by A.K.M. Aminul Islam and Gordon Welty,
Wright State University
Dayton, OH 45453 USA

[//131] Of all the manifestations of man's intellectual and socio-cultural life, none is so elusive of definition as is religion. Yet none is more important. There are many different religions in this world. Of these, about a dozen may be considered as major, or world, religions. Amongst the world religions, Islam is considered to be the youngest, but also one of the largest, with about three quarters of a billion devotees (Muslims). Most Muslims live in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, but some do live in Europe, the Americas and even in Australia and New Zealand. The wide variety of Muslims worldwide, together with a dynamic and colorful founder and a rapid period of expansion, make Islam one of the most interesting as well as important of all religions. Unfortunately, Islam's reception in the West is also one tinged with fear and misunderstanding.  For example, the continuing crises in the Middle East seem to be reflected in American popular opinion as a series of latter-day Crusades. The fear Americans hold towards Islam and the resulting deaths in the Middle East are, in part, due to a misunderstanding of Islam. A better understanding of Islam might help remedy this fear and ease relations.

Unfortunately for Western study of Islam, the vast portion of the literature on the Islamic religion is written by Muslims in non-Western languages -- Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and so on.  Very little of this literature is ever translated into any Western language, let alone into English. Therefore, most of the material on Islam is forever inaccessible to English-speaking readers.[131/132]

Therefore, the following bibliographic essay on contemporary literature on Islam foregrounds Muslim authors in English, where possible, and highlights throughout that literature which is sensitive to the Muslim perspective. It reviews all aspects of Islam, from the time of the Prophet to the present, insofar as these are addressed in English-language books which have been published during the past two decades or so. Such publications should be readily accessible to English-speaking readers.

There are a number of reference works which give a detailed introduction to the Muslim countries of the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Indonesia today. Two that are to be recommended in particular are the Asia Yearbook, an annual published in Hong Kong by the Far Eastern Economic Review, and The Middle East and North Africa, also an annual published in London by Europa Publications. From the Atlas mountains of the Maghreb (the West), the civilization of Islam can be traced across the southern half of the Mediterranean. Its influence runs down both sides of the Red Sea and throughout the Arabian Peninsula. It sweeps across the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal to the islands of Indonesia. In the north, Islam follows the ancient caravan routes across the Central Asian steppes until it reaches almost to the Great Wall of China. For a further presentation of the geography of the Islamic world, yesterday and today, the reader can consult William Brice's An Historic Atlas of Islam (1981).

Yet, Islam did not achieve any political or territorial unity, despite the fact that its followers were certainly identifiable by a set of finite attributes. These attributes -- the language of the Qur'an, directional place of worship, distinctive mannerisms, and prescribed food habits -- provided Muslims with a cohesiveness, a clear-cut, articulate, and self-confident identity, but that cultural unity did not translate to political unity or power.

The religion of Islam is based on strict monotheism, subordination to one and only one God (Allah), the sole and sovereign ruler of the universe. Islam rejects any concept of a plurality of the godhead, be it a duality, such as the Manichaean doctrine of Ormazd (Light, Good) and Ahriman (Matter, Evil); a trinity such as the Christian notion of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit; or a polytheism such as that of the Hindu religion. The adherents of Islam are known as Muslims, meaning "Submitters to the Will of Allah."  In some literature, the adherents of Islam have also been referred to as "Mohammedans." This reflects a Western prejudice that assumes every world religion involves the worship of its founder, just as Christianity involves the worship of Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God. The title Muhammadans is a misnomer, because the adherents of Islam do not worship the man, Muhammad the Prophet, but are the Submitters to the Will of Allah, the One and Only.

Muslims all over the world do believe that although Allah has made himself known through a series of prophets through ages, his last and fullest revelation was to and through the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century A.D. Muhammad the Prophet taught the Muslims that [132/133] they have only one life to live, and this life will determine how they will fare through their eternal existence.

The Life of the Prophet
Sigmund Freud, in his Moses and Monotheism  (1939), observed that many of the founders of religions spent at least a portion of their formative years in homes with out a father figure. This was the case in the lives of Moses, Confucius, Menicius and others. Muhammad was not an exception. In A.D. 570, when Muhammad was born into the Hashemite clan of the Quraishi tribe, who controlled the Ka'aba in Mecca, his father, Abdullah, was already dead; his mother, Amina, died when Muhammad was only six years old. Muhammad was raised and reared by his uncle, Abu Talib, the leader of the Quraish tribe.

When Muhammad was twenty-five, Gabriel, an archangel of Allah, came to him and conveyed God's command to him: "Proclaim! in the name Of thy Lord and Cherisher" (96: 1 - l5).  [All Quranic references are to Abdullah Yusuf Ali, The Holy Qur'an (Brentwood, MD: Amana, 1989)]   Muhammad did not have any formal education and was illiterate.   The adherents of Islam make much of that fact, and of the miracle of the revelation of the Qur'an that came to Muhammad through the angel Gabriel.  Muhammad conveyed to his listeners what Gabriel revealed to him. These revelations eventually were written down to become the scripture of Islam, the Qur'an. This text was canonized a few years after the death of the Prophet, and Muslims stress that this process was completed before the possibility of substantial human error creeping into the text. Thus, as a result of these revelations, adherents find the presence of Allah in the Holy Writ.

Through these revelations, Muhammad was to preach that he was the last of a series of prophets that had included, among others, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus of Nazareth. For the Muslim account of Jesus of Nazareth in particular, see Edward Geoffery Parrinder's Jesus in the Qur'an (1965), or see the Sufi account in Javad Nurbakhsh's Jesus in the Eyes of the Sufis (1983). Thus, at the very inception of Islam it was clear that Islam did not deny the validity of other religions, but rather proclaimed that what others began, Islam brought to completion. Muhammad also did not claim divinity; he was like any other man, and he died like any other man.

Muhammad the Prophet converted his wife, Khadijah, the first Muslim ever. He then proceeded to preach his religion in Mecca, converting the idolaters in the face of tremendous opposition. His subsequent converts included Ali ibn Abu Talib, his first cousin; Zayed ibn Thabit, a former slave whom Muhammad adopted as his son and who became the Prophet's secretary; and Abu Bakr, a friend of Muhammad. Initially, Abu Talib, Muhammad's uncle and Ali's father, gave the Prophet all the protection he needed from the hostile rich merchants and the powerful clan leaders of Mecca. But later, the opposition to Muhammad crystallized, and he had to advise some of his followers to leave Mecca and take refuge in the Christian Kingdom of Abyssinia (what is now Ethopia).  After the death of Abu Talib in 6l9, opposition to [133/134] Muhammad became even greater and, by 622, he himself had to take refuge in Yathrib, later named Medina, a city about 250 miles north of Mecca. The life of the Prophet during the Meccan period has been presented in Muhammad at Mecca (1953), a widely recognized study by W. Montgomery Watt. The journey from Mecca to Medina is known as Hijrah (the Migration). Muslims begin their calendars with the date of that journey, whereupon the subsequent years are listed as A.H. (Anno Hegirae). A thorough discussion of the calendars can be found in Muslim and Christian Calendars (Freeman-Grenville and Greville 1977).

Following Muhammad's arrival at Medina, conflicts continued to brew between his group and the people of Mecca. One such encounter was the Battle of Badr in March, A.D. 623, where seventy Meccans were killed and the Muslims took many prisoners and booty. At the same time, Muslims came in the conflict with the Jewish population of Medina. The Jews, who refused to accept Muhammad as the Prophet of God, frequently supported the Meccans against the Muslims. Reluctantly, Muhammad had to expel the Jews from Medina. The final break between the Muslim and Jewish community in Medina came when a Jewish matron, Zaynab, invited Muhammad and his followers to dinner and fed them poisoned lamb. Tradition has it that Muhammad ate only a little of the meat, but he suffered the rest of his life, and never fully recovering from the effects of the poison. The complex relationship between the early Muslims and the Jews has been treated by Arent J. Wensinck in Muhammad and the Jews of Medina (1975).

Ten years after the Muslim migration to Medina, Muhammad returned to Mecca as a conqueror, where he destroyed all the idols of Ka'aba and invited Meccans to embrace Islam, which they almost all did.  After that, Islam grew stronger and stronger. All this period, from the Hijrah up to the death of the Prophet, has been treated in the complementary volume to Muhammad at Mecca, Muhammad at Medina, by W. Montgomery Watt (1956).

A noteworthy biography of the Prophet, based on the earliest Arabic sources, is Martin Lings' Muhammad (1983). Finally, two Egyptian authors have written well-known biographies of the Prophet, now available in English -- Tawfik al-Hakim's Muhammad (1985) and Muhammad  H. Heykal's The Life of Muhammad  (1976).

The Five Pillars of Islam
Diversity in Islamic practices by Muslims in different distant parts of the world may puzzle a casual observer, but the core beliefs and practices that bind Muslims into a solid bond is not hard to decipher. Five essential and obligatory practices spell out the way of life of all Muslims.  These Five Pillars of Islam  make one a Muslim, regardless of ethnic background and linguistic affiliation. [134/135]

(I.)  Shahadah
The First Pillar of Islam is the Shahadah (Creed of Islam),  the profession of faith. The creed of Islam leads a Muslim in the straight path, which he declares explicitly, but in a very brief and simple fashion that "there is no God but The God (Allah) and Muhammad is His Messenger (the Prophet)". The Holy Qur'an begins with: 

In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Praise be to Allah,
The Cherisher and Sustainer of the Worlds. . . . 
Show us the straight path 
The way of those on whom 
Thou hast bestowed Thy Grace (1:1, 6-7). 

