To the Editor:
I was disappointed by the review by Khalid Bin Sayeed of John Obert Voll's Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World (MEJ 37, no. 2, Spring 1983); Mr. Bin Sayeed does not appreciate that this is the most important assessment of Islam to appear since the publication of Wilfred Cantwell Smith's Islam in Modern History in 1957. Allow me to justify this claim by surveying Mr. Voll's accomplishment.
He establishes a framework by identifying the four "temperaments" of Islamic experience:
- The adaptionist temperament involves "a willingness to make adjustments to changing conditions in a pragmatic manner" (29).
- The conservative temperament is characterized by "a mistrust of innovation" (30).
- The fundamentalist temperament "insists on rigorous adherence to the specific and the general rules of the faith" (30).
- And the individualist temperament, which meant an emphasis on "individual piety rather than on communal obligation" (355) directed Muslims to "the more personal and individual aspects of Islam" (31).
Using the first three of these temperaments, Mr. Voll traces the rhythms of Islamic history from Muhammad's time to the current revival.
He sees the first centuries of Islam as adaptionist; early Muslims from Arabia were eager to learn from the more civilized peoples they conquered. As a result, cities such as Baghdad and Medina became centers of international culture and the Muslims enjoyed a great florescence during the medieval period.
Then, from about the year 1000, a new spirit of conservation took hold, attempting to preserve the outlines of Islam's civilization and way of life. As the power of the caliphs declined and military rulers took their place, the 'ulama emerged as the cultural and social leaders who "gave a sense of political identity and order to society" (16).
The conservative temperament was challenged in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as Islam expanded to new regions. "The problem of coping with the tremendous diversity of peoples and cultures that had been brought into the world of Islam helped set the tone for this era". One response was a reaction against compromise, "a more strict exclusivism" (18). Beginning as a conservative impulse, this developed in the eighteenth century into "a relatively widespread spirit of socio-moral reconstruction based on more strict adherence" to Islamic laws - it developed, that is, into fundamentalism.
Usually dismissed as the dark age of Islam, the eighteenth century nevertheless had special importance for modern times; Mr. Voll convincingly shows that radical notions of religious purifications, now so common, derive from that era. Although it had roots in earlier times, fundamentalism emerged as a major force only in the eighteenth century. In the book's most original chapter, he surveys the whole of the Muslim world in the eighteenth century, with special attention to the fundamentalists.
In the modern era of Muslim history - from the late eighteenth century on, when Europe began to impinge heavily - Mr. Voll discerns four periods: the domination by Europe, the struggle for independence, the post-independence generation, and the Islamic revival.
 The Battle of Buxar in 1764, establishing British control over Bengal. |
Islam had varied roles in the national struggles for independence, depending on the proportion of Muslims in the population.
- Where Muslims constituted over 85 per cent of the populace, as in North Africa or the Middle East, Islam complemented nationalist feelings and increased the sense of common purpose.
- Where Muslims made up only a small majority or a large minority, as in India or Saharan Africa, Islam conflicted with other allegiances, leading to such massive civil conflicts as the partition of India and the Anyanya war in the Sudan.
- Finally, where Muslims constituted less than 25 per cent of the population, Islamic loyalties scared the non-Muslims, and were frequently crushed with violence, as in Yugoslavia, Thailand and the Philippines.
Most Muslim countries received their independence between 1946 and 1962; henceforth, Mr. Voll points out, questions of development, both economic and social, took precedence over all else. If Islam had often helped in the struggle for independence, it appeared less useful for modernization, and adaptionism became predominant in the postindependence period. During these years, both conservative and fundamentalist Islam were discredited and appeared doomed.
But by 1970 circumstances had changed and fundamentalism again became prevalent. For many Muslims, adaptionism had proven itself incapable of ending the poverty, injustice and weakness which afflicted their countries. While still seeking the benefits of modernity, Muslims increasingly insisted on distinguishing what was modern (and therefore essential) from what was Western (and therefore not critical). Fundamentalism provided a way "to modernize without Westernizing, to create social structures that [were] both modem and authentically Islamic" (281). For Muslims everywhere, "the 1970s was a time when the dominant adaptionist style was significantly challenged by a more fundamentalist style of Islam" (347). Mr. Voll concludes the book with an assessment that the recent Islamic revival is an experience of "major transformations in all dimensions" (347) and a watershed in Muslim history.
My criticisms of Islam: Continuity and Change in the Modern World concern the author's tendency to break the narrative into many small segments; the history of Turkey, for example, is presented in nine separate parts. Also, while scholarly diffidence is commendable, especially when dealing with a topic as combustible as Islam and politics, Mr. Voll's reluctance to displease any readers sometimes leaves his account flaccid.
These points of disagreement, however, in no way diminish my admiration for Mr. Voll's achievement. Two features deserve special praise. First, unlike so many writers who write about Islam and the Muslims as a whole, but who restrict themselves to the Middle East, the author has made the effort to take in the full geographic range of the Islamic experience. Mr. Bin Sayeed dismisses this with the assertion that Voll, "by spreading his net so wide, has sacrificed depth." Quite the contrary, I would say; Voll brings an unparalleled knowledge to this book, knowledge as wide as it is accurate. This work of quiet erudition and calm judgment has no rival as an account of Muslim history in the modern age.
Second, by envisioning the umma as a unit, John Voll makes it possible for others to do so as well. With luck, this book should alert others to the rewards of discarding regional constraints and of studying the history of the Muslims as a whole. This perspective offers a new and solid approach to some of the questions now most heatedly debated - such as the importance of Islam in the process of modernization or the role of Islam in defining political identity. In this way, Mr. Voll's work is pathbreaking.
Daniel Pipes
Special Advisor
Department of State
