Beyond Islam: A New Understanding of the Middle East (Library of Modern Middle East Studies) [Paperback]

After witnessing last year's major political upheavals sweeping through the Arab world ,it is becoming a compelling task once again to understand the historical and sociopolitical processes at work in this important region. Zubaida's book is a welcome addition to the existing corpus of work on the Islamic Middle East as it provides a radically different analysis to the usual over simplistic "Islamist reaction" types of explanation.He starts by debunking the essentialist myths affirming the immutability of Islamic culture.He decries the use of the epithet "Islamic" to describe the historically and geographically diverse cultural forms arising in this region.In fact he asserts that Islam shares with Christianity and Judaism a wide range of doctrines, practices and moral precepts.Moreover a number of social practices described as typically Islamic antedates Islam and can be traced back to Pre- Islamic Mediterranean , African and Central Asian rural and tribal traditions.Even the "Sharia" which supposedly cements the historical Muslim identity , is far from being an established body of canonical law hermetically closed to various doctrinal and sectarian interpretations. In fact pure Islamic Law has never prevailed throughout the historical Middle Eastern societies and never got embedded in robust long lasting institutions.The author thus remains critical of all artificial historical constructions of a homogeneous Muslim identity that ironically tends to appeal to both the Islamic apologists and to the Western scholars and commentators.

We are reminded that Religious Fundamentalism with its moralising and anti scientific stance, is a conservative reaction against the perceived corrupting effects of Secular Modernity. Unsurprisingly an attitude commonly shared by the Orthodox Jews,the Christian Evangelical Conservatives as well as the Islamists.The author stresses the considerable diversity of responses to the challenges of Modernity across the different parts of the central Islamic lands, ranging from attempts at liberal reformism, authoritarian statism,nationalistic versions of State Socialism to the latest forms of Political Islamism (The Turkish reformist version and the Theocratic Iranian form)
A constantly potent issue in these contests and debates relates to gender and sexuality in what is viewed as a major challenge to those traditional patriarchal societies.They are reacting against the alluring forms of imported Western consumerism as well as trying to come to terms with the social effects resulting from the mass access of women to equal education and work opportunities.These are not dissimilar attitudes to those experienced in some Western societies two or three generations ago.

It would be difficult to summarise the wide range of topics and issues which the author tackles in this remarkable scholarly account.I particularly enjoyed his demolition of the flawed post-Weberian model propounded by Ernest Gellner to explain Muslim Society.
In short this is a multifaceted magisterial work which enlightens by its original analyses and breaks the rigid mould of current scholarship that persists in emphasizing the absolute "otherness" of the Muslim Middle East.