This proclamation, which the Muslims call Kalimah, is the first and foremost prerequisite for becoming a Muslim. Kalimah affirms Islam's uncompromising attitude of monotheistic faith, that there is no god but Allah (God), and this faith brings a sense of oneness, belongingness -- or Tawhid (Unity) -- to the believers.

Additionally, the Kalimah declares the affirmation of the Prophet as the Messenger of God (Rasul-i Allah); the authenticity and the validity of his teachings, as the last in a series of prophets. This also implies that, although Muhammad was the final prophet, superseding all others such as Abraham, Moses, Ishmael, Idris (Enoch) and Isa (Jesus), and although he delivered the final message of Allah, all his predecessors are also to be greatly honored. Two studies of the Shahadah and its context are Michael Cook's Muslim Dogma: A Source-Critical Study (1981), and Arent J. Wensinck's The Muslim Creed (1965). For insight into the Shi'ite understanding of this Pillar, see Jihad and Shahadat (1986), by Mahmud Taleqani et al.

(II)  Salat  
The Second Pillar of Islam is Salat (Prayer), which helps a Muslim keep things in proper perspective, as the Qur'an asks a Muslim to "be constant."   Salat reminds the Muslim to express gratitude toward Allah five times a day, as the Muazzin calls for prayer:

Allah is great! Allah is great! 
There is no God but Allah, 
And Muhammad is his Prophet! 
Come to prayer, come to success 
Nothing deserves to be worshipped except Allah. 
[At dawn, the Muslim adds:  Prayer is better than sleep.]

Of the Five Pillars of Islam, it is this second one, the Salat, that the Qur'an most emphatically and frequently directs Muslims to observe. [135/136] Prayer, according to the Islamic teachings, is the remembrance of Allah and expression of gratitude, and without this sense of gratitude, everything else becomes meaningless. In this sense, and only in this sense, following of the four other Pillars of Islam become secondary to a Muslim.

Five times a day -- as he wakes up in the morning, at mid-day, in the afternoon, as the sun sets, and again before going to bed -- a Muslim is expected to say his prayer with complete devotion, subordinating himself to Allah, as he must have faith that there is no higher activity than prayer, there is no greater protection against evil and the forces of evil than prayer.

The five daily liturgical prayers of the Muslims are preceded by ritual purification which they call Ozu. Facing Mecca, every Muslim is expected to perform this prayer through prostrations and recitations from the Holy Qur'an. For a Muslim, there is no way to avoid these obligatory prayers. In addition, there is a Jumma prayer, to be performed on Friday noon at a congregation. Islam also requires Muslims to pray on all other occasions of life, such as birth, marriage, death, initiations, and so on. For more information on Muslim prayer, see Constance Padwick's Muslim Devotions: A Study of Prayer Manuals (1961).

(III) Sawm
The Third Pillar of Islam is Sawm (Fasting), fasting during the sacred month of Ramadan, the month it is said that the Qur'an was revealed to the Prophet. Muslim fasting during this month is very different from the short-term fasting of the Jew's Day of Atonement of the Jews, or the Catholic avoidance of meat during Lent. Sawm is undoubtedly the most stringent fast of all, one that surpasses the fasting practiced by any other religion of the world.

Muslims during this month not only abstain from food and drink from dawn to sunset, they also refrain from any kind of sexual activities, either explicit or implicit. Because Muslims follow a lunar month, Ramadan comes at different times of the year; in tropical areas of the world, particularly in the summer, the fast becomes a very arduous and tedious experience.

This third principle of Islam reminds the Muslims that they (as humans) are in fact helpless creatures in need of the perpetual and sustaining nourishment of God. Fasting for a month also gives Muslims the experience of hunger, inspiring them to be compassionate towards the deprived. Only the sick, men in action (war), pregnant women, and people travelling are exempted from fasting. All of this has been discussed in Fasting by Muhammad I. el-Geyoushi (n.d.) and Fasting by el-Bahay el-Kholi (1967).

(IV) Zakat and Sadakat
The Fourth Pillar of Islam is Zakat and Sadakat (Charity). A Muslim is expected to sacrifice two percent of his total assets (not [136/137] income) every year for the welfare of the needy. This amount, Zakat, may also be spent to support schools, hospitals, mosques, or any other institution that serves the entire community. This Fourth Pillar of charity acknowledges the reality of the distinction between 'haves' and 'have-nots,' and lays down a religious responsibility on the well-to-do followers of Islam to support their less fortunate religious brethren.

A Muslim, though obligated by religious injunction, is free to choose not to pay, though very few do, as they read in the Qur'an:

Establish regular Prayer 
And give regular Charity; 
And obey the Messenger, 
That ye may receive mercy (24: 56).

and

Those who give in Charity, men and women, 
and loan to Allah a Beautiful Loan, 
It shall be increased manifold, 
and they shall have a liberal reward (57: l8).

Muslims have faith that their generosity will bring Allah's generosity to them in return. This fourth principle of Islam is similar to the biblical tithe, encouraging the individual to donate a fixed portion of savings for good causes, such as the freeing of slaves and relief of the poor. For more information on Zakat, refer to Social Justice in Islam, by Mahmud Ahmad (1982), and Farishta Zayas's The Law and Philosophy of Zakat (1960). Charity above and beyond this amount is Sadaqat. A good source for information on Sadaqat is Ghulam Sarwar's Islam: Beliefs and Teachings (1982).

(V) Hajj
The Fifth Pillar of Islam is Hajj (Pilgrimage), considered the culminating experience of a Muslim's life. All Muslims are expected to perform pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lifetimes, if they can afford it. One can get a sense of the Pilgrimage in the late nineteenth century in A Shi'ite Pilgrimage to Mecca, 1885-1886, by a Persian notable, M. Mohammad H. Farahani (1990).

Pilgrimage takes place during Dhu'l Hijja, the twelfth month on the Muslim calendar. Every year, depending on the political and economic conditions of the world, anywhere from two to two and a half million Muslims arrive in Mecca.

This annual congregation began 1,400 years ago, long before any comparable universal congregation of any other religion or creed. It is a unique congress at which not only the leaders of the nations meet, but also the people themselves congregate and come to know and rely on one another. The basic impression given by the Pilgrimage is one of the globalness of belief in Allah. Muslims pay homage to this universality [137/138] of Islam by gathering in Mecca. It is at Pilgrimage that Muslims from all over the world, of every race and color, come to know the power of unified belief. It is here they realize the potential of their spiritual might. For more information on the Fifth Pillar of Islam, refer to Ali Shariati's Hajj (1977)

Universal Features of Islamic Religion
One of the fundamental differences between the Islamic doctrine and other religious practices is that no one, such as a priest, is needed to act as an intermediary between Allah and a Muslim, and neither are traditional and elaborate rituals such as the Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and others practice. However, Ulama, scholars of Islamic scriptures, and Maulvi, religious teachers, are respected because they answer theological and legal questions.

In villages of Indonesia, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the religious functionary is the Mullah, a lesser teacher, or the Imam, leader of congregational prayer. An Imam is similar in function to a priest in the Christian religion; he is one who manages the mosque, delivers Friday sermons, leads the congregation in prayers, officiates at Ramzan (Ramadan) and other special days, and tenders ethical advice. He operates the mosque school and teaches Arabic, so people can read the Qur'an, and interprets Muslim law. He or his wife may also teach Arabic to the girls. The Imam also serves the family, for instance, by validating a marriage by asking the groom's guardian three times if he accepts the bride, or by reciting the Qur'an near the deceased at a funeral.

Islamic Sects
Until the death of Muhammad the Prophet, the sense of a single community for all the Muslims was undisturbed; they were all bound by a common faith and idealism, though rather pragmatic in nature. The Prophet's teachings and his galvanizing and dynamic presence unified all Muslims into a consolidated single community (the Ummah). However, within a few years of the Prophet's death, the community began to lose its bond, and gradually, profound differences emerged. As is usually the case, the first crack in the bond showed up shortly after the death of the Prophet, during the reign of Uthman, the third caliph (successor or deputy of the Prophet) of Islam, one who was accused of misrule and nepotism.

Uthman was assassinated as he sat reading the Qur'an, where upon Muhammad's son-in-law and cousin, Ali, was recognized as the Fourth Caliph. Those who were instrumental in Ali's attaining the caliphate later became rebellious. They are known as Kharijites, from the Arabic word khuruj meaning "dissent" or "rebellion." This Kharijism left a permanent mark on latter-day Islam, although the movement [138/139] itself was rather short-lived. For further discussion of sects in Islam, see Fuad Khuri's Imams and Emirs (1970).

After the Kharijite movement, a more powerful sect based on rational theology emerged in the Muslim world. Popularly known as Mutazilites, this movement preceded the four permanent schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam. During eighth and ninth centuries, Greek philosophical and scientific works were being translated into Arabic. At the same time, Muslims entered into controversies with theological dualists (e.g. the Gnostics or the Manichaeans). Mutazilites believed that divine predestination of human acts was incompatible with God's justice and with human responsibility. They emphasized the role of reason. But, in the early ninth century, the Mutazilite rationalists began to persecute their opponents. During the tenth century, the reaction against the Mutazilites culminated in the formulation and subsequent general acceptance of a set of theological propositions that became Sunni, or "Orthodox" Muslim theology. This theological development was initiated by Ali al-Ash'ari (A.D. 873-935), an early Muslim theologian whose contribution has been discussed by Richard Joseph McCarthy in The Theology of al-Ash'ari (1953).

Sunni Islam
Early schisms in Islam, like those associated with the Kharijites and Mutazilites, raised a number of issues which formed the foundation on which the Sunni (Orthodox) position has been laid. The Arabic term sunnah means "well-marked path," or the path or way of the majority. The meaning implies that the righteous way is the way of the majority (conventional), and not the ones indicated in the periphery by the sectarians. This was reconfirmation of the Qur'anic doctrine that emphasized the uniqueness of the Muslim community from other sectarian and communal groups. The infallibility of the Scripture was reestablished, and at the same time, schismatics were condemned and dissident groups were labelled heretical. Yet, the Sunni's catholicity of outlook did not ignore the Prophet's saying: "differences of opinion among my community are a blessing."

