Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought.

• Author: Rippin, Andrew
• Position: Book Review

Commanding Right and Forbidding Wrong in Islamic Thought. By MICHAEL COOK. Cambridge: CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2000. Pp. xvii + 702. $85.00.

As I write this review newspapers are reporting that "vigilante groups" are bursting into Tehran dormitories and homes searching for VCRs and satellite-TV receivers to smash, attacking couples holding hands in the street, and burning down movie theatres. They are storming into restaurants in search of women wearing their scarves too loosely. According to such reports, the command to enforce Islamic social values is fiercely enacted by these groups who seem to have no doubts about the answer to the question, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

The value of Michael Cook's book is to put these kinds of actions into their historical, social, and legal perspective. The manner in which Cook has accomplished this will leave his readers in awe of not only the scope and depth of his research and understanding but also the eloquence, precision, and detail with which the results are presented. At seven hundred pages, this is a weighty tome indeed, but that hardly even gives measure to its sheer quantity since about half of that space is taken up by footnotes in small type, reflecting reading far and wide through history (classical to contemporary) and languages (Arabic, Persian, and Turkish sources abound), in print and manuscript. Such extensive footnotes have kept the text of the book eminently readable and are themselves mines of information and detail. Furthermore, a true sense of intellectual synthesis pervades the book, meaning that the integration of a broad range of scholarly work on medieval scholasticism, for example, is fully displayed (as it is on the later and modern periods as well). We are presented with a treasure trove of Islamic thought throughout the centuries of its existence, with a veritable comprehensive intellectual history focused on legal and theological positions.

Twenty chapters in five parts make up the thoroughly convincing presentation. The central question posed is to what extent do individual Muslims feel they must go in order to put into action [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] statements (found in eight individual verses with little elaboration) and prophetic dicta regarding commanding right and, especially, forbidding wrong. The elements from Muhammad establish crucial principles (far more than the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII]) with the prophet reported as having said, "Whoever sees a wrong and is able to put it right with his hand, let him do so; if he can't, then with his tongue; if he can't, then with [or in] his heart, which is the bare minimum of faith." Early biographical material suggests that various themes emerged among Muslims in clarifying the extent and the focus of forbidding wrongs: the responsibility to confront the state apparatus and to confront general society with its tendencies to wine, women, and song, couched in a careful protection of individual privacy as enjoined in the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII].

The results of the study indicate that the answers to the fundamental questions varied tremendously over time. Cook, always the good social historian, tries to address the "why" question which lies behind this variation. The exploration of this theme provides the core of the work, through an examination of the scholastic traditions of Islam in which extended treatments of the notion of forbidding wrong are found. The subject of section two of the book, forbidding wrong in Hanbalite literature, allows some access to the social context of the activity as well.

Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 311/923) gathered together the sayings of Ibn Hanbal on the topic of forbidding wrong. Typical of Cook's thorough approach in the book, the twenty-five-page section dealing with this work is based textually on the comparison of three printed editions and one manuscript, all collated and carefully documented in the notes. This work provides the fullest early documentation of how the [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] and prophetic dicta were implemented; the analysis shows that the doctrine was an apolitical one which kept its distance from the political powers of the time and made no demands of, and had no expectations of, the caliph. In dealing with individuals in need of moral correction, the approach was...