Muslim Politics [Hardcover]

Dale F. Eickelman (Author), James P. Piscatori (Author)

Book Description

Series: Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics | Publication Date: April 15, 1996

In an attempt to demystify "Muslim politics" for a wide audience, Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori explore how the politics of Islam play out in the daily lives of Muslims throughout the world. From the role of women in public life to Islamic perspectives on modernisation and free speech, the authors probe the diversity of the contemporary Islamic experience, suggesting general trends and challenging popular Western notions of Islam as a monolithic movement. In so doing, they clarify concepts such as tradition, authority, ethnicity, protest, and symbolic space, notions that are crucial to an in-depth understanding of ongoing political events. This book poses questions about ideological politics in a variety of transnational and regional settings throughout the Muslim world. Europe and North America, for example, have become active Muslim centres, profoundly influencing trends in the Middle East, Africa, Central Asia, and South and South-east Asia. The authors examine the long-term cultural and political implications of this transnational shift as an emerging generation of Muslims, often the products of secular schooling, begin to reshape politics and society - sometimes in defiance of state authorities. Scholars, mothers, government leaders, and musicians are a few of the prota-gonists who, invoking shared Islamic symbols, try to re-configure the boundaries of civic debate and public life. These symbolic politics explain why political actions are recognizably Muslim, and why "Islam" makes a difference in determining the politics of a broad swath of the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Despite the continuing avalanche of books on Islamic politics, there is still a need for a succinct, sane, up-to-date overview of the subject. Here it is. . . . An excellent and much-needed book. -- International Affairs



Eickelman and Piscatori use an impressive range of examples from across the world to bring out the richness and diversity of the political experiences of Muslims. -- Charles Tripp, Times Literary Supplement



Refreshing and instructive. . . . [This is] an excellent and much-needed book. -- Roger Hardy, International Affairs



With . . . thoughtful analysis and erudite facts, Eickelman and Piscatori successfully raise the discussion of Muslims and their role in today's world to a higher and more promising level. -- Akram Fouad Khater, History



A readable, learned, and timely study. . . . The authors are to be commended for the breadth of their undertaking and the penetrating nature of their analysis. -- Lawrence Ziring, Review of Politics



In a period of misguided accounts of the Muslim world, exposure to the Eickelman and Piscatori arguments is highly instructive. . . . It will challenge students, scholars, and policy makers in the field to rethink Islamic politics. -- Mahmood Monshipouri, Middle East Policy
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Dale F. Eickelman is Ralph and Richard Lazarus Professor of Anthropology and Human Relations at Dartmouth College. He is the author of numerous books, including "The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach" and "Knowledge and Power in Morocco" (Princeton). James Piscatori is Professor in Muslim Politics at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies, University of Oxford. His books include "Islam in a World of Nation-States" and the edited volume "Islamic Fundamentalisms and the Gulf Crisis". --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 248 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr; 1st edition (April 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0691031843
• ISBN-13: 978-0691031842
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,012,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best Introductory Book, June 9, 2003

By 

Tron Honto - See all my reviews

This review is from: Muslim Politics (Paperback)

Whenever someone comes to me wondering where they should begin when it comes to studying modern politics with an eye towards Islam, I inevitably point them towards this volume.

One of the reasons that I do so is that, not only are the two authors widely respected in the field, the both come from different backgrounds. Piscatori I would roughly describe as a political scientist known for his work on Islam and the modern creation of the nation-state. Eickelman is a long established anthropologist who rose to fame working in the Maghreb. The resulting integration of both the politcal and the anthropological is about as ideal as one can get. Since Islamism has the fascinating quality of not being merely political but also being a religious movement employing and revolutionizing the use of tradition and cultural icons of Islamicity, the perspective of anthropology as a part of any attempt to grasp its dynamics I have found to be crucial.

Here, you won't find the top 10 terrorist hit-list or a chart graph of all the members of Hamas, but you find a much more profound and broader picture of how tradition, religion and modern politics intersect with multifarious results in numerous global regions and some of the mechanisms at work. In general, it is an excellent work for gaining the tools with which to critically approach such phenomena in various Muslim societies across the globe.
all intersect

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Introduction to Muslim Politics, Theoretically Informed, Global in Scope, October 6, 2010

By 

Mimicri - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Muslim Politics (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics) (Paperback)

Finally here we have an introductory text to Muslim Politics that does not focus on the Arab world and treats what are in fact the more populous Muslim regions in South Asia, Southeast Asia and West Africa as the "Islamic periphery." Instead, the book recognizes these regions as being right at the core of Muslim politics. Readers are introduced to Muslim politics through the lens of a social science that treats Muslim politics as one among other political phenomena that can be studied and grasped with the tools and concepts of contemporary sociology, political science and the sociology of law. Readers are guided through the transformation of religious authority in the Muslim world, the emergence and political projects of Islamic movements, the diverse meanings of Islamic law and an Islamic state, the contextual notions of what is "the private" in Muslim societies, the transnational character of religious practice, and the use of Islam in struggles for political change, liberalization and democratization. A superb overview. Few other authors could provide it with such deep knowledge and such a wide variety of examples to draw on, from Senegal to Oman, Turkey to Indonesia, Turkmenistan to Tanzania, Lebanon to Malaysia. Emphatically recommended.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A balanced account of the subject. Perhaps 'too nice', November 6, 2001

By 

Alessandro Bruno (Toronto, Canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Muslim Politics (Paperback)

In Muslim Politics Dale Eickelman and James Piscatori have studied the idea of a Political Islam from a broad perspective. The title of the book itself betrays its breadth as it suggests, through the use of the plural 'politics' and the adjective Muslim - practitioner of Islam - rather than Islam itself, that Islam is a dynamic and evolving set of beliefs that have varied in time and space. This suggests that there can be no single explanation to account for the rise of Muslim politics and that a multiple criteria must be used to analyze the phenomenon. The book presents a number of arguments in its six chapters with examples from all over the Islamic world and among these are Tradition, Objectification and Fragmentation.
The authors challenge Modernization theory's contention that tradition is irreconcilable with social and political development and the idea that Islamic legal frameworks may not be altered as they have been conceived as a reflection of divine revelation. They also show that references to the Islamic past are used as rallying points or symbols from which to draw inspiration for change in the present. My main concern and the reason I have not awarded a full 5 stars is that the authors seem to neglect or have chosen to ignore the very real violence that radical islamists have caused. No mention of Algeria -90-present, Egypt and the numerous terror attacks of the last decade, the mindless policies these groups often support, the Taliabn and a host of other less than ideal versions - at best - and downright abominable conditions that prevail as a result of many Muslim Political interpretations.