Muslim Elites Research Articles

Thailand´ s Intractable Southern War: Policy, Insurgency and Discourse

In mid-2008, with turbulence in Thailand's Deep South halfway through its 5th year, government, military and police claimed that tangible progress had been made in destabilising insurgent networks and reducing in six month period since late 2007. Though statistics do indicate an overall decline in violent incidents and casualties over this period, authorities still face challenge of convincing both borderland and national population, as well as news media (both domestic and foreign) that they are making progress in ways that are both substantial and legitimate. It is a state that can appropriately be described as intractable. Essentially there are two key reasons for this condition of intractability bedevilling Thailand's crisis. First, security forces of Thai state are unable to reach a decisive breakthrough in counter-insurgency and development efforts in face of a determined and flexible guerrilla war being waged against them. Admittedly, cell-based clandestine insurgent networks have been at least a decade in making, so it is hardly to be expected that this guerrilla-style offensive can be quelled rapidly, and over past few years military and government officials have repeatedly emphasized that it will take time to end violence. Nonetheless, even with current policy mix of law enforcement and peaceoriented development, it is unlikely that a reduction in current violence will be any more than gradual. Overshadowing this ongoing challenge is fact that daily killings afflicting borderland are also committed by crime networks and rival local politicians who intersect with ideologically-motivated groups in varied and confusing ways. (1) Unofficial estimates of proportion of total killings resulting from private and political conflicts range from between 15 to 50 per cent. (2) Nevertheless, impelling force driving violence and continuing insecurity in borderland is clearly a form of Malay-Muslim separatism embraced by a looselystructured movement founded on cell-based military and political wings, one that has been able to attract support from a proportion of local Malay-Muslim population, and otherwise demand compliance and/or silence of many others. Second, condition of intractability is compounded by continuing contestation over key issues surrounding the problem of south and solutions to it. Over past year civil society sector, numerous single-issue advocates and sections of borderland Muslim elite have continued to condemn security forces as prime aggressor, targeting in particular continuing application of emergency law of 2005 which permits security forces to detain and question suspects. While fervent in their criticism, these groups have not proposed realistic alternative measures for reducing ongoing violence. During 2004 a number of perceptive Thai commentators, including pseudonymous columnist Barun and Sathian Chantimathon, stressed that conflict in south would be primarily a conflict around construction of knowledge. (3) Within a few weeks of explosion of violence that followed startling raid on a military camp in Narathiwat Province on 4 January 2004, there emerged a cluster of jostling arguments about origins, character and solutions to southern fire. These stymied any clear consensus about its driving dynamics and primary solutions. They were generated by various key actors and interest groups, including members of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government, opposition Democrat Party, media, academics, public intellectuals, justice advocates and serving and retired military figures. In a previous research paper, I suggested that these overlapping, but often competing paradigms could be grouped under a number of headings, including: The Draconian and Short-sighted Thaksin State; The Marginalized and Persecuted Southern Muslim; Banditry, Underdevelopment and Manipulation; Security Threat and Need for a Firm Military Response; and The Lawless and Neglected Borderland. …