The Sunnis constitute approximately 85 percent of all the Muslims in the world. These orthodox Muslims try to follow the path of Islam as it was established and directed by the Prophet, as it was encoded in the Shari'ah (the Islamic Law). The Shari'ah is based upon the statements of the Holy Qur'an. Difficulties arise in the sense that what was apparently the righteous way to live in the Arabian desert during the seventh and eighth centuries might not appear to be the best way in the tropical rainforests in later days. The Shari'ah is amplified by the Hadith, the sayings and activities of the Prophet and his Ashab (companions), which augment the statements of the Qur'an. Thus, it became important for Sunni Muslims to collect Hadith that had not been recorded in the Qur'an. Mujtahids (learned Muslims) had to interpret those acts and sayings to use as guides for problems not anticipated in the holy book. For the literature on Sunni Hadith, see especially [139/140] Munawar Ahmad Anees's Guide to the Sira and Hadith Literature in Western Languages (1986) and Muhammad Mustafa Azami's Studies in Hadith Methodology and Literature (1977). For three well-known collections of Hadith, see the Salih Muslim, by M. Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj (1971-1975), the Salih Bukhari in M. Muhammad Ali's A Manual of Hadith (1951), and Gardens of the Righteous, by Imam Nawawei (1975). A Sufi account of the Hadith is provided by Javad Nurbakhsh in volume 2 of Traditions of the Prophet: Ahadith (1984). For further discussion of Hadith, see Gautier H. A. Juynboll's Muslim Tradition (1983), and Arent J. Wensinck Handbook of Early Muhammadan Tradition (1971).

A third element in the development of Shari'ah is Ijma (consensus), which amounts to the shared understandings of the primary and secondary sources -- the Qur'an and the Hadith, respectively -- held by the ulama (the Sunni religious authorities). Finally, a fourth basis of the Shari'ah is Qiyas (analogy), where an understanding based on Qur'an and Hadith is extended to a new situation, insofar as the new case has the same cause as the original cause.

In the Holy Qur'an, for instance, it states: 

As to the thief, 
Male or female, 
Cut off his or her hands: 
A punishment by way 
Of example, from Allah, 
For their crime: 
And Allah is Exalted in Power, 
Full of Wisdom. (5: 38). 

It is widely recognized today that such punishments are not deemed appropriate outside the establishment of a truly Islamic state with its comprehensive provisions for social security. It is not appropriate to institute some of the Islamic prescriptions (e.g. punishments) in the absence of the others, merely to legitimate what remains fundamentally an un-Islamic regime. As a result, in many Muslim countries, flogging has replaced the chopping off of the arms of thieves. This solution was a new understanding of the traditional practices. These interpretations of Qur'anic laws came to be known as Fatwas (literally "advice"). Use of human reason for interpreting the Qur'anic law resulted in the growth of a number of schools of thought, at least one of which every Sunni Muslim must choose to follow.

There are actually four different schools of interpretation of the Shari'ah, concentrating in roughly four different geographical regions of the world. Hanbalites, the smallest, the followers of Ahmad ibn-Hanbal (d. A.D. 855 ) are found today mostly in Saudi Arabia, and are considered the most conservative. The Shafiites are the followers of Muhammad ibn Idris Al-Shafii (767-820), and are scattered over in Africa and Asia, particularly in Egypt, Syria, India and Indonesia (see al-Shafii's Islamic Jurisprudence, 1961). The Malikites, the followers of Abu Abdullah Malik ibn-Anas (716-795), are the second largest school and [140/141] are found only in northern and western Africa, and also in upper regions of Egypt. The largest group is known as Hanifites, followers of Abu-Hanifah (700-767), are found in western Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and also in lower Egypt. Sometimes, a fifth school, known as the Zahiris, are mentioned in this context. These followers of Dawud ibn-Khalaf (d. 855) believed in a completely literal interpretation of the Qur'an and Hadiths. This school has died out. These schools of Sunni jurisprudence are discussed further in Joseph Schacht's Introduction to Islamic Law (1964).

Sufism
The Holy Qur'an states 

Allah is the First 
And the Last, 
The Evident (Zahir) 
And the Hidden (Batin). (57:3). 

Many have understood this ayat (verse) to suggest that the formalism of Shari'ah (the Islamic Law) must be complemented by an inward aspect. This amounts to a call for mysticism.

Islam, according to the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, opposed any kind or form of esoterism or monasticism, yet, paradoxically, these aspects entered Islam through the agency of one of Muhammad's favorites, Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam, and through his family, especially Ja'far al-Sadiq (A.D. 699-765), the Sixth Imam of Shi'a Islam. Thus the rigor of Shari'ah (the Islamic Law) came to be supplemented by the inner feeling. The word sufi and the practice of Sufism in Islam actually emerged in the eighth century, associated with the name of Hasan al-Basri (642-728). Another early figure, the pious woman Rabiah al-Adawiyyah (713-801), is discussed by Margaret Smith in Rabia the Mystic and Her Fellow Saints in Islam (1984). For further biographical details on Sufi masters, see Farid al-Din Attar's Muslim Saints and Mystics (1966); there is a discussion of a number of prominent Sufi women in Javad Nurbakhsh's Sufi Women (1983).

The word sufi originates from the Arabic suf which means "wool." The mystic wearing woolen garments or woolen headgear was called Sufi. These people possess esoteric or special knowledge of the deity, hence they are also known as "Gnostics" or "Theosophists." In a sense mysticism is the genus, and Sufism is one of the species of this genus. These mystics experience an inner feeling of oneness with Allah. The outward differences which they manifest can perhaps be traced to the social and natural environment wherein the mysticism originates.

In Egypt, Turkey, Persia (Iran), and in the subcontinent of India (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh), esoteric Muslims who value that inner doctrine that goes beyond the external forms (represented by the [141/142] straightforward meaning of the Qur'anic words) are customarily known as Fakirs or Darvishes. The Arabic Fakir, the Persian Darvish, are the equivalent of the Sanskrit word sadhu; all of these mean "beggar" -- although not all beggars are Fakirs, Darvishes, or Sadhus by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, the latter have abandoned any earthly possessions and have dedicated their lives to the effort to achieve "union with the Beloved," who is Allah (see Nurbakhsh's Spiritual Poverty in Sufism, 1984).

The doctrine of Sufism has two distinct principles or traditions, Ahad (the Unity) and Tariqat (the Path). The followers of Ahad reject any kind of pantheism, insisting on the supremacy of the One and Only God (Allah). Tariqat doctrine is more liberal in the sense that its followers believe that "the ways unto Allah are as the numbers of souls of men." The followers of Tariqat, which predominates in the villages of Pakistan and Bangladesh, hold that there is a direct relationship between the crises of life and a world of supernatural beings and unseen forces, and that systematic ritual can link men and supernatural beings in order to modify or, if necessary, control events causing uncertainty, pain, or fear.

Islamic Sufism is suffused with symbolism, as Dr. Javad Nurbakhsh has documented in his multi-volume work on Sufi Symbolism (1984-1990). In the writings of the Persian poets Shams al-Din Hafez, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Nizami Ganjavi, among others, Allah has been symbolically portrayed as Eternal Beauty, just as in the Vaishnava literature of Hinduism (these are the worshippers of Krishna, a reincarnated form of Vishnu, the Protector). This symbolism was the main reason Sufi Islam was readily accepted by the Hindus of Eastern India. Therefore, Islam came to Eastern India (Bengal) not through the might of the Muslim sword, but through Sufi Darvishes, who resembled Hindu Sadhus in their many practices and lifestyle.

Thus, this branch of "localized Sufism" in the subcontinent of India became indistinguishable from localized Hindu mystics known as Sadhus. In its form and features, this Sufism is similar to Indian mysticism, Vaishnavism, or even the cult of Krishna. There is extensive literature available in English on Sufism; for further reading, see R.S. Bhatnagar's Dimensions of Classical Sufi Thought (1984), Henry Corbin's The Men of Light in Iranian Sufism (1978), Seyyed Husayn Nasr's Sufi Essays (1973) and Sadr al-Din Shirazi [Mulla Sadr] and his Transcendental Theosophy (1978), Javad Nurbakhsh's Murad wa Murad: Master and Disciple in Sufism (1977), Masters of the Path (1980), and Sufism, volumes 1 - 5, (1981 - 1991); Fazlur Rahman's The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (1975); and Annamarie Schimmel's Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (1980).

The Rashidun Caliphs
When Muhammad died in . 632, the Muslim community (Ummah) was led by four caliphs in turn; Abu Bakr (632-634), Umar (634-644), Uthman (644-656), and finally Ali ibn Abu Talib (656-661). There were [142/143] a number of questions regarding succession, some of which had emerged as early as 632. Nonetheless, the leadership provided by these four caliphs is universally recognized by Muslims, hence these four are referred to as Rashid (i.e. "Upright" or "Rightly-Guided") caliphs. During this period, Islam consolidated itself in Arabia, then expanded throughout much of Persia in the east, across the Fertile Crescent through Egypt in the West. During the Battle of Agrabah in Yamamah (633), against the forces of the false prophet Musaylimah, a large number of the Ansar (companions of the Prophet) were killed. These Muslims had heard and memorized the recitations of the Prophet, and the seriousness of this loss was quickly recognized by Umar, who suggested that Caliph Abu Bakr have the Qur'an canonized, so that no first-hand knowledge of the Prophet would be lost. The definitive text of the Qur'an was actually established during the caliphates of Umar and Uthman, by a committee headed by Zayed ibn Thabit, who had been the Prophet's secretary.

