L'Islam sciita. Storia di una minoranza (review)

Published in 2006, L'islam sciita aims to constitute an introduction to the history and doctrines of Shi'i Islam or, probably more accurately, a presentation of Shi'i doctrines and vicissitudes through history. The focus is on Twelver Shi'ism, although mentions are made of the other Shi'i denominations throughout the book where necessary.

A cautionary note is due in the beginning: the book is thought, imagined, and designed for the Italian market. The audience of the book is most likely to comprise undergraduate students of Islamic Studies, scholars and historians of religions, and a learned readership of people interested in the history of Islam and the Middle East. As such, it fills a vacuum and enriches the list of available titles in the Italian language besides B. Scarcia Amoretti's Sciiti nel mondo (2002), A. Bausani's Persia Religiosa (1958, republished in 1999), and of course a number of translations from French, English, and Persian.

The book is divided into two parts, written separately by each author. Part 1, on the origins of Shi'i Islam to the end of fifteenth century, is authored by Capezzone (17-203); Part 2, covering the modern to the contemporary era (207-399) is by Salati. By explicit admission of the co-authors, no attempt has been made at homogenising the two sections, as the authors' different styles, competences and approaches have been made to shine, rather than to fade.

The authors declare that book reflects the debates ongoing in the Italian speaking world, debates that are dominated by media-inspired commonplaces. It is explicitly not aimed at an audience of experts, but it rather addresses an educated readership 'attentive to the problematicty that lays within each fold of history' (11).

Leonardo Capezzone, who teaches History of the Arab-Islamic Mediterranean at University of Rome 'La sapienza', writes a historical account that is comprehensive, detailed, and scrupulous. For all its merits, though, the first part poses some problems. Yes, almost all of the history of Shi'ism is covered and yes, the author roams through it and its literature with manifest ease. However, the author's push to situate his account into a theoretical framework results in a style that at some points ends up in obscuring the history itself. History does in fact emerge, but it does so only after wading through a sometimes cumbersome prose. The reader reaches Chapter 5 ('Shi'ism under the Umayyads') without learning as much as he could have done of the historical events that culminated to it. The most important stages are indeed mentioned (Siffin, the battle of the camel, Ghadir Khumm, etc.), but the author seems more concerned with embellishing his prose than with conveying a sense of the historical evolution of Shi'ism.

The narration of events that are foundational to Shi'i consciousness comes across as slightly flat. The reader, for example, hardly gets a sense of the importance of the tragedy of Karbala to the Shi'a self-awareness; references to sources containing the vivid account of the events - however biased and partial they may be - would have given the reader a more intense taste of the significance of the events. As a historian, the writer makes a point of reporting causal relationship between the events, but he fails to highlight what meaning those events have had for Shi'a.

At times, the circumlocutory style clouds the facts and tends to attribute to the subjects of the study intentions and meanings that have little to do with what is found in the sources. An example is the following sentence, where the author refers to the hermeneutic activity of the fifth and sixth Imams:

il segno coranico è, in questa visione, rappresentazione della verità del mondo e dei diversi piani di realtà che Dio concede all'umanità attraverso il linguaggio; interpretarne il vero senso significa, in prima istanza, coglilere la portata dei processi di semiosi che dal linguaggio scaturiscono...