State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective [Hardcover]

Haim Gerber (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 233 pages
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr (July 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0791418774
• ISBN-13: 978-0791418772
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,419,807 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3.0 out of 5 stars defending ottoman law against weber, August 30, 2004

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Tron Honto - See all my reviews

This review is from: State, Society, and Law in Islam: Ottoman Law in Comparative Perspective (Hardcover)

Gerber's well-known, may soon to be out-of-print, is a classic work on Islamic law, especially in the Ottoman, know particulary for its contention with and attempts to refute the claim of Weber that Islamic or `kadi-law' was a major obstacle to modernizing of Islamic societies generally. Using the court-records of Bursa as a principal, albeit limited when discussing an empire-wide issue, source, Gerber mainly takes an apologetic tone throughout the work in defense of the Ottoman legal system against its Weberian critics.



Well the work itself is fine and generally well argued, the style of the book itself I found to be disagreeable. Although the discussions and conversations of Weberian sociology and anthropological studies are useful, these occur in a dearth of descriptive material. I was disappointed to find that Gerber never takes sufficient amount of time to describe in detail the sources employed, what they tell us about the Ottoman empire beyond the specific region of Bursa, and the picture of the courts they provide. No direct, uninterrupted picture of how an Ottoman court actually worked was ever provided. Piecing this picture together from disjointed anecdotes proved frustrating and onerous. The overall structure of the work, which I repeated was well-argued, is one where Gerber let his axe-grinding get in the way of composing a truly solid piece of history.