The Muslim world, the Dar al-Islam (the Abode of Peace) continued to encroach upon the Dar al-Harb (the Abode of Conflict). The capital of the Muslim world remained in Medina until Ali moved it to Kufah in 657. When Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet, was assassinated in Kufah in 661 by a Kharijite named Ibn Muljam, the leadership of the Muslim community was taken over by members of the Umayyad clan, relatives of Uthman, the Third Caliph. The Umayyads retained the leadership of the Umma until 750 A.D.

The remarkable expansion of Islam into Persian and Byzantine territory after the death of the Prophet is treated in The Early Islamic Conquests by Fred M. Donner (1981). For an account of the life of Ali, who also is known as the First Imam of Shi'a Islam, see Syed Husain M. Jafri's Origins and Early Development of Shi'a Islam (1979); Ali's writings and sermons are available in Ali ibn Abu Talib's Nahjul Balagha (1967).

The Umayyad Caliphs
When the Umayyad clan assumed the leadership of the Ummah in 661, the capital was shifted from Kufah to Damascus. The first Umayyad Caliph was also one of the greatest of this lineage, Mu'awiyah. When Mu'awiyah died in 680, he was followed by several short-lived and largely ineffectual caliphs. During this period, a series of succession struggles between the Umayyads and the Alids, the descendants of the slain Ali, ensued. Ali's second son, grandson of the Prophet, Husayn, opposed Mu'awiya's successor and son, Yazid. Husayn and most of his family were killed by Yazid's forces under the command of one Shamir ibn Dhu'l Jawshan at Karbala in 680. The only son of Husayn to survive the massacre -- because he was too ill to fight -- was Ali al-Zaki, who is known as the Fourth Imam of Shi'a Islam. These deaths at Karbala were to become centrally symbolic to the subsequent development of Shi'ite Islam, amounting to the Passion (Taziyah) of Islam. [143/144]

Another great Umayyad Caliph was Abdelmalik, who reigned from 685 to 705. During his reign, the Muslims built the magnificent "Dome of the Rock" in Jerusalem, which remains even today the finest example of Umayyad architecture, almost perfect in its proportions and balance. The expansion of Islam continued across North Africa, finally reaching Morocco by 708. Muslim forces, under the leadership of Tarif and then Tarik, crossed over to Spain in 710, and all of Spain was captured by 713. During the same period, Muslim forces entered the Indus Valley and occupied Multan -- situated in the present-day Punjab province in Pakistan -- by 714.

A final great Umayyad Caliph was the pious and good Umar II, sometimes referred to as the Fifth Rashid caliph, who sought to renew Islam and rejuvenate the Muslim world. He initiated the iconoclasm policy so influential in the Byzantine world. Umar's reign, however, lasted only from 717-720, when he died suddenly at age thirty-nine.

After Umar, the Umayyads experienced a period of decline. Charles Martel defeated the Muslims at the Battle of Tours in 732, representing the turning point of Umayyad fortunes in Western Europe. Finally, as though to underscore the reality of the period of decline, there were four caliphs in the year 744 alone! Walid II was caliph as 744 began. He was a dissolute ruler who happened to be a good poet. He was assassinated as he sat reading the Qur'an. The assassination of Caliph Uthman had exacerbated the question of succession in 656; that of Walid ibn Yazid likewise exacerbated the question in April 744. When the charismatic leader Abu Muslim Marwazi began the great revolt of the Abbasids in June 747, the Umayyads suffered defeat after defeat, until their last caliph, Marwan II was killed in 750 after fleeing to Egypt. This ended the period of the Umayyad caliphs, except for the good fortune of Rahman, who escaped to Cordova, Spain, where, in 756, he began another Umayyad dynasty which continued to rule there until 1031.

There are a number of good books on the Umayyad period, including The First Dynasty of Islam, by Gerald R. Hawting (1986), and Islamic History, A.D. 600-750, A New Interpretation, by Muhammad A. Shaban (1971). For Islamic Spain (711-1492 A.D.), see the introduction to Muslim Spain by Anwar G. Chejne (1974), and Thomas F. Glick's Islamic and Christian Spain in the Early Middle Ages (1978).

The Abbasid Caliphs
Having eliminated the Umayyads, the Abbasid clan established one of its own, Abu-al-Abbas, as caliph. The capital of the Muslim world was returned to Kufa during his reign. When he died of smallpox in A.D. 754, he was succeeded by his brother, Abu Jafer, who lived until 775. Abu Jafer, who took the royal name Caliph Mansur ("the winner"), founded a new capital city, Baghdad, in 762. This was to be the cultural center of the Muslim world for several centuries.

Mansur's grandson, Harun, became caliph in 786. Having taken the royal name Caliph Rashid ("The Upright" -- not to be confused with [144/145] the earlier Rashidun caliphs), he ruled until 809. This period is widely considered to be the Golden Age of the Abbasid caliphs. Rashid began the policy of bringing large numbers of Muslim Turks from Central Asia into the government and army in Baghdad. During this era, the Muslim world began to experience pressures due to the enormous distances from the East (Afghanistan) to the West (Morocco). In the most extreme regions, Alids established Shi'ite regimes, that is to say Shi'a (Partisans) of Ali in opposition to the established caliphate. The Idrisid dynasty was established around 788 in what is today Morocco, and the Aghlabid dynasty was established in what is now Algeria around 800, effectively separating themselves from the central government in Baghdad. At this time, though, this separation reflected more of a political opposition than a well-defined theological stance. Several Abbasid caliphs during this period arranged dynastic marriages between their daughters and the leading Alids.

Baghdad continued to flourish during the entirety of this period. When Rashid's son Ma'mun ("The Trusted One") became caliph in 819, his "School of Translation" sought to encompass within the World of Islam all the cultural products of every civilization. The great Muslim scientist, al-Farghani, for example, estimated the circumference of the globe within one or two percent of its true value. During Ma'mun's reign, the Mu'tazilite rationalism flourished as well. Ma'mun died in 833, having appointed his brother Ishak his successor. Several presentations on the early Abbasid dynasty are Hugh Kennedy's The Early Abbasid Caliphate (1981), Jacob Lassner's The Shaping of Abbasid Rule (1980), and Muhammad A. Shaban's Islamic History, A.D. 750-1055, A New Interpretation (1976).

Ishak ruled from 833 to 842 under the name Caliph Mu'tasim ("Refuge in God"). Despairing of modifying the continuing orthodoxy in Baghdad, this Mutazilite constructed a new capital in Samarra, 60 miles up the Tigris River, where it would remain for more than half a century.

The Caliph Mu'tawakkil restored Islamic orthodoxy by 850. But by then the Abbasid world had begun a long period of decline, until a Buyid dynasty of Shi'ite orientation occupied Baghdad in 945 and rendered the caliph a figurehead. A few decades later, the Fatimid dynasty, Isma'ili Shi'ites, claimed direct descent from Fatima, daughter of the Prophet, wife of Ali ibn Abu Talib, mother of Hassan and Husayn. These Isma'ilis took control of Egypt and founded Cairo in 969 and then al-Azhar Madrasa (University) in 973 as a center of Isma'ili Shi'ite theology. Al-Azhar was to become, and is today, the oldest continuously functioning university in the world (see Janet Abu-Lughod's Cairo: 1001 Years of the City Victorious [1971]; also A. Chris Eccel's Egypt, Islam and Social Change, 1984). In this weakened condition the Muslim world began to receive setbacks from Europe: the Christian Reconquista of Spain began in 1000, and the Wars of the Cross, the Crusades, were initiated in 1095. A standard work on the Crusades is Stephen Runciman's A History of the Crusades (1987). For the view of the Crusades from the Arab standpoint, see Francesco Gabrieli's Arab Historians of the Crusades (1978), and Amin Maalouf's The Crusades [145/146] Through Arab Eyes (1985). Finally, an assessment of the cross-cultural impact of the Crusades is provided by W. Montgomery Watt's The Influence of Islam on Medieval Europe (1972).

The Fatimids in Cairo were replaced by a Sunni dynasty, the Ayyubids, in 1171. Most famous of this lineage was Salah al-Din (Saladin), who began the drive to rid Palestine of Crusaders. Saladin's forces drove the Crusaders from Jerusalem in 1187, from Antioch two years later, and he signed a peace treaty with Richard Coeur de Lion in 1191. For further reading on this illustrious Muslim leader, see Malcolm Cameron Lyons and D.E.P. Jackson's Saladin: Politics of Holy War (1982).

The weakened Muslim world was to suffer even further and deeper setbacks, however. In 1219 the Mongols, under the leadership of Genghis Khan, entered Muslim Central Asia and began a period of unparalleled destruction. By 1258, Baghdad itself was totally devastated by Genghis' grandson, Hulagu Khan. Meanwhile, in 1250, the Ayyubids were replaced in Cairo by the Mamluks under Aybak. The Mamluks met the Mongols at Ayn Jalut (the Spring of Goliath) in Palestine in September 1260, where the Muslims finally stalled the predations of the Mongol hordes. For further studies of the Mongols, see David Ayalon's Studies on the Mamluks of Egypt (1977), The Mamluk Military Society (1979), and Outsiders in the Lands of Islam (1988); David Morgan's The Mongols (1987); and John Joseph Saunders' History of the Mongol Conquests (1971).

The displacement of the center of the Muslim world from Baghdad provided an opening for three great Muslim dynasties to flourish during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -- the Ottoman dynasty, the Mughal dynasty in India, and the Safavid dynasty in Persia (Iran). The first, the Ottoman, provided the basis on which the caliphate would continue even into the twentieth century. The second, the Mughal, generated an intriguing interrelationship between Islam and another world religion, Hinduism. The third, the Safavid, provided the basis upon which Shi'a Islam would become fully institutionalized in Iran. We will consider each of these in turn.

