Islam Assembled [Hardcover]

Martin Seth Kramer (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (October 15, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231059949
• ISBN-13: 978-0231059947
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,926,718 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martin Kramer is Senior Fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, and President-designate of Shalem College (in formation). He is also the Wexler-Fromer Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

An authority on contemporary Islam and Arab politics, Dr. Kramer earned his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University. During a twenty-five-year career at Tel Aviv University, he directed the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies; taught as a visiting professor at Brandeis University, the University of Chicago, Cornell University, and Georgetown University; and served twice as a fellow of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. He was later a senior fellow at Harvard University's Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, where he founded and co-convened Middle East Strategy at Harvard (MESH).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Muslim Caliphate 1930s, March 28, 2009

By 

William Garrison Jr. (Bellevue, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Islam Assembled (Hardcover)

(From dustjacket): Late in the C19th Muslims, separated by distance, language, and history, first thought to make their world whole by assembling in congress. "Islam Assembled" traces the roots of political activism in Islam as it took form in these gatherings. From the first fitful initiatives undertaken by a handful of Muslim cosmopolitans to the era when the West began to divest itself of its Muslim possessions and the need for the congresses diminished, "Islam Assembled" traces in detail this crucial but previously untold story. The congresses followed one another in no particular sequential order and they bore no formal relationship to one another. The initiative moved from continent to continent, and the action unfolded not only in Mecca, Cairo, and Jerusalem, but also in such unlikely places as Moscow, Geneva, and Tokyo.

So scattered was the evidence that no attempt has hitherto been made to study the congresses in an integrated fashion and to measure their cumulative effects. The passage of time has made possible a comprehensive study, based upon sources only now within reach. Kramer sets out to trace the congress idea through its earliest evolution, to examine in depth the first and largely unsuccessful initiatives, and to assess the congresses convened between the two world wars. In the course of his study he brings out the central theme of the congresses, Muslim attachment to the political concepts of a united Islam, even as the Muslim empire and caliphate waned. "Islam Assembled" explores, for the first time, the moment when Muslims first equated the sheer expanse of Islam with political power in the modern world.