Anti-Americanism, Anti-Westernism, and Anti-Semitism among Russia's Muslims

Although many in the West do not subscribe to Samuel Huntington's view regarding a of civilizations, many of the world's Muslims and all Islamists do. An expression of the Islamic world's clash with Western civilization is its rabid anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, anti-Semitism, and Islamic solidarity. Russia's Muslims are no exception. They express the same limited and prejudiced range of opinions that many Muslims around the world do toward the West. Despite this, some in the West persist in believing that even Russia's most extremist Muslims-the North Caucasus jihadists led by the Chechen hub calling itself the Chechen Republic of Ichkeriya (ChRI)-are neither jihad-ists nor militants.1 Many analysts believe the Caucasus militants compose a noble national liberation movement rightly seeking their separation from an imperial or colonial power, as they have for centuries.2 They scrupulously and relentlessly subject Russian actions to microscopic analysis and harsh criticism, but largely ignore and routinely abstain from criticizing the Caucasus jihadists' means, methods, and ideology.3In fact, the Islamist element has held sway over the Chechen militants since the summer of 2002. Islamists Shamil Basayev and Shariah Court Chairman Abdul-Khalim Sadulayev forced President Aslan Maskhadov to amend the ChRI constitution, subordinating him and the constitution to Shariah law as interpreted by Chechen and other Caucasus jihad-ists. The Chechen separatist movement expanded the war to the wider North Caucasus region and aimed to expand it to all of Russia's lands to establish an Islamic state or federation of Islamic states. The Caucasus jihad adopted the global jihadist tactics of suicide bombing and improvised explosive devices. Ideological declarations were increasingly Salafist Islamist in character, championing Shariah law, martyrdom, Islamic caliphates, and anti-infidelism over Chechen or Caucasus nationalism and independence, anticolonialism, and anti-Russian elements.4I will examine anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, and anti-Semitism-all of which for purposes of brevity I refer to at times as anti-infidelism-among Russia's various Muslim orientations as reflected in the jihadists' and the moderate Muslim elite's discourses on global affairs. Anti-American messages from the outside Muslim world, Russia's Islamic media and elite, and non-Islamic Russian media are among the factors that foster such sentiments among Russia's Muslims. I focus on Muslim articulations because Western media and think tanks have covered anti-infidelism extensively, while coverage of Russia's Muslims has been nonexistent. The Islamic political elite, as the Muslims' leadership and as potential and kinetic ethnoconfessional entrepreneurs, are of pivotal importance for the direction that many of Russia's re-Islamizing ethnic Muslims might take in the future, particularly in relation to jihad against Russian or other infidels. The Islamic elite play the key role in Russian politics for Muslims and their articulations in the media possess the potential to turn Russia's mainstream Muslims against the infidel. There is considerable anti-infidelism, especially anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism, among Russia's Caucasus jihadists, the official and unofficial Muslim elite, and even simple ethnic Muslims.Anti-Infidelism among Russia's JihadistsThe ChRI jihadists articulate the most virulent anti-infidelism among Russia's Muslims and, to a great degree, their discourse surpasses traditional Russian anti-Westernism and anti-Semitism and rising anti-Americanism. The ChRI leaders' statements are particularly instructive because they are representative of Russia's larger jihadist network, for which the ChRI serves as a hub for nodes around the North Caucasus and elsewhere, and are influencing not only its more Sufi and nationalist operatives but also some Muslims across Russia.Some top ChRI jihadists have not been shy about criticizing the United States and stating their affection for Osama bin Laden. …

A theory of Islamic political radicalism in Britain: sociology, theology and international political economy

This polemical essay based on on-going ethnographic research explores the phenomenon of Islamic political radicalism in Western Europe, in particular Britain, and the challenges that emerge in relation to the maintenance of a successful multicultural project. Analysing recent events in Western Europe, namely the Madrid train bombings and the murder of Theo van Gogh in 2004 and the London suicide bombings in 2005, this paper argues that Islamic political radicalism is on the increase because of factors that are both endogenous and exogenous to the various Muslim minority communities. Local, national and international pressures conspire to compound the aspirations, expectations, attitudes and perceptions of already disenfranchised groups. First, the layers of the ‘radicalisation onion’ are peeled away to explore the nature of the experience of Muslim minorities, analysing questions of evolving Islamic political identities in the context of the 2001 terrorist attacks and subsequent ‘war on terror.’ Second, the dynamics of Islamic political radicalisation are discussed, specifically alluding to the Qur’anic ideals that ‘Jihadis’ variously appropriate. Finally, the discussion explores the ways in which the nation-state has involved Muslim elite groups in acting as a bridge between government and the Muslim citizen. Many young Muslims view these actions cynically with elites vying for position and profile in an intensely active period of political manoeuvring. In conclusion, it is argued that should the status quo remain intact, the threat of Islamic political radicalisation will persist and solutions will be as much dependent on the nation-state becoming aware of its potential role while disaffected Muslim minorities continue to develop theological and sociological approaches to life in the non-Muslim West.