Ottoman Caliphs
Turkish Muslim tribes began migrating out of Central Asia during the tenth century. By 1300, a Turkish leader, Osman (Turkic for Uthman, the third Caliph) established a dynastic state in the northwest corner of Anatolia. The capital was first established at Bursa, in Asia Minor. After these Turks captured Gallipoli and further territory on the European side of the Dardanelles, their capital was shifted to Edirne (Adrianople). At this point, Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire, was completely surrounded by the new Muslim state. This rapidly developing state was called "Ottoman" in the West, which had difficulty transliterating "Osman." The head of state -- each and every one a patrilineal descendant from Osman -- was called sultan ("the [146/147] powerful"), a title that the fourth Ottoman, Bayezid, received from the Abbasid caliph who resided in Cairo.

This was to become one of the longest lasting and most important dynasties in history, stretching from 1300 until 1922. In May 1453, Ottoman troops under Sultan Mehmed II captured Constantinople, putting an end to the Byzantine Empire at last. This great city was renamed Istanbul ("the city") and became the Ottoman capital. Mehmed's grandson, Selim, defeated the Mamluks of Egypt in 1517 and incorporated their territories into the Ottoman Empire. Selim also acquired the title of caliph from the last (nominal) Abbasid in Cairo, Muhammad Abu Jafer, whose royal name was Mu'tawakkil III. The union of the secular power of the sultan with the religious stature of the caliph made Istanbul truly the "world city" of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Minorities of the Religions of the Book were protected in Millets (religious communities) wherein their own law prevailed.

Selim's son was the greatest of the Ottoman lineage, Suleyman (i.e. Solomon). Under his leadership, Ottoman forces captured Budapest in 1525 and threatened all Europe. Ottoman troops reached the gates of Vienna in 1529 (and again in 1683). Indeed, the Ottoman expansion was a profound stimulus to the Lutheran Reformation in Germany. For further reading on the greatest of all Ottomans, see Antony Bridges' Suleiman the Magnificent (1983) and Harold Lamb's Suleiman (1951). Upon Suleyman's death in 1566, the Ottoman sultans (caliphs) showed a marked decline in ability, although the Empire and the caliphate retained a significant role in both European politics and the Muslim world until after World War I. The Ottoman Empire has been discussed in Rifa'at Ali Abou-el-Haj's Foundation of the Modern State: the Ottoman Empire (1991), Robert Dankoff's The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman (1991), Halil Inalcik's The Ottoman Empire (1978), Resat Kasaba's The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: the 19th Century (1988), Mehmet Fuad Köprülü's Origins of the Ottoman Empire (1992), and in Sanford Shaw and Ezel K. Shaw's History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1976-77).

The Mughals of India
Islam came to India, the ancient homeland of Hinduism, in the eighth century A.D. In 711, the same time that Muslim troops under Tarik crossed from North Africa to Spain, a young Muslim named Muhammad bin Qasim entered the Indus Valley (what is now Pakistan) as a conqueror. Since then, Islam has penetrated all parts of the subcontinent. Although Arab traders began to convert the Indians as early as the seventh century, the actual flood of conversion occurred in the eleventh century, when the Central Asian Muslims -- Turks, Afghans, Persians and Mongols -- came into India in successive waves beginning around 1000.

The initial invaders were fierce, as the Muslims sought to pillage, collect booty, and slay the infidels so as to earn the title Ghazi (Warrior for [147/148] the Faith). However, the soldiers of Islam soon realized that the local inhabitants of the subcontinent, the Hindus, were totally unable to protect themselves against the forces of Islam. The Muslim penetration of India accelerated from the eleventh century onwards, coming in huge waves at intervals. First came the Turks, next the Afghans, followed by the Persians, and finally by the Mongols -- known in India as the Mughals.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, India failed to absorb the Muslim invasions of as it had in more ancient times. Thereupon, the Muslims began to carve out sultanates (principalities) for themselves in India, known as the Delhi Sultanates (until 1526). The Turk and Afghan Muslim sultans (who had come before), though fierce, could not fully consolidate their kingdoms.

The Mughals were a particular class of Mongols who claimed a distinct ethnicity which was actually the result of free intermarriage between themselves and Turks, Persians and other Muslims of western Asia. The first Mughal to consolidate his rule in India was Babur, the architect of a glorious empire based in Delhi after 1526. In his Memoirs, he expressed a deep contempt for the Indians (Hindus), saying they were a people of "few charms," lacking "genius and capacity;" lacking manners, good horses, and good grapes; and lacking good bread, hot baths, and colleges. In short the Muslim attitude toward the Hindus was disdain, an attitude not conducive to acculturation.

It was not until Babur's grandson, Akbar (1556-1605), came to power that the Mughal Empire became more magnanimous. Emperor Akbar realized that he would not be accepted by the subject populace unless he abandoned the aggression of his predecessors had followed for a path of conciliation. His mother tongue was still Turkic, the language of his ancestor Timur, who had been nurtured on the banks of the Oxus, but Akbar's state language was Persian, laced with Arabic freely drawn from the holy Qur'an. Although Akbar was not attracted to Qur'anic dogmatism, still his thought was directly Islamic.

Akbar's doctrine, Din-i Ilahi (the Divine Faith), sought to bring understanding between Islam and the existing religions of India. This doctrine, while it antagonized the Muslim orthodoxy, in fact later suggested that there might be a systematic way to guide infidels toward the path of Islam at a comfortable pace. It represented a distinctive form of Islamic culture and institutions. Many Bengali and Urdu writers, and even some Hindi writers, accused Akbar of deviating drastically from the way of Islam, especially when he exempted the Hindus from paying jizya (the head tax levied on non-Muslims in Islamic countries).

Subsequently, this tax was reimposed on non-Muslims by Akbar's great-grandson, Aurangzib, who came to the throne in 1658. Aurangzib was a stern Muslim who felt that any of his subjects following another religion should be given two choices: converting to Islam or death. This led to widespread tax resistance and Hindu revivalism. The Mughal Empire went into a period of decline following his death in 1707, leading to a devastating series of foreign interventions. Nader Shah, the ruler of Persia, sacked Delhi in 1739. The British defeated the [148/149] Bengalis at Plassey in 1757. Warren Hastings began to consolidate British authority in India fifteen years later, leading to the colonial rule that would last until after World War II.

The heritage of this colonial period was continuing tension between the Hindu and the Muslim religious communities. Yet the fact remains that Hindus and Muslims have been living in the subcontinent since the seventh century, when the Muslims were the intruders and the Hindus were the indigenes. Until the middle of the eighteenth century, Hindus were under Muslim rule; during this long period, acculturation was an ongoing process which changed both Hindu and Muslim life. The process of conversion and mixed marriage continues to this day, and these as well as immigration from other Muslim countries are responsible for the huge number of Muslims presently in the subcontinent. For further reading on Muslim India, see Aziz Ahmad's An Intellectual History of Islam in India (1969), K. N. Chowdhury's Asia Before Europe: Economy and Civilization of the Indian Ocean from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (1990), S. Mohammad Ikram's Muslim Civilization in India (1964), Aminul K.M. Islam's Victorious Victims (1978), M. Mujeeb's The Indian Muslims (1967), and Annamarie Schimmel's Islam in the Indian Subcontinent (1980). 

The Safavids of Iran
The third great Muslim dynasty of the sixteenth and severteenth centuries was that of the Safavids in Iran. This dynasty was descended from a Sufi master, Ishaq Safi al-Din (d. 1334), who lived in Azerbaijan -- the dynasty was named Safavid after "Safi." Safi al-Din's descendant, Ismail ibn Haydar, was raised in a Shi'ite community near the Caspian Sea. His family called themselves Alid -- descendants of Ali ibn Abu Talib -- and Ismail himself was initially characterized as the reincarnation of the Hidden Imam, al-Mahdi (see Ghulam Sarwar's History of Shah Ismail Safawi, 1939).

While still very young, Ismail took advantage of the political disorganization in Persia following the Mongol conquests, and by 1501 had unified the territory. He proclaimed Shi'a Islam as the state religion. This Safavid and Shi'ite expansionism threatened the eastern domains of the Ottoman sultans, including Bayezid II and Selim I. Finally, Selim attacked Ismail Shah at Chaldiran near the Safavid capital of Tabriz in 1514; the Ottomans prevailed and occupied Tabriz. Defeat constituted a major setback to Ismail's pretensions to divinity. For more information on Ismail and the Safavids, see Roger M. Savory's Iran Under the Safavids (1980).

Theological retrenchment followed. Ismail Shah began to bring Shi'ite theologians to Iran; one of the first of these was Shaykh Muhaqqiq al-Karaki, who proselytized actively for Shi'a Islam -- and against the Sunnis -- throughout Iran. Ismail's successors to the Safavid throne -- especially Tahmasp Shah (1524-1576), Abbas I Shah (1588-1629), and Abbas II Shah (1642-1666) -- supported further Shi'ite theological development. When Abbas I moved the capital city to Isfahan in [149/150] 1597, another great Shi'ite theologian, Shaykh Baha'i, helped develop the city plan. The efforts of Mulla Shushtari, who promoted the education of Shi'a religious students in the Madrasas there, also helped Isfahan become a religious center. The School of Isfahan was founded by Mir Damad, and reached its peak in the person of Mulla Sadra (compare to Seyyed Husayn Nasr's Sadr al-Din Shirazi [Mulla Sadr] and his Transcendental Theosophy, 1978). By 1624, the struggles between Safavids and Ottomans had taken a turn in favor of the Shi'ites; Baghdad and Iraq were captured by the forces of Abbas I.

