Controversies in Contemporary Islam.

• Author: Shepard, William
• Position: Book review

Controversies in Contemporary Islam

By Oliver Leaman

London and New York: Routledge, 2014, 227 pages, Paperback $29.95, Hardback $115.00, ISBN 9780415676137.

This book is structured in terms of a number of issues that are controversial among Muslims or between Muslims and others. It is based on the proposition, as the author tells us in the "Introduction", that religions are not based on commonly accepted principles that define them but on "the arguments and disagreements which rage throughout the religion and which represent the parameters of what people believe." Each of the fourteen chapters focuses on a particular topic of controversy, such as leadership of the community, God, nationalism, economics, morality, and Sufism.

The writing style is, on the whole, clear and accessible although the level varies. In some places it is quite elementary but in other places complex material is covered in a summary fashion that would make it hard for the uninitiated to understand. The author does not hesitate to indicate his own views on many issues. While the book contains some very insightful material, it seems to me often idiosyncratic in its organization and patchy in its content. An analysis of selected chapters will illustrate these points.

The first chapter, "Islam and Leadership of the Community" touches briefly on the political struggles of the early community and some ritual and legal differences between Sunnis and Shia's but devotes most of its attention to the Ahl al-Bayt (members of the Prophet's family), as understood by Shia's. The discussion is very informative but not always directly related to the issue of leadership and there is no discussion of Sunni conceptions of leadership nor of distinctively modern issues, both of which a reader would expect, given the chapter's title. There is some discussion of modern leadership issues elsewhere, however.

The fifth chapter, "Islam and Nationalism," plays close attention to the social and political aspects of the issue, including issues of identity, competing religious and national loyalties and the relationship of religion to democracy, using considerable material from the Balkans to illustrate these points. The crucial theological question of whether nationalism is idolatry (shirk) is barely touched upon.

The seventh chapter, "Islamic Economics," considers both economic activity in Muslim countries and what is often called Islamic economics. The author finds little that is truly...