Political Islam.

• Author: Najjar, Fauzi M.

Edited by Charles E. Burreworth and I. William Zartman. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 524. Newbury Park, Cal.: Sage Publications, 1992. Pp. 236. $24.

This special issue of the Annals, edited by two eminent scholars, provides a historical, legal, theological and political perspective to the movement known as political Islam (al-islam al-siyusi), a term preferred by the editors to the current "Islamic fundamentalism." It consists of fourteen articles, divided into six general groupings. The first, "political Islam viewed across time," consists of "The Golden Age: The Political Concepts of Islam," and "Political Islam: The Origins," by Ira Lapidus and Charles Butterworth, respectively. Lapidus highlights two paradigms in terms of which one may understand the degree to which Islam may shape the political and cultural life of the modern Muslim. The first is the "undifferentiated" politico-religious community established by the Prophet and emulated by some of his successors. The second is the "differentiated structures of previous Middle Eastern societies," culminating in the Ottoman state, in which a virtual separation of religion and state was institutionalized. He concludes that Islam will play a greater role in personal and societal culture than in the structure and daily affairs of the state.

In a perceptive statement, Butterworth articulates the teaching of Islamic political philosophy, which focuses on virtue/excellence as an end of politics or the political regime. While in the modern West freedom/democracy replaces virtue, Islamicists insist on the concept but with an Islamic moral content. That is partially why democracy is of little or no concern in Islamicist literature. As he calls for "greater tolerance with respect to the basic presuppositions of those who look to religion for guidance," Butterworth is somehow silent about the rhetoric and actions of extremist Islamicists who claim to seek the same end by violence.

The second grouping, "nonofficial manifestations of political Islam," encompasses "Popular Islam" by Patrick D. Gaffney, "Militant Islam and the Politics of Redemption," by Mary J. Deeb, and "Conservative and Traditional Brotherhoods," by John 0. Voll. Gaffney discusses the nature of popular Islam and the changes it has undergone over time, pointing out how it has remained indifferent to Islamic modernism and its counterpart, Islamic conservatism, both being urban elite...