Revival and Reform in Islam
Revival and Reform in Islam
AUD$58.14
exc GSTRevival and Reform in Islam is at once an intellectual biography of Muhammad al-Shawkani, and a history of a transitional period in Yemeni history. This was a time when a society dominated by traditional Zaydi Shiism shifted to one characterised instead by Sunni reformism. The author traces the origins and outcomes of this transition, presenting the first systematic account of the ways in which the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reorientation of the Zaydi madhhab, and consequent 'sunnification' of Yemeni society, were intricately linked to tensions within the political realm. In advocating juridical systematization of religious belief and practice, Shawkani espoused a socio-religious order which in its dominant features echoed key aspects of Western modernity. Yet he did so in a context bereft of Western ideational influence. This study then presents a textured account of eighteenth-century Islamic reformist thought and challenges the meaning of modernity in an Islamic context.
- he first systematic account of intellectual and religious reform in pre-modern Yemen under the founding father of modern reformism, al-Shawkani•proves the case of indigenous Islamic reform before the advent of European influence and ideas•elegantly composed by a young scholar, already well known and respected in the field
Reviews & endorsements
“Haykel has opened up Shawkani, and also his pupils, as a major subject for study for scholars in the West” Professor Francis Robinson, Department of History, University of London
“[Haykel's} rich new analyses will be required reading for Islamic intellectual historians and legal and hadith specialists generally, and it will immediately assume its place as the single most important study of these subjects for Yemen” Brinkley Messick, Columbia University
Product details
May 2003Hardback
9780521816281
284 pages
229 × 152 × 19 mm
0.574kg
8 b/w illus. 1 map
Available
Table of Contents
- 1. Charismatic authority: the Qasimi Imamate in the seventeenth century
- 2. Becoming a dynasty: the Qasimimi Imamate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
- 3. The absolute interpreter and 'Renewer' of the thirteenth century H
- 4. The triumph of Sunni traditionism and the re-ordering of Yemeni society
- 5. Clashing with the Zaydis: the question of cursing the Prophet's Companions (sabb al-sahaba)
- 6. Riots in Sanaa: the response of the strict Hadawis
- 7. Shawkani's legacy.