Boundaries of the nation in the space of the urban: landscape and social memory in Istanbul

Kuzguncuk, Istanbul, is known for its small-scale neighbourhood landscape and its close social ties, as well as its multiethnic history. The Armenian church and the mosque in Kuzguncuk have become symbolic ‘evidence’, in popular culture, of past multiethnic harmony. A Muslim elite is restoring Kuzguncuk's historic houses and its neighbourhood culture. The production of Kuzguncuk's landscape is sustained by two interrelated nostalgic narratives: a narrative of multicultural tolerance; and the narrative of the neighbourhood, the mahalle, as the urban space of belonging and familiarity. However, the ‘lie of the land’ is that this landscape obscures a contentious and traumatic minority history, and gentrification is creating new social divides. Kuzguncuk's minorities are gone. The traumas they experienced during mid-century Turkification, as well as the current divisions of class and origin in Kuzguncuk, are denied in the popular narrative. This denial attempts to hide tension embedded in the national narrative of belonging. This study of the power dynamics shaping Kuzguncuk's landscape examines the terms of belonging, of being a ‘Turk’, in Turkey, a debate which both redraws and contests the boundaries of the nation in the space of the urban.

From Conflict to Co-operation Between Muslims and Local Authorities in a Brussels Borough: Schaerbeek

Schaerbeek (a borough of Brussels) is an ideal case-study of how the presence of a Muslim population is managed in Belgium. The relational model that prevailed until 1994, when the local coalition changed, was marked by the municipal administration's hostility towards Muslims and more especially the mosque associations. It has since gradually given way to a new model that is characterised by working together for true recognition of the Muslims’ freedom of worship and appreciation of their cultural roots. The development of a constituency of immigrant background and a Muslim elite in both politics and the mosque associations has played a major role in this change. However, it seems that the new language adopted by the local administration, which is aimed at getting Muslim residents to become active local citizens, is not free from an election-oriented hidden agenda. These developments are studied by means of a comparison of the periods before and after 1994 in which we analyse how the borough's authorities perceive(d) Islam and Muslims and cope(d) with their presence and how the Muslims themselves have integrated local life.

If Allah Wills It: Integration, Isolation and Muslim Authenticity in Yunnan Province in China

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes In his study of Chinese Catholicism Richard Madsen has cautioned against assuming that social institutions in China constitute civil society. Some groups may hinder rather than promote trust, openness and solidarity across the social spectrum, and if they do, Madsen (1998 Madsen R 1998 China's Catholics (Berkeley, CA, University of California Press) [Crossref] , [Google Scholar], pp. 13 – 15) suggests we consider them ‘uncivil’ in their orientation and social effects. The isolationist conception of Chinese Islam analysed in this paper represents a kind of ‘uncivil’ Islam, while those who stress the need for an integrated, modernising religious practice articulate a model of Chinese Islam that is civically engaged. The Hui population in Yunnan at the end of 2002 was estimated at 633,420 (see Yunnan, 2003 Yunnan 2003 Yunnan tongji nianjian bianweihui (Yunnan Statistical Yearbook Editorial Committee) (eds) 2003 Yunnan tongji nianjian (2003 Yunnan Statistical Yearbook), (Beijing, China Statistical Press) [Google Scholar], p. 677). Zhongdian County was renamed Shang-ge-li-la in 2002 after county officials ‘proved’ it was the inspiration for Shangri-la, the earthly paradise described in James Hilton's novel Lost Horizon (see Hillman, 2003 Hillman, B. 2003. Paradise under construction: minorities, myths and modernity in northwest Yunnan. Asian Ethnicity, 4, 2: pp. 175 – 88 [Google Scholar]). Muslim women in Yunnan typically pray at home, but in Haba they attend the mosque. One woman explained that their homes were primitive and ‘unsanitary’, and that it was difficult to create the clean and pure environment required for prayer. The mosque is divided into separate sections for men and women. Regarding the paradox of Ikhwan Chinese nationalism, Lipman (1994 Lipman J 1994 Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Seattle, WA, University of Washington Press) [Google Scholar]) states that ‘[within] one generation of its fundamentalist, antiacculturalist founder, the movement had become an ally of Chinese nationalism, a tool of an acculturating Muslim elite, and an important bridge between Muslim communities and the burgeoning Chinese nation-state’ (p. 205).

