Islamic Tradition and Politics: the Kijaji and the Alim

Abstract

“Unity and variety” in the Islamic cultural tradition has recently been made the centralizing theme of a number of essays by eminent orientalists in a volume edited by Professor von Grunebaum. Another important recent book by Professor W. C. Smith has a similar theme, though it is more concerned with the contemporary adjustment of Islam to new political and social conditions in a number of Muslim countries. Social scientists, however, as opposed to orientalists, have tended to disregard the unifying aspects of classical Islam and have concentrated upon the particular variety of Islam practiced in a particular place or that practiced by a particular group of people. Perhaps the only social area where both “unity” and “variety” are brought close enough for examination by the social scientist is in the study of the organization, the social and political role, and the ideology of the recognized learned man of Islam: the alim, mullah, akhund, or kijaji.