Islam, Politics and Social Movements

This book contains thirteen well-researched case studies on social movements in North Africa, India, the Middle East, and Iran. Each movement differs,as the issues and concerns vary according to area. This diversity is mademanageable by a neat categorization taking into account geography, periodization,and problematics, for example, and by the editors' clear explanation,in the first part of the book, of how the articles are arranged. In the second partare articles by Von Sivers, Clancy-Smith, Colonna, and Voll. Each authoranalyzes resistance and millenarian movements in precolonial (i.e., nineteenthandearly twentieth-century) North Africa. Part three, with articles by Frietag,Gilmartin and Swdenburg, deals with more contemporary issues, such asIslam and nationalism in India and Palestine. Part four discusses labor movements in Egypt and northern Nigeria (Beinin, Goldberg, Lubeck), while partfive looks at the Iranian revolution and the mles of Imam Khomeini and AliShari'ati in defining and inspiring it (Algar, Abrahamian, Keddie).One of the main issues that must be addressed when dealing with socialmovements in Islamic societies is whether they are really "Islamic" or whetherthey just happen to be taking place in Muslim Societies. Lapidus, in his introductoryessay, brings out the main issues when he says that the movements arestudied "in order to explore their self-conception and symbols, the econofnicand political conditions under which they developed, and their relation toagrarian and capitalist economic structum and to established state regimes andelites" (p. 3). The authors look at social, structural, and ideological featureswithout giving exclusive primacy to one or the other. Burke stresses this point.In his article, he discusses methodological issues and places the studies in thecontext of contemporary modes of analyses such as the "new cultural" and the"new social history" methods inspired by E. P. Thompson and others. Thisessay is an invaluable introduction to the case studies. Placing the movementsin the context of changes occurring in the Islamic world as well as in the contextof wider political and social events, the essay allows one to make comparisonsacmss the different areas covered in terms of popular culture, patternsof collective action, the problem of Islam and secularism, and other aspects.The articles range from the role of Islamic symbols (i.e., the mosque inIndia) in articulating new political organizations designed to deal with the ...