British and German Cartoons as Weapons in World War I: Invectives and Ideology of Political Cartoons. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach by Wolfgang K. Hünig (review)

858 Reviews whereas Forster 'discovered' India. The geographical point of intersection that exerted fascination on both writers was India. Calcutta, which Duras firstvisited aged seventeen en route to France, helped lay the imaginative foundations for her India cycle, referred to by Yves Clavaron as 'la "constellation" India Song' (p. 41). But if the India that absorbed her, as she asserts in Les Parleuses, was not the land of the maharajas but Tlndepresque caricaturale de la lepre et de la faim' (p. 139), Forster's contacts were different.He firstwent to India as the guest of Syed Ross Masood, the dedicatee of A Passage to India who belonged to the Muslim elite, and returned later at the invitation of a Hindu maharaja. These strong, instructive contrasts provide Clavaron with the infrastructure for a lucid comparative study that connects intelligently with contemporary postcolo? nial debate about colonial literature and its legacy. His methodological premiss is to explore the fictional production of that era historically. Within the geopolitical and cultural frameworks that he recontructs, he singles out Forster's uneasiness working on A Passage to India, citing a letter to Masood in which he protests: 'When I began the book I thought of it as a little bridge of sympathy between East and West, but [. . .] my sense of truth forbids anything so comfortable' (p. 48). Troubled by this complex cultural encounter, Forster works to distance himself from his contempo? raries' politicized readings of his novel. Hence the appeal in The Hill of Devi to a universalist discourse that privileges the Indian earth and sky. 'The Life to Come' admittedly provides Forster with the opportunity to criticize what he sees as an arrogant Catholic Church pursuing its own branch ofthe civilizing mission. Yet Clavaron skilfully shows Forster's European humanism as itself failing ultimately to allow Indian culture its alterity by adhering to Western aesthetics. If Forster's preferred route is irony in the face of what he frequently labels 'muddle' in A Passage to India, Duras regularly opts for violent satire. Thus the world of finance is denounced in Un barrage contre le Pacifique as 'la crapule de cette engeance blanche de la colonie' (P- 75) and colonial Saigon houses the Mecca for colonial financiers. Clavaron also deftlyexplores the motifs of misogyny, sexuality, the family narrative, and the missing father in relation to his two colonial authors. Royal Holloway, University of London Edward Hughes British and German Cartoons as Weapons in World War I: Invectives and Ideology of Political Cartoons. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach. By Wolfgang K. Hunig. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. 2003. 242 pp. ?23. ISBN 3-631-50211-7 (pbk). Punch and Simplicissimus, best known for their debunking of social behaviour, also included trenchant political cartoons, especially during the First World War. Wolf? gang Hiinig examines 325 examples to reveal parallels in invective against the enemy. Through the interplay of the sketches, the headings, and the captions, differentpat? terns of humour, irony,and sarcasm emerge that either support or contradict prejudices and stereotypes. Using the methods of cognitive linguistics, Hiinig focuses on the condensation ofcomplex ideas into a single image and into a related metaphor. The abstract or unfamiliar is made both visually and verbally concrete, often by reference to well-known cultural examples. Figures such as John Bull or Kaiser Bill become metonymies when they represent nations; emblems such as the British Lion or the German Eagle provide rich sources forthe use of discourse spoken by commentators to express invective or ridicule. Hiinig develops a convincing theory of mental spaces and blends. These interconnect and create an artificial world where the viewer or reader is fascinated and then manipulated to accept its premisses. The cartoonist strikes a balance between MLRy 99.3, 2004 859 'downright aggression and humorous insinuation' (p. 26) in order to appeal to feel? ings of superiority, relief, or incongruity. The scenarios may become totally absurd, but they provide the necessary distance to make the propaganda acceptable. Hiinig differentiates between scenes that are everyday, non-combatant military, war, counterfactual , or metonymic, and further subdivides these as communicative situations, internal interactions between sketch and caption, and communicative situations that interact with the captions. Such categorization and the...

