased struggle among the various approaches in the future.

A view from the edge, by encouraging us to assess more clearly the significance of peripheral social networks for innovation, challenges Middle Eastern analysts to rethink their underlying paradigms and conventional understandings of Islamic history. It also calls into question our facile interpretations of current phenomena. This is an important message to hear, pleasingly contained in a stimulating and challenging package.

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER BRUCE STANLEY

INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN THE MODERN ARAB WORLD. By IBRAHIM ABU RABI'. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1996. xii+ 370 pp.

This book, as its title indicates, is a history of ideas which are deemed germane to Islamic resurgence. However, the author addresses this question by rehearsing the ideas of a number of Islamist thinkers: Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. The ideas of these thinkers are treated as an integral part of the same tradition, or 'an affirmation of the inner continuity of the Islamic discourse ... and as rebuilding on old foundations' (p. 6). Thus ruptures in systems of thought are considered not to be intellectually grounded, but as an outcome of the replacement of one generation by another.

In this sense, old problems persist into the present at the intellectual level, while their

Seen from this perspective, from the grass roots and from that of converts rather than through the prism of the rise and fall of Arab empires and caliphs, the struggle to establish and maintain religious authority seems quite different, and so does the history of Islam between the sixth century and the fourteenth century CE. Rather than conceptualizing Islamic authority systems as a linear, unchanging and unitary system dating from the Age of the Companions, it is possible to see the establishment of a near consensus on the structures and themes of Sunni Islam throughout the Islamic world post-twelfth century CE as the product of innovation in response to environmental changes within Iran (or the edge) in the eleventh century. Retrojecting the appearance of this conformity and consensus backwards into the early periods of Islamic history distorts the complex reality of the earlier centuries, too strongly emphasizes political power structures such as the caliphate, and misses the vitality and flexibility of the Islamic motif.

The implications of this alternative vision are also significant for our interpretation of current Islamic trends. Evaluating contemporary movements within the Islamic community simply from the view of central networks of political power and authority can lead to crucial misunderstandings: i.e. rejecting Islamist movements as an incon- sequential phenomena; attributing greater stability to regimes such as Saudi Arabia than actually exists; mistaking the decline of the ulema for the victory of Western secularism; missing the vitality of Islam's regeneration.

A more complex perspective improves our evaluation by allowing us to see the multiplicity of religious authority systems competing within Islam today. For Bulliet, the existence of this multiplicity is a sign of great vigour: 'we are currently living through one of the greatest periods of intellectual and religious creativity' in Islamic history. It also may mean, he argues, increased struggle among the various approaches in the future.

A view from the edge, by encouraging us to assess more clearly the significance of peripheral social networks for innovation, challenges Middle Eastern analysts to rethink their underlying paradigms and conventional understandings of Islamic history. It also calls into question our facile interpretations of current phenomena. This is an important message to hear, pleasingly contained in a stimulating and challenging package.

UNIVERSITY OF EXETER BRUCE STANLEY

INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF ISLAMIC RESURGENCE IN THE MODERN ARAB WORLD. By IBRAHIM ABU RABI'. Albany, State University of New York Press, 1996. xii+ 370 pp.

This book, as its title indicates, is a history of ideas which are deemed germane to Islamic resurgence. However, the author addresses this question by rehearsing the ideas of a number of Islamist thinkers: Hasan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb and Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah. The ideas of these thinkers are treated as an integral part of the same tradition, or 'an affirmation of the inner continuity of the Islamic discourse ... and as rebuilding on old foundations' (p. 6). Thus ruptures in systems of thought are considered not to be intellectually grounded, but as an outcome of the replacement of one generation by another.

In this sense, old problems persist into the present at the intellectual level, while their

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