Book Notes

Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonisation and World Order, by S. Sayyid, 2014. London: C. Hurst, 236 + xi pp., £50.00. isbn: 978-1-84904-002-0 (hbk).

For those looking aghast at the nature, scope, and trajectory of certain movements within the ‘Islamicate’ world, it is natural that the title of this densely packed small volume would be appealing in the hope of understanding just what is actually happening. That said, this is not actually the point of Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonization and World Order, which is a skilled unpacking and unpicking of the narratives by which we have commonly tried to apprehend modern ‘Islamist’ movements as they have unfolded, and which aims to show precisely what is at stake when ill-considered language games and hermeneutics are employed in the traditionally chauvinistic ways of those speaking from the outside.

A collection of edited previously written works as well as new material, this dense book demonstrates Sayyid’s command over current theory, as well as his important insights into the ways in which the ‘Plato to Nato’ workaday narratives lack a moral seriousness, and moreover, do little justice to the subject matter. He begins with a series of discussions on the questions of democracy, liberalism, and secularism to demonstrate why these discussions are almost confounded by a kind of chauvinism and suppression on the part of those who wish to see these things in the Islamicate world as well as Muslim subjects on the ground. His critiques and displacements of the common supremacist narratives effectively demonstrate that much theory is still bound up in a system of semantics and language games that are part of an orientalist and colonialist paradigm and power structure, and which do not acknowledge that events spanning as far back as the Rushdie affair are integral to the story of the decolonisation of the Islamicate world.

Carefully ordered chapters help synthesise and build up a thoroughly argued and nuanced picture of the state of affairs of Muslims, not just in the ‘heartlands’ (though no doubt Sayyid would find this term problematic!). This volume requires slow and careful reading, especially for those not altogether familiar with current strands of thought within Critical Muslim Studies, in order to understand what kind of project he mobilises that spans more than just the craft of state-building, though in a way his earlier chapters talk about the aforementioned meta-narratives that dominate a top-down perspective of transformation.

Perhaps what is most appealing about this book is the author’s moral seriousness; in his articulation of what might be required to further decolonise the minds (and lands) of many Muslims who themselves are caught up in imposed narratives which force their historical trajectories in destructive directions, Sayyid does not forget that the end goal is autonomy for Muslims going beyond the shallow cheerleading seen when the ‘Arab Spring’ began to unfold and when pundits and think-tank officials effectively projected the end of history in the Middle East.

Imraan Sumar
London, UK

The Emergence of Modern Shi͑ism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran, by Zackery M. Heern, 2015. London: Oneworld, xv + 220 pp., £20.00. isbn: 978-1-78074-496-4.

Why did the Usuli branch of Twelver Shi͑ism – once maligned – rise to prominence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become the dominant approach in Twelver Shi͑ism today? The author answers this question on a global scale, situating Usulism in the context of rationalistic and culturally unrelated trends such as neo-Confucianism and the Enlightenment, and suggests that the adoption of a rationalist religious school in Shi͑ism was a manifestation of a broader response to social, economic, political, and technological changes throughout the world (although he is careful to emphasize that the roots of the Usuli approach trace back to earlier centuries). In doing so, he challenges European hegemonic discourse which views modernity as a European phenomenon that spread to the rest of the world, and instead postulates neo-Usulism as a Shi͑i form of modernity that developed in a world in which multiple modernities have prevailed Rather than treating this era as...