The Two Faces of Contemporary Eurasianism: An Imperial Version of Russian Nationalism

The Eurasianist ideology is coming back on the Russian political and intellectual scene but also among the Turkic and Muslim elites in the Russian Federation and in Kazakhstan. The political, economic, social and identity difficulties of the transition invite Russians and other post-Soviet citizens to think about their relations with Europe and about the relevance of taking the West as a model. In this context of destabilization, Eurasianism proposes a geopolitical solution for the post-Soviet space. It presupposes the existence of a third continent between East and West, called “Eurasia,” and supports the idea of an organic unity of cultures born in this zone of symbiosis between Russian, Turkic, Muslim and even Chinese worlds. Neo-Eurasianism is the main ideology born among the different Russian conservative movements in the 1990s. Its theories are very little known, but the idea of an entity called Eurasia, regrouping the center of the old continent in which Russia would be “at home,” is more and more rife. It attracted many intellectuals and politicians in the first years after the collapse of the Soviet Union: Eurasianism was a way to explain the “disaster.”

A muslim princess in the temples of Viṣṇu

I begin this essay with a story.1 It tells of the daughter of the Muslim Sultan of Delhi who falls in love with an icon of the Hindu god Visnu and follows it all the way to southern India, where she dies and gains posthumous beatitude within the Hindu temple. The tale is preserved, in slightly differing versions, in several pre-British South Indian Vais?ava texts and primarily relates to two major ?rivaisnava temples, the temple of Visnu Raggan?tha at Srirangam near Tricbi and the N?r?yanasv?mi temple at Melkote in Karnataka.2 The Delhi princess also turns up in other South Indian temples, as we will see. Viewing the Sudan's daughter in her medieval setting, I would like to show how this narrative offers reflections on the problematic relations of contending Hindu and Muslim elites, the incorporative possibilities of bhakti, and the space accorded to Islam within the established Hindu temples of late medieval South India.

British and German Cartoons as Weapons in World War I: Invectives and Ideology of Political Cartoons. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach (review)