After the death of Abbas I, Safavid fortunes declined. The Ottomans recaptured Baghdad in 1638, and Sultan Murad IV and Safi Shah signed the Treaty of Zuhab the next year which established a general peace and recognized Ottoman authority over the Shatt al-Arab waterway which divided them. It is worth mentioning that the British established an imperial outpost the same year in Basra; these two issues -- authority over the waterway and Western intervention in southern Iraq -- eventually led to the Iran-Iraq War, and "Operation Desert Storm" of our own days. When the great-grandson of Abbas I came to the throne as Abbas II Shah in 1642, the decline was temporarily halted, but it resumed with his death in 1666. Within Iran, the weak successors of Abbas II were no match for one of the greatest of the Shi'ite Ulama, Shaykh Majlisi. This theologian sought to suppress not only Sufi mysticism in Shi'a Islam, but also Sunni Islam through out all of Safavid territory. This triggered a revolt within the Safavid domains by (Sunni) Afghanis, who would finally capture Isfahan in 1722, ending the Safavid dynasty (see Laurence Lockhart's Fall of the Safavi Dynasty, 1958).

By the time he died at the close of the seventeenth century, Majlisi had set the Shi'a firmly on the course of formalism and external forms, denying the significance of an inner doctrine. He set the Shi'a just as firmly to restricting itself to Iranians and to the intolerance of Sunnis. This development could function as an element of what today's social scientist would call "nation-building;" it also ultimately contributed to the downfall of the Safavid regime. Finally, Majlisi had firmly established the independence of the ulama against the Iranian throne, and this tension would ultimately culminate in the Iranian Revolution in our own times.

When the Safavid dynasty fell, a brilliant military leader named Nader Khan emerged to save Iran from its powerful neighbors. He proclaimed himself Nader Shah in 1736 and sought to reestablish Sunni Islam throughout Iran, in place of the Shi'ite Islam of the discredited Safavids. But Shi'a Islam was too firmly established to be quickly uprooted, and Nader Shah was assassinated in 1747 before his plans could come to fruition. See Laurence Lockhart's biography, Nader Shah (1938), for more information. [150/151]

Imami Shi'ite Islam
The form of Shi'a Islam with the most adherents in the Middle East is known as "Twelver" or Imami Shi'ite Islam; it recognizes twelve Imams, or spiritual leaders of the Umma, after the Prophet. There are four interrelated features of Imami Shi'ite Islam which differentiate it from Sunni Islam, with which it shares many basic features. These are the doctrine of the Imamate, the doctrine of the Hidden Imam, the doctrine of Ijtihad (Interpretation), and finally, the doctrine of Taqlid (Imitation). We will discuss each of these in turn. For more information on Imami Shi'ite Islam, see Moojan Momen's Introduction to Shi'i Islam (1985).

The Imamate
While the Sunni believe the leadership of the Umma rests with any Muslim who is deputized to lead, called the caliph, the Shi'a believe that valid leadership of the Umma rests only with the Ahl al-Bayt (the People of the Prophet's House) that is to say, with Ali and Fatima, and their progeny. These will be the spiritual leaders of the Umma, and are known as Imams. The Imams have included: first, Ali, second, Hasan, third, Husayn, fourth, Ali al-Zaki, fifth, Muhammad al-Baqir, sixth, Ja'far al-Sadiq, seventh, Musa al-Kazim, eighth, Ali al-Rida, ninth, Muhammad al-Taqi, tenth, Ali al-Hadi, eleventh, Hasan al-Askari, twelfth, Muhammad al-Madhi (b. A.D. 869).

The Imam is inspired by divine illumination both to guide humanity and to provide proof of Allah to humanity. It should be noted that any temporal leader (be that a king, an emperor, a caliph, or whatever) who differs from the perfect leadership provided by the Imam must be spurious. This point is crucial for understanding the tension which lately characterized the relationship between the Shi'ite ulama and the Iranian monarchy, tension leading to overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979.

The Hidden Imam
Because of the inherent tension between the Imamate and the caliphate (first the Umayyads and then the early Abbasids), many Imams met violent ends. The tenth and eleventh Imams were imprisoned by the Caliphs in Samarra as Islamic orthodoxy was being restored. They communicated with their followers through intermediaries. When Hasan al-Askari died in 874 A.D., his son Muhammad was a child; he made his one and only public appearance at his father's funeral. Thereafter, the twelfth Imam, Muhammad al-Madhi, went into ghaybah (occultation, i.e. concealment), and also communicated to his followers through intermediaries, called the bab ("gate"), including one Uthman al-Amri, who had been an intermediary for Imam Hasan. This period is known as the Lesser Occultation. In 941, this period of ghaybah passed over to a new period, the Greater Occultation, when the Imam still lived but no longer communicated through a bab. The [151/152] Shi'a movement maintains that the period of Greater Occultation miraculously continues to the present time. Shi'a doctrine holds that this Hidden Imam will reappear as the madhi (the messiah) to lead the forces of Good against the forces of Evil just before the Final Judgement.

Ijtihad
With the passage of time, the absence of leadership implied by the Greater Occultation became increasingly problematic to the Shi'a followers. Then the Shi'a ulama began to assume more and more of the functions of leadership of the Umma. When the Safavids came to power in the sixteenth century, Muhaqqiq al-Karaki argued successfully that the Shi'a ulama were the Na'ib (representatives) of the Hidden Imam, thereby assuming an intermediary role similar to that of the long-absented bab.  As such, the ulama came to be recognized as capable of ijtihad (interpretation), whereby contemporaneous problems of the Umma were creatively addressed in light of Islamic Law and the Tradition of the Prophet and the Imams by the ulama. Those mullahs (religiously learned ones) whose interpretations are sought and respected are known as mujtahid. By the end of the eighteenth century, Shaykh Bihbahani had established the primacy of ijtihad in the development of the Shi'ite law. This secured the position of the ulama against the Qajar dynasty, which had restored the monarchy in nineteenth-century Iran. For further readings on the Shi'a law, see Hossein Modarresi Tabatabai's An Introduction to Shi'i Law: A Bibliographic Study (1984).

Taqlid
The vast majority of Shi'ites, who are not mujtahid, cannot themselves exercise ijtihad, since they would end in error. Hence they must engage in taqlid (emulation), following the model established by one of their contemporary mujtahid. This dialectic of creativity and emulation creates the potential for a tremendous popular mobilization throughout the Shi'ite Umma. If the leading mujtahids, who in recent years have come to be called ayatollah ("the sign of Allah"), are accommodating to the political regime, it will be greatly strengthened. If the ayatollahs are opposed to the regime, the masses may turn against it, and it may collapse. This has been discussed with respect to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in The Turban for the Crown by Said Amir Arjomand (1988).

Two Islamic Heresies
Before turning to the topic of Islam in the modern era, it will perhaps be worthwhile to mention two heresies of Islam which have recently presented themselves -- the Ahmadiyya Movement, which originated in what is today Pakistan, and the Baha'i Movement, which originated in Iran. [152/153]

The Shari'ah holds that there are two ways a Muslim can renounce the faith: ridda, converting from Islam to another religion, and irtidad, falling from Islam into unbelief. Two religious movements which began within Islam are now considered heresies by virtually all Muslims, interlacing both the element of unbelief, by questioning the finality of Muhammad's prophecy, and the element of conversion to another religion. We will briefly discuss both of these heresies, and indicate some literature for further study.

The Ahmadiyya Movement
Orthodox Muslims regard the Ahmadiyya Movement (Qadianism) as a dangerous heresy that has, in the name of Islam, done more to undermine its foundations than have any individual apostates or dissenters. Following Pakistan's decision in the 1970's to declare its adherents a non-Muslim group, most Muslim countries no longer recognize the right of Qadianis to describe themselves as Muslims. They are forbidden to enter the holy city of Mecca for the annual hajj. Few Muslims knowingly intermarry with them, and in Pakistan -- where the heresy originated -- Ahmadis are apt to be viewed with great suspicion.

The movement was launched by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad in 1889 in the town of Qadian, in the Punjab, when that was still part of India. Ahmad (1835-1908) claimed that he was the recipient of divine revelation in the manner of the Prophet Muhammad, and that he had been sent into the world in the power and spirit of Jesus Christ. His revelations were later compiled into an addendum to the Qur'an, which are discussed in The Essence of Islam, by Ghulam Ahmad (1979).

Ghulam Ahmad of course insisted on calling himself a Muslim; his followers do so to this day. But in claiming to be a prophet himself, Ahmad repudiated what is considered one of the fundamental principles of Islam, namely, that Muhammad was the last of the divinely inspired prophets, and that the Qur'an was the last of the Divine Books. The doctrine of risalat (the prophetic mission), founded on the belief that Muhammad was the last of the prophets, is as basic to Islam as is tawhid (faith in the unity of Allah). To reject either doctrine is to strike at the heart of Islam. While there are those who would not interfere with Ahmadism as a separate cult, it is its claim to be Islamic that is challenged and has frequently led to violence. In the 1950's, soon after the establishment of Pakistan as a new state, anti-Ahmadiyya riots caused so many casualties that martial law had to be imposed in Punjab.

The Ahmadiyya conception of prophecy turns on the subtle interpretation of a verse in the Qur'an. The sect maintains that the verse leaves room for the appearance of prophets after Muhammad, a view that no orthodox Muslim will accept. Ahmadis say that the channel of communication between Allah and humanity is always open for the transmission of new messages. Ghulam Ahmad's mastery of Arabic, the language in which he wrote his revelations, lent him the appearance of legitimacy in the eyes of his followers, but orthodox Muslims counter [153/154] this by pointing out that such use of Arabic itself is a rebuttal of Ahmad's pretensions. There has been no prophet who has used any language but his own to communicate his message.

