Islam: Culture, Institutions and Agents.

• Author: Cimen, Aysegul
• Position: Islamic Culture: A Study of Cultural Anthropology; Early Islamic Institutions: Administration and Taxation from the Caliphate to the Umayyads and Abbasids; Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria - Book review

Islamic Culture: A Study of Cultural Anthropology

By Farid Younos

Author House: Bloomington, 2013, 158 pages, $26.87, ISBN: 9781491823446

Early Islamic Institutions: Administration and Taxation from the Caliphate to the Umayyads and Abbasids

By Abd al-Aziz Duri

New York: I.B.Tauris, 2011, 256 pages, $45.00, ISBN: 9781848850606

Son Donem Osmanli Suriye'sinde Islahat Hareketleri (Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria)

By David Dean Commins

Istanbul: Mahya, 2014, 318 pages, 18.75 TL, ISBN: 9786055222246

The three books reviewed in this article do not seem closely related in the first impression. Younos' book sheds light upon Islamic culture in the context of cultural anthropology; Duri's book scrutinizes some of the significant Islamic institutions, their emergence, evolution, functioning, as well as the principles that emerged during the formative period of Islam. The last book, Islamic Reform, focuses on a number of religious intellectuals' lives in a wide context, and their reactions to the nineteenth century transformations that undermined their importance. What connects these books is Islam, and its followers' agencies in the social, political and economic sphere. Relying mainly on diverse subfields of study, these authors introduce basic principles of Islam, the culture and tradition in which the religion emerged, Muslims' ways of conducting their agencies in accordance with Islamic principles, and their reactions to changing circumstances in due course. Despite their commonalities, these books are considerably different from each other with regard to their approaches, methodology, their use of primary and secondary sources, and their target audience. However, the books might be read together in order to grasp Islam in respect to its source, basic tenets, practice and their relation to the political and fiscal organization of the Islamic State, the dynamics of its evolution according to new circumstances, culture and tradition. Additionally, the transformation that the Ottoman Syria went through in the nineteenth century and the religious intellectuals' response to that transformation, disagreements and consensus might render a comparative reading of theoretical problems in different time periods.

Farid Younos has already authored four books, focusing on Islam, Islamic culture, Islamic sociology, democracy and gender equality in Islam. The current book, Islamic Culture: a Study of Cultural Anthropology, is devoted to an analysis of Islam from an anthropological perspective. Given the subtitle of the book, one could expect that it would provide anthropological insights for Islam and Islamic culture by applying certain anthropological methodologies. Yet although Younos very briefly discusses this perspective in the first part of the book, the reader should not expect to attain an analytical observation of the cultural anthropology of Islam. Culture and anthropology are only referred to as terms in cases where they are needed. For that reason, this book may not fall within the area of anthropological studies, or one of its subfields, cultural anthropology.

Younos briefly explains the classifications of anthropology and cultural anthropology in particular. Then he briefly mentions the non-empirical principles of cultural anthropology. Questions like 'how people set up their daily lives, and how they emerge as a group having certain uniform value systems' were asked to describe the field of study of cultural anthropology. Referring to the non-empirical principles of cultural anthropology, Younos prefers the definition of culture from the Islamic perspective, rather than dealing with the metaphysical principles of anthropology. (p. iii). His further endeavor is to avoid including Islamic sociology and history in the book. Studying Islam, Muslims, and their norms and values based upon the tradition of the prophet Muhammed is what Younos puts under the rubric of cultural anthropology. Additionally, Arabic as the language of the Qur'an is also referred to in its relation to Islamic linguistic anthropology, (p. iv)

The primary objective of the author, as explicitly specified in the first part of the book, is to make non-Muslims in Europe and in the United States acquainted with Islamic Culture. Younos holds that to generate a sense of harmony and coexistence between Muslims and non-Muslims in western countries where Islamophobia has become rampant, both sides must learn each other's cultures. Additionally, in one of his highly articulated arguments, Younos states, "Muslims have to change their lifestyles for the sake of progress," and "Islamic law has the power in itself to accommodate the needs of our time" (p. 2). However, what kind of lifestyle Muslims should adopt, and the content of the progress he touts are not presented in detail. The 'official Islamophobia that Younos identifies as the stand non-Muslim governments take against Muslims, causes terrorism and radicalism. In this regard, it is possible to argue that despite the contents' descriptive and informative wording, this book is written as a reaction to incognizant non-Muslims, if not also for the same group of Muslims.

The book consists of nine parts. Tawhid, Abraham, the language of the Qur'an, the Prophet Muhammed, Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem are all discussed in the first part in the context of Islamic Anthropology and culture. Putting emphasis on the revelation, Younos argues that Muhammed was the founder of Islamic culture; he didn't inherit this culture from his ancestors, rather he based it on what he received from God.

In the literature of Islamic history, it has been debated whether the pre-Islamic Arab and Persian world had imprinted upon Islam their long-lasting tradition and culture. Scholars like Marshall Hodgson, Chase Robinson, and Aziz al-Duri draw attention to these aforementioned imprints of pre-Islamic Arabia. Yet although Younos' book is devoted to understanding Islam from the perspective of cultural anthropology, it does not include any of these arguments. Nor does it cohere to a particular time period, a literature review, a discussion of disputed arguments on certain topics, a considerable number of secondary sources, or a general evaluation of Islam in different parts of the world. In terms of cultural anthropology, one might have expected the author to provide a section on the theoretical and methodological principles of studying Islam...