858 Reviews whereas Forster 'discovered' India. The geographical point of intersection that exerted fascination on both writers was India. Calcutta, which Duras firstvisited aged seventeen en route to France, helped lay the imaginative foundations for her India cycle, referred to by Yves Clavaron as 'la "constellation" India Song' (p. 41). But if the India that absorbed her, as she asserts in Les Parleuses, was not the land of the maharajas but Tlndepresque caricaturale de la lepre et de la faim' (p. 139), Forster's contacts were different.He firstwent to India as the guest of Syed Ross Masood, the dedicatee of A Passage to India who belonged to the Muslim elite, and returned later at the invitation of a Hindu maharaja. These strong, instructive contrasts provide Clavaron with the infrastructure for a lucid comparative study that connects intelligently with contemporary postcolo? nial debate about colonial literature and its legacy. His methodological premiss is to explore the fictional production of that era historically. Within the geopolitical and cultural frameworks that he recontructs, he singles out Forster's uneasiness working on A Passage to India, citing a letter to Masood in which he protests: 'When I began the book I thought of it as a little bridge of sympathy between East and West, but [. . .] my sense of truth forbids anything so comfortable' (p. 48). Troubled by this complex cultural encounter, Forster works to distance himself from his contempo? raries' politicized readings of his novel. Hence the appeal in The Hill of Devi to a universalist discourse that privileges the Indian earth and sky. 'The Life to Come' admittedly provides Forster with the opportunity to criticize what he sees as an arrogant Catholic Church pursuing its own branch ofthe civilizing mission. Yet Clavaron skilfully shows Forster's European humanism as itself failing ultimately to allow Indian culture its alterity by adhering to Western aesthetics. If Forster's preferred route is irony in the face of what he frequently labels 'muddle' in A Passage to India, Duras regularly opts for violent satire. Thus the world of finance is denounced in Un barrage contre le Pacifique as 'la crapule de cette engeance blanche de la colonie' (P- 75) and colonial Saigon houses the Mecca for colonial financiers. Clavaron also deftlyexplores the motifs of misogyny, sexuality, the family narrative, and the missing father in relation to his two colonial authors. Royal Holloway, University of London Edward Hughes British and German Cartoons as Weapons in World War I: Invectives and Ideology of Political Cartoons. A Cognitive Linguistics Approach. By Wolfgang K. Hunig. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. 2003. 242 pp. ?23. ISBN 3-631-50211-7 (pbk). Punch and Simplicissimus, best known for their debunking of social behaviour, also included trenchant political cartoons, especially during the First World War. Wolf? gang Hiinig examines 325 examples to reveal parallels in invective against the enemy. Through the interplay of the sketches, the headings, and the captions, differentpat? terns of humour, irony,and sarcasm emerge that either support or contradict prejudices and stereotypes. Using the methods of cognitive linguistics, Hiinig focuses on the condensation ofcomplex ideas into a single image and into a related metaphor. The abstract or unfamiliar is made both visually and verbally concrete, often by reference to well-known cultural examples. Figures such as John Bull or Kaiser Bill become metonymies when they represent nations; emblems such as the British Lion or the German Eagle provide rich sources forthe use of discourse spoken by commentators to express invective or ridicule. Hiinig develops a convincing theory of mental spaces and blends. These interconnect and create an artificial world where the viewer or reader is fascinated and then manipulated to accept its premisses. The cartoonist strikes a balance between MLRy 99.3, 2004 859 'downright aggression and humorous insinuation' (p. 26) in order to appeal to feel? ings of superiority, relief, or incongruity. The scenarios may become totally absurd, but they provide the necessary distance to make the propaganda acceptable. Hiinig differentiates between scenes that are everyday, non-combatant military, war, counterfactual , or metonymic, and further subdivides these as communicative situations, internal interactions between sketch and caption, and communicative situations that interact with the captions. Such categorization and the...

Imperial fault lines: Christianity and colonial power in India, 1818-1940

Imperial Fault Lines tells the history of Christian missionary encounters with non-Christians in a part of the world where there were no Christians at all until the advent of British imperial rule in the early nineteenth century. As British and American missionaries spread out from Delhi into the heartland of Punjab, their preconceived ideas about Hinduism and Islam broke down rapidly as they established institutions requiring the close cooperation of Indians. Two-thirds of the foreign missionaries who entered the Punjab were women, and issues of gender as well as race were central dilemmas in a cultural encounter that featured numerous irresolvable conflicts. The missionaries' commitment to Christian universalism clashed with the visible realities of their imperial privileges. Although determined to build multiracial institutions based on spiritual equality, missionaries were the beneficiaries of an imperial racial hierarchy. Their social encounters with Indians were exceedingly complex, involving intimacy and affection as well as affronts and betrayals. Missionaries were compelled to react to circumstances not of their own making, and were forced to negotiate and compromise with Indian Christians, government officials, Indian critics of the missionary movement, and the many non-Christian students, patients, and staff at large and influential missionary schools, colleges, and hospitals. In villages, university-educated clergymen who had hoped to convert the Hindu and Muslim elite found themselves in the surprising position of advocating the rights of stigmatized and oppressed rural laborers. The history of elite institution-building took surprising turns during the rise of the national movement, as missionaries struggled with the conflict between their own transparent entanglement with imperialism and their attempts to foster new forms of indigenous Christianity that would outlive British imperial rule.