The Ahmadiyyas are divided into two basic factions: those who accord to Ghulam Ahmad the full status of nabi (prophet), and those who believe he was only a mujaddid (a reformer). Neither position is countenanced by the mainstream of Islamic thought.

Not only did Ghulam Ahmad claim to have received revelations from Allah, but he also advanced a new account of the fate of Jesus of Nazareth. He taught that Jesus did not die on the cross, but was taken down unconscious and, when revived, continued secretly to see his disciples for the next forty days. When Jesus' wounds were fully healed he left Palestine to preach among the lost tribes of Israel, and eventually arrived in Kashmir.

Jesus, the Ahmadiyyas further believe, lived to a venerable age, passing away when he was 120 years old. His tomb is also said to have been located. Mirza Ghulam Ahmad believed himself to not only a prophet, but also Jesus reincarnate. No Muslim, let alone Christian, accepts this account. Even those who anticipate the reappearance of Jesus as Messiah do not think that the Ahmadiyyan account has any historical basis.

When Ghulam Ahmad died in 1908, a disciple was elected his khalifa (deputy) in the same way as Abu Bakr succeeded the Prophet as his khalifa. When the Khalifa died in 1941, the Ahmadiyyas split into two groups: one elected a khalifa based in Lahore, named Mirza Bashiruddin Mahmud Ahmad (1889-1965), while the other group installed a son of the first khalifa in the office at Qadian. The current headquarters of the Ahmadiyya Movement is in Rabwa, Pakistan. For more information on this movement, see Invitation to Ahmadiyyat, by Bashiruddin M. Ahmad (1980).

Doctrinally, the Ahmadiyyas purport to accept all the principal Islamic beliefs, and purport to accept the Qur'an. Their liturgy, form of prayer, etc. are identical with those followed by the Muslim community. They subscribe to the importance of congregational prayer and hold service on Fridays, again like the Muslims. Their mosques, as they call them, have the same architectural features as mosques proper, characterized by minarets and domes. They insist on fasting as an obligatory duty, and also believe in the hajj, even though Saudi Arabia doesn't permit them to enter during the pilgrimage time. But their affirmations of faith -- called kalimas -- are differently worded, and Ghulam Ahmad is invariably invoked as intercessor in their prayers.

In recent times there has been a tendency to present Mirza Ghulam Ahmad as only a reformer, the promised Messiah, who many Muslims eagerly await. To this end, innumerable miracles have been attributed to Ahmad, but the claim that Ghulam Ahmad was a prophet is not stressed, if it is mentioned at all; rather, his services in the advancement of Islam are highlighted. Care is taken to say that his revelations were due to ilham (saintly inspiration) rather than wahi (prophetic inspiration). But the retreat from wahi to ilham is interpreted [154/155] by orthodox Muslims as a ploy to lull the suspicions of the Muslim community and to deceive the unwary, for no saint in Islam ever claimed the status that Ghulam Ahmad claimed.

It is impossible to say with any certainty how large the Ahmadiyya community is, because in many non-Muslim countries (and also, interestingly enough, in Bangladesh) they identify themselves as Muslims. Ahmadiyya missionaries in Africa are known to have achieved considerable success, with perhaps as many as half a million converts in East Africa. For further reading, see the sociological studies of Yohanan Friedmann, Prophecy Continuous (1989), and that of Antonio R. Gualtieri, Conscience and Coercion (1989).

The Baha'i Movement
Baha'ism, a cult born in the ninteenth century, shows some similarities to the Ahmadiyya Movement in that it owes its origin to a new conception of prophetic inspiration. It rejects the belief that Muhammad was the last of the inspired prophets, maintaining instead that the door of communication between Allah and humanity will always be open, with successive prophets receiving direct revelations from Allah. Like the Ahmadiyya Movement, it began as a reform tendency within Islam -- Shi'a Islam, in this case -- when its founder, Mirza Ali Muhammad (1819-1850), a native of Shiraz in Iran, claimed to be the long-awaited Imam who was to pave the way for the advent of One greater than himself. At this point it could be understood as one of the more extreme positions of Shi'ism, stressing the tension between mosque and Qajar court.

During this period of great social and economic stress in Iran, Ali Muhammad assumed the name Bab ud-Din (Gate of the Faith) and was initially hailed as a religious leader. The response to his preaching soon led him to announce drastic changes in Islam itself, to abrogate Islamic laws, and finally to replace the Qur'an with a new holy book, the Bayan (the Explanation). The Qur'an, he announced, was no longer suited to the needs of the age (see his writings in Ali Muhammad Shirazi's Selections from the Writings of the Bab, 1976). This heretical position, as well as uprisings by his followers, produced an immediate response; the Bab was denounced as an apostate and eventually shot in the public square of Tabriz on July 9, 1850. After Babis made several attempts on the life of Shah Nasir al-Din, eighteen chosen disciples whom the Bab had sent out to preach his message and to proclaim the advent of the One whom Allah shall Manifest were also executed. For further reading on this subject, see The Bab: The Herald of the Day of Days, by Hasan Muraggar Balyuzi (1973).

The next chapter in the history of the cult is marked by a struggle over succession to the Bab, a struggle which was resolved by the appearance, in 1863, of the One whose advent was predicted by the Bab. Husayn Ali Nuri (1817-1892), one of the disciples of the Bab who had been exiled to Baghdad, came forward to claim that he was the Imam who had been expected by his master. He styled himself Baha'Allah [155/156] (Glory of God), and from that point onwards Babism came to be known as Baha'ism. As has frequently been the case in messianic religious movements which experience defeat or setbacks (e.g. the Anabaptists), revolutionary fervor came to be replaced by doctrines of political acquiescence, if not opposition to political involvement altogether. For further reading, see Baha'u'llah: The King of Glory by Hasan Muraggar Balyuzi (1980).

Baha'Allah seems to have been an extremely energetic man, and is reputed to be the author of several hundred books. The three basic ones written in Baghdad are Hidden Words, Seven Valleys, and Kitab i-Iqan (The Book of Certitude). These constitute the Baha'i Movement's scripture and the rest are commentaries on Baha'Allah's teachings. See Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah (1983) for the writings of Baha'u'llah. The entire Baha'i canon consists of the writings of the Bab, those of Baha'Allah, and those of his eldest son, Abdul Baha. The latter was named Abbas (1844-1921) and succeeded Baha'Allah in 1892, taking the name Abdul Baha (Servant of Baha). The Baha'i Movement finally relocated its headquarters to Haifa, then an Ottoman city, where it remains today.

During the World War I, Abdul Baha worked for the Allies from within Ottoman territory, and was rewarded with knighthood in 1920 (see his Some Answered Questions, 1981). The last testament of Sir Abdul Baha was The Divine Plan, which was an exposition of his father's teachings (see Hasan Muraggar Balyuzi's Abdu'l-Baha, 1971). Shoghi Effendi, Baha'Allah's grandson, succeeded Abdul Baha in 1921. After he died in 1957, the leadership of the Baha'i Movement was finally settled into a council in 1963.

Baha'i teaching stresses internationalism. The movement looks forward to the establishment of a single world order based on Baha'i principles, which will come about through the work of the Chosen One. One of the interesting goals of the Baha'i Movement is the development of an international language as a means of global understanding, so it supports the dissemination of Esperanto, an artificial international language. The Baha'is believe in the Unity of God, accept all prophets, and maintain that all religions teach the same truth and that their differences are superficial. The Baha'i Movement condemns all superstition, advocates equal rights for men and women, and insists its teachings are compatible with science. Baha'i teaching rejects polygamy, discourages divorce, and bans asceticism and religious mendicancy. Baha'is do not have a hereditary priesthood, and even dispense with religious ritual altogether.

Baha'is characterize their movement as "an independent world-wide religion" with several million members, and its role in United Nations lobbying efforts provides it with a further measure of influence. Because of the persecutions Baha'i have suffered in Iran, relations between Baha'ism and Islam have always been strained. Like the Ahmadiyya Movement, the Baha'i Movement is not permitted to proselytize in Muslim countries -- again with the exception of Bangladesh and India. In India, the Baha'i Movement is thriving; the Baha'i temple in New Delhi has been called the Taj Mahal of the twentieth century. [156/157]

Baha'i has had more success in the United States than elsewhere; there is a Baha'i temple on Lake Michigan near Chicago. One of the reasons Baha'ism is tolerated, and even encouraged, in the West is its injunction against political rebellion and its call to its followers to obey the government under which they find themselves, a doctrine calculated to serve the interests of any government in power.

The Baha'i Movement does not pose as great a threat to Islam as the Ahmadiyya Movement, since it does not proselytize as aggressively as does Qadianism, but it is not discounted either, because it is viewed as tending to erode the foundations of Muslim faith. While the Ahmadiyya Movement persists in claiming that it is still orthodox Islam, the Baha'is no longer consider it necessary to preserve any link with Islam, and usually represent themselves as devotees of a completely separate religion. For further reading on the Bahai Movement, see Studies in Babi and Baha'i History, by Moojan Momen (1982), and Peter Smith's The Babi and Baha'i Religions (1987).

The Great Game
By the end of the eighteenth century, the three great Muslim dynasties -- the Ottoman, the Mughal, and the Safavid -- had entered periods of decline, and, in the case of Iran, the Safavid dynasty had ended completely. At this critical point, a major shift took place in the balance of forces among the European Great Powers that was to have enormous impact on Dar al-Islam.

The fall of Montcalm at Quebec in l759 and the defeat of Lally at Pondicherry, January l79l, ended any grandiose French colonial aspirations in North America or in the Indian subcontinent. This was affirmed in the Treaty of Paris in l763. These colonial adventures, the expenses they incurred, and the defeats they occasioned also contributed to the fiscal crisis and loss of confidence in France which would eventuate in the end of the Bourbon monarchy itself.

