Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nurbakhshiya between Medieval and Modern Islam.

• Author: Lawson, Todd
• Position: Book review

Messianic Hopes and Mystical Visions: The Nurbakhshiya between Medieval and Modern Islam. By SHAHZAD BASHIR. Columbia, South Carolina: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS, 2003. Pp. xxxvi + 328, illus., tables. $49.95.

It is especially encouraging to welcome such studies as this magnificent book by Shahzad Bashir. It is not flawless; but it is a serious attempt to take Muslim messiahs seriously. That is to say, to study them and recognize that they are authentic, genuine, even legitimate sons (or, for that matter, daughters) of Islam. Here we have no Russians, British, or Zionists to blame it on. What a breath of fresh air. Some of that Islam could have occupied more space, to be sure: e.g., Isma'ili thought and social history, Islamic philosophy, and the works and intellectual progeny of Ibn 'Arabi. These areas could have been illuminated more--for example, perhaps in a more detailed textual analysis of the Risdlat al-hudd. To be fair, much is said about both, but one has the impression that much more could also be said.

Bashir begins with an excellent survey of the genesis and history of islamicate messianism, frequently yoked here with the more methodologically problematic category of apocalyptic. In offering this introduction the question is never asked and therefore it is never necessary to respond explicitly as to whether a mahdi figure is genuinely Islamic or "foreign." Expectations and messianic hopes are seen to be woven into the fabric of Islam from the earliest period. And if we couple the gist of this chapter with recent publications by other scholars on related topics (precisely, apocalyptics), it seems tenable to support the thesis that the Muslim community is congenitally messianic and that the periods in which the mahdist spirit is neither abroad "amongst the folk" nor institutionalized (Abbasids, Fatimids, Alamut-ism, Ottomans, Safavids, Mughals, Khomeinist Iran, etc.) are rather the exception than the rule. So, Islam is pregnant with expectations of a radical earthly change or reversal. In its most unanswerable form, it is pregnant with "the end of the world." After all, even the "first" Arab philosopher, al-Kindi, calculated the duration of the Islamic period via jafr computation applied to the disconnected letters of the Qur'an. (This fact is not mentioned here.) Interestingly, Bashir demonstrates that Islam is pregnant with the end of a world.

The remaining chapters are highly readable and informative. They are argued...