Role of religion in politics: Impact on the civil and military society of Pakistan

The beginnings of Islamic revivalism in South Asia were in reality attempts of the Muslim elite to regain their lost socio‐economic and political power which had been eroded as a consequence of British imperialism. Islam as a religion became an effective tool for social control and mobilisation. In the 20th century Syed Abul Ala Maududi, founder of the Jamaat‐i‐Islami, urged Muslims to struggle towards a worldwide revolution, transcending artificial boundaries and national territories to establish a worldwide ‘true Islamic state’. In keeping with these views, Maududi opposed the creation of Pakistan, but, after 1947, focussed on Islamisation of the country as an initial step towards a greater Islamic State. Fifty years of sustained efforts by the Jamaat have resulted in radicalisation of a large section of the Pakistani power structures by its cadre and sympathisers. Today, Pakistan is a hostage to the will of radical Muslim elements who pose a potent threat to the peace and stability of the region as well as to the existence of Pakistan as a sovereign state.

TO VEIL OR NOT TO VEIL?

The increasingly pervasive practice of veiling among Muslim women has stimulated a great deal of scholarly investigation and debate. This study brings empirical evidence to bear on current debates about the meaning of the veil in Islam. This article first examines the conflicting meanings of the veil among Muslim religious elites and Islamic feminists. Although the dominant gender discourse among Muslim elites strongly favors this cultural practice, an antiveiling discourse promulgated by Islamic feminists has gained ground within recent years. This study then examines how these discursive disputes affect gender identity negotiation among veiled and unveiled Muslim women living in Austin, Texas. Interviews with these women highlight how their gender identities reproduce and reformulate existing Muslim gender discourses. Special attention is paid to the subjective disparities and points of congruence between both groups of respondents. This study concludes by suggesting avenues for future research on the intersection of gender, religion, and cultural difference.

Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society. Jamsheed K. Choksy

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J.K. Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society

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Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904)

Julia Clancy-Smith's unprecedented study brings us a remarkable view of North African history from the perspective of the North Africans themselves. Focusing on the religious beliefs and political actions of Muslim elites and their followers in Algeria and Tunisia, she provides a richly detailed analysis of resistance and accommodation to colonial rule. Clancy-Smith demonstrates the continuities between the eras of Turkish and French rule as well as the importance of regional ties among elite families in defining Saharan political cultures. She rejects the position that Algerians and Tunisians were invariably victims of western colonial aggression, arguing instead that Muslim notables understood the outside world and were quite capable of manipulating the massive changes occurring around them.

Representations of India, the English East India Company, and Self by an Eighteenth-Century Indian Emigrant to Britain

By writing about the late eighteenth-century revolution which led to the East India Company rule, members of a largely Muslim pre-colonial administrative elite in eastern India sought take control over their own history. They explained the society and ancien régime of India, as well as themselves, to the new British rulers for whom they worked. In so doing, they strove to inform and guide the new British colonial authorities into employing them in the new administration as well as into valuing the cultural mores and bureaucratic experience which they embodied. They also wrote introspectively for the own class, trying to understand the causes of the revolution that had displaced their own traditional rulers and themselves with rule by Europeans and administrations staffed increasingly by Indians with backgrounds different from their own.

Religious Identification in Transnational Contexts: Being and Becoming Muslim in Ethiopia and Canada

The Harari are a recently formed diaspora of Muslim elites from the walled city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia. Ethiopians as a whole have not had a history of migration—of moving abroad permanently or changing their citizenship (Catholic Immigration Centre 1). The Harari have been particularly localized and were described as late as the mid-1960s as a “one city culture” (Waldron, “Social” 6) because the overwhelming majority of their numbers resided inside the old city wall. Today, only about one-third of the total population lives in the old city, the majority of them elder inhabitants. The largest concentration of Hararis outside Ethiopia is now in Toronto, Ontario: nearly 10% of the entire population lives in this diverse Canadian city. In this paper, I draw upon comparative ethnographic fieldwork with Hararis in Harar and Toronto to explore the ways in which this move from Ethiopia, as asylum seekers or as immigrants to Canada, has affected individual and group identities. Against the backdrop of Ethiopia’s new multiethnic government, Canadian multiculturalism policies, and the refugee and immigrant journeys between the two countries, Hararis and members of more than the seventy other officially recognized qabila, or nationalities, in Ethiopia are struggling to redefine themselves both at home and abroad.