Ironically, the establishment of English hegemony in North America and in India had an unexpected effect, and assured the end of the first British Empire based in the original thirteen colonies, and the redirection of British, as well as French, colonialism toward the Orient. Within two decades of the Treaty of Paris, which relieved the English colonies of threats from France, the colonial oligarchs of the thirteen colonies raised a war of independence which ended with Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. Thus the first British Empire gave way almost immediately to the second British Empire. This empire had already been firmly anticipated during Robert Clive's and Warren Hastings' several governorships in Bengal, and was formalized by the younger William Pitt in his l784 India Act. This fixed not only the eastern end of the English trade-route to the Orient, but the shape of the British Empire itself. The issue of the control of the middle of the British Empire -- ou les extremes se touchent -- thus came to be raised to the level of world-wide significance that the Middle East retains today, long surviving even the empire itself. The struggle among the Great Powers of Europe for [157/158] hegemony in the Middle East was known as the "Great Game" (see Edward Ingram's The Beginning of the Great Game in Asia, 1828-1834, 1979 and Committment to Empire , 1981). This Great Game lead to the European assault on the Islamic world, complete with colonialism and oppression -- long before the significance of petroleum reserves in the Middle East was recognized.

The end of the first British Empire unleashed forces of messianic republicanism in Europe, forces that had been stifled in oligarchic North America. In August l704, The British had secured Gibraltar, which at the time served only the trading interests of the Levant Company in the eastern Mediterranean. The French Revolution of l789 transformed all this.

Republicanism threatened the British Empire throughout. Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition in l798 was incorrectly but widely taken by the English to be a thrust at India. Interestingly enough, Napoleon proposed a canal at Suez in his invasion plans. At the end of the first stage of the Great Game, the second British Empire was secured against the French threat, as its great enemy was exiled on St. Helena, a station in the middle of the trade route to India. The British sought to prevent any further threats to the Empire through Egypt by invading it in 1807, but were defeated and driven out by Ottoman forces under the command of Muhammad Ali, who went on to become the great modernizer of Egypt. By 1830, in part as an effort to stifle republicanism by distracting and draining off its surplus population, France began to colonize Algeria. The Great Powers were to follow the lead of France in colonial ventures into the Middle East.

A second stage in the Great Game involved British moves to counter what was perceived as a Russian thrust at India, or at the least towards a "warm water port." This led to British intervention in Iranian and Ottoman affairs -- including the Anglo-Iranian Treaty of 1809 -- culminating in the Crimean War of 1854. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the British Empire and Russia had divided Iran into spheres of influence. Tsarist Russia had captured and annexed all Iranian territory east of the Caspian Sea (what is today known as Muslim Central Asia) and all Ottoman territory north of the Danube (what is today known as Romania and the Ukraine).

The Suez Canal was completed in l869 at the height of the Second Empire of Louis Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon I. With Gibraltar, Malta, and the Aden Protectorate, Britain controlled the major sea approaches to the Canal. Yet the fear of new French expansionism made the British uneasy; Sedan and the sack of Paris after the Commune of l871 relieved these fears. As a third stage in the Great Game, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's government purchased the Egyptian shares of the Suez Canal in l875. This is the same Disraeli who, in his hackneyed l847 novel Tancred, had recognized that only the middle of the Second British Empire was fixed and that the end-points were indifferent. In the novel, Disraeli's character proposed that Queen Victoria shift the capital from London to Delhi! The British finally invaded and occupied Egypt in September 1886, to remain until the 1950s. [158/159]

The fourth stage in the Great Game involved British opposition to Imperial Germany's plans to build the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway, with Basra as its southernmost station. By 1899, Britain established a protectorate over the Ottoman territory of Kuwait, effectively cutting Basra off from the sea. This elevated the al-Sabah dynasty there to a prominence it has held to the present time.

Within a decade, oil would be discovered in nearby Khorramshahr, Iran, and the significance of the Great Game would pale in the face of Great Power rivalry for this resource. The British fleet began to be converted from coal to oil by 1911, and the British Admiralty became controlling partner in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in 1914. As significant as the thrusts and repartees of the Grand Game, the struggle over petroleum was even more rewarding for the imperialist victors, and it is estimated that Great Britain didn't pay anything for the Iranian oil extracted between 1914 and 1951.

The Muslim Response
The Muslim response to the European assault on Dar al-Islam, as well as to centuries of deprivation, took a number of forms. During the nineteenth century, these were largely limited to reformism, such as that of Muhammad Ali in Egypt (see Aden Rivlin's The Agricultural Policy of Muhammad Ali in Egypt, 1961; Afaf Lutfi Marsot's Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali, 1984), and the Tanzimat era in the Ottoman Empire (see Roderic H. Davison's Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1963; Carter V. Findley's Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1980). Of course, there were also outbreaks of fundamentalist revolt as well, such as that of the Mahdi Movement in Sudan (compare to Peter Holt's The Mahdist State in the Sudan, 1970).

In the twentieth century, as the depth and the intention of the Great Power assault on Islam became more evident, Muslims responded with an even wider range of alternatives. These later alternatives can be explicated by considering two dimensions -- on the one hand, the relevance of Islamic identity; on the other hand, the relation of Islam to the West.

At one extreme is the secularism of Kamal Ataturk's republican transformation of Turkey. When the Allies defeated the Ottomans at the end of the World War I, they sent troops into Anatolia. The nationalist forces of Ataturk beat back this invasion, ended the Ottoman Sultanate (in 1922) and caliphate (in 1924), and proclaimed a secular Turkish republic. The secularization campaign that Ataturk initiated effected a sharp distinction between religion and state, wherein Islam was treated as a matter of personal faith rather than the institutional and cultural core of social order. For more information on the Turkish republic, see Turkey in Crisis, by Berch Berberoglu (1982), State and Class in Turkey, by Caglar Keyder (1987), and Islam and Political Development in Turkey, by Binnaz Toprak (1981). This campaign, undertaken as a matter of survival of the Turkish people, modernized Islam in order to enhance relations with the West; in the eyes of some, this jettisoned crucial features of Islamic identity. A rather weak echo of [159/160] this campaign is found in the modernization policies of Reza Shah Pahlavi in Iran, described in Shahrough Akhavi's Religion and Politics in Contemporary Iran, 1980).

At the other extreme is the pan-Islamic position of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 among Shi'ites, or that of the Egyptian Ikhwan al-Muslimun (Muslim Brotherhood) among the Sunnis. These movements strive for the cultural, political and economic unification of all Muslims, for the reestablishment of Islam in erstwhile Muslim territories such as Spain, and ultimately, for the expansion of Islam around the globe. As Sayyid Qutb, the famous Egyptian advocate of the Muslim Brotherhood, has put it in his Milestones (1964), the Muslim's obligation is to revive Islam through holy jihad (struggle for Allah) and to establish al-Hakimiyyah (the lordship of Allah on earth). In the face of this lordship, any object of veneration (flag, country, ideology, etc.) is heretical and must be opposed absolutely. Such movements just as clearly reject the West as Ataturk's Republicanism sought to emulate it. This thought culminated in the October 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat by the so-called "Jihad" Movement. For further reading, see The Neglected Duty, by Johannes Jansen (1986) and The 'Jihad': An 'Islamic Alternative' in Egypt , by Nemat Guenena (1986).

Most Muslims can be found to take positions which do not lie at either of these extremes -- on the one hand, Islamic identity is increasingly espoused; on the other hand, the West is not yet fully rejected. Now, the search for Islamic identity no longer seems to require the institution of the caliphate. This, combined with the deepening ambivalence towards the West and its secular campaigns, suggests that the institutionalization of this Islamic identity is yet to be fully developed. That institutionalization, when it is finally realized, will probably be something quite new and different. It will probably be some institutional form which the West will find unfamiliar.

It has been especially troubling to a broad range of Muslims that the third most sacred site of Islam, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, should come under the control of non-Muslims, and that religious access to this site has been denied to the hundreds of millions of Muslims in the world. This, combined with concern about the oppression of Palestinians, and the further extension of colonialism in the form of Zionism, have led to conflict between a number of Muslim states and Israel during the last half of the twentieth century. This conflict has served to provide a concrete reference point for the grievances of Muslims against the West. The West is viewed as espousing secularism as a fundamental political credo, and yet it actively -- hence hypocritically -- supports the establishment of a particular religion in the Middle East -- namely that of the Israelis. The Muslim recognition of this hypocrisy has done much to undermine the legitimacy of secular experiments such as that of Ataturk.

More recently, of course, the West has been viewed as pursuing its own very limited interests, at the expense of the Muslim world. The West -- particularly the United States and Great Britain -- have been perceived as unleashing tremendous military force on behalf of the Kuwaitis in their dispute with Iraq, while conveniently overlooking the [160/161] much older claim of the Palestinians in their dispute with Israel (see some of the discussions in Gordon Welty's Linkages in the Middle East, 1991). Large numbers of Muslims have become convinced that the West has no sense of justice -- only of its own national, material interests.

Most recently, the West has exacerbated this with its ill-advised intervention in Somalia, where the pretense of Western humanitarianism rapidly gave way to the reality of gun-boat (or gun-ship) diplomacy. Many Muslims wonder why the West has not sought to act as decisively on behalf of Muslim refugees and dissidents in Bosnia, in the former Yugoslavia. Large numbers of Muslims are becoming convinced that the West not only lacks a sense of justice -- it doesn't even have a sense of benevolence.

Overall, if one were to hazard a judgment about the future of Islam, one is led to expect that this dynamic world religion will continue to grow and thrive -- it is presently the fastest growing religion in the United States. And, perhaps unfortunately, one is led to expect that conflict will continue to grow between the Muslim world and the West.

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