:God's Rule: Government and Islam.

Abstract

Originally published in the United Kingdom by Edinburgh University Press, the book under review is a North American edition. Its subject is timely, aiming to provide modern readers with detailed background on the origins and permutations of six centuries of medieval Islamic political thought. Patricia Crone is a well‐established scholar known previously for controversial yet insightful analyses. Crone's study focuses on Muslim societies in the Middle East from the time of the Prophet Muhammad until the Mongol conquest, or the early seventh century through middle thirteenth century. Those centuries witnessed the ministry of Muhammad, Arab Muslim troops conquering the Middle East, assimilation of Byzantine and Sasanian political theories and practices into emerging Muslim polities, secularization of Islamic caliphates and successor states, and schisms dividing Muslim communities located between North Africa and North India. That six‐century period also marked the gradual conversion to Islam of most Zoroastrians, numerous Christians, and many Jews—first mainly in urban settings and later in the hinterlands. So, despite wars and regime changes, medieval Muslim writers glorified that time as one when divergent Islamic societies flourished through confluences of distinct mores brought in by newly faithful Muslims from their earlier faiths and communities—a veritable golden age. Crone attempts to decipher and make explicable to readers the many interconnected concerns and solutions that shaped a range of statecraft during that age.