Conservative and Traditional Brotherhoods

The major Sufi brotherhoods have a significance in the development of political Islam in the modern era that is often underestimated. The traditional brotherhoods provided the basis for much of the militant opposition to European imperial expansion in the nineteenth century and, through these efforts, created symbols for Islamic authenticity that have remained important throughout the twentieth century. These brotherhoods also were major conservative forces, preserving a sense of an Islamic identity in times of rule by non-Muslims or secularizing and westernizing Muslim elites after independence. The long-term impact of this conservative force is to provide a foundation for popular support for political Islam at the end of the twentieth century. This popular support is a major factor in transforming political Islam from a radical force on the periphery of the political arena into the basic foundation of mainstream politics in many Islamic societies.

Islam and Society in Southeast Asia

Knowing One Another: Shaping an Islamic AnthropologyMerryl Wyn Davies, London and New York:Mansell Publishing Limited, 1988, 189 pp.Books by Muslim scholars which raise theoretical issues in society andpolitics also raise hopes of a welcome trend because they are so rare. Inthe books under review we hear authentic Muslim voices. The authors makean interesting counter-poise, Muslims in the West and Muslims in SoutheastAsia. A self-conscious, anti-West, combative posture is struck; although inthe case of Davies, a British Muslim, this may simply mean the zeal of aconvert. Both books suggest the breaking of new ground, indeed Davies promisesto “shape” the discipline of anthropology.Islam and Society in Southeast Asia attempts to fill an important gapin the study of Islam in an area which contains the world‘s most populouscountry-Indonesia. The 13 chapters have been contributed by distinguishedprofessors, mostly indigenous; and some are very distinguished, indeed, likeProfessor Kamal Hassan of Malaysia and Abdurrahman Wahid of Indonesia.The subjects, too, are topical and compelling: the modernization of womenand the problems of the Nahdhatul Ulama in Indonesia.We are told why the Muslim masses reject Westernization: “Thus, thelife-styles of Muslim elites, socialism, capitalism and Western civilizationare all interrelated. Of the three factors, it is perhaps the lik-styles of theelites that has had the greatest impact upon the Muslim mind. It provides“tangible proof“ to the masses of the “evil” of Western civilization and foreignideologies ... It is expressed at the level of the houses the elites own, thecars they drive, the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the parties theyattend. Whether it is true or not, tales about these elites are almost alwaysinter-woven with lurid lore about their decadent habits with the emphasisupon their sexual misdemeanors. That is why, if Islamic groups opposedto existing regimes ever succeed in mobilizing the people on behalf of theirpuritanical concept of Islam it would have been partly because of their condemnationof the alleged moral decadence, the materialistic life-style of theelites-since it is an issue that has so much potential mass appeal” (“IslamicResurgence: Global View” by Chandra Muzaffar, p. 15).The elements of Islamic revivalism as seen from Southeast Asia are summarizedthus: “Islamic resurgence has been inspired by the following factors:(a) disillusionment with Western civilization as a whole among a new Muslimgeneration (b) the failings of social systems based on capitalism or socialism(c) the life-style of secular elites in Muslim states (d) the desire for poweramong a segment of an expanding middle class that cannot be accommodatedpolitically (e) the search for psychological security among new urban migrants(f) the city environment (g) the economic strength of certain Muslim statesas a result of their new oil wealth; and (h) a sense of confidence about thefuture in the wake of the 1973 Egyptian victory, the 1979 Iranian revolutionand the dawn of the fifteenth century in the Muslim calendar” (ibid, p. 21-22).The role of the &amp;ma is highlighted in Islamic revivalism and the checkingof Westernization in the concluding chapter: “The continuity of religioustraditions and their fortification against Western onslaught was largely thework of ‘ulama and other orthodox functionaries who ran Muslim educationalinstitutions- maktabs and mudmsahs (Muslim educational institute ...