The Politics of Knowledge in Premodern Islam:
Negotiating Ideology and Religious Inquiry

Omid Safi
Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. 293 pages.

This is an excellent book. With a beautiful, exemplary scholarly style, Omid
Safi treats the reader to a deep sounding of accounts of the frequently mar-
ginalized players and problems of Islamicate intellectual, religious, political,

128 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3



and social history. The welcome news is that we must learn to treat nothing
as marginal in the formation of culture and thought. The audiences and
conversations analyzed and interpreted here provide a previously largely
unnoticed door to some very serious truths about the rise, formation, and
especially the characteristic institutional formations of early and later medi-
eval Islamicate society. While I think the title is a mistake (premodern pro-
duces inappropriate expectations), one is equally sympathetic with the
author’s avoidance of the “M” word for a number of reasons. One of the
most pernicious of these is that medieval frequently functions as a euphe-
mism for Islamic or Islamicate in a milieu still disinclined to appreciate the
formative, creative, and enduring genius of this great civilization and the
debt that our world so profoundly owes it. Forgive the khutbah, but it seems
that this cannot be repeated too often, unfortunately.

The book is divided into six chapters that explore the formation of a spe-
cial, sui generis, type of Islam at the hands of the Saljuqs and their deft (and
sometimes thankfully duplicitous) negotiations with a number of actors in the
drama: “Deconstructing the Great Saljuq Myth” (chapter 1), “The Nizam’s
Realm, the Orderly Realm” (chapter 2), “Saljuq State Apparatuses” (chapter
3), “The Shifting Politics of al-Ghazali” (chapter 4), “Bargaining with
Baraka” (chapter 5), and “An Oppositional Sufi: `Ayn al-Qudat Hamadani”
(chapter 6). Our author’s chief interest is with those writers, thinkers, and
spiritual paragons so frequently categorized (sometimes with relief) as
[those] Sufis. Safi demonstrates the social and political agenda at work in the
“final,” post-tenth-century CE elaboration (as in “icing on the cake”) of
Islamic orthodoxy, an epithet that should never be used. 

These six well-researched and extraordinarily thoughtful chapters build
on the universal, not to say prophetic, vision of Marshall Hodgson’s Venture
of Islam by testing his insights and producing a glorious bouquet of new
ones. Although the tiresome (and frequently untrue) “this book must be read
by all those who ...” is too often read in reviews, it happens not to be merely
a cliché in this instance, for this exceptional work explodes so many falla-
cies (as distinct from “myths.”).

Words of appreciation and commendation in the form of a foreword by
Carl Ernst and Bruce Lawrence contextualize the publication as part of a
series entitled “Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks.” The author gen-
erously acknowledges a wide range of persons (hewing, presumably, to a
salubrious and productive principle that none encountered in the process are
insignificant to the enterprise). A breathtaking bibliography serves a very
useful pedagogical purpose for those intent upon “understanding” Islam, and
a rather brief index closes the book.

Book Reviews 129



In his wonderful conclusion, our gentle, perspicacious scholar reminds
us that positivism is not his religion, that we now have more empirical evi-
dence to help avoid using those (in the Islamicate instance) imbecilic terms
orthodoxy and heresy by understanding the somewhat accidental, ad hoc,
and thoroughly human evolution of the Islamic historical and institutional
reality. One feature of this reality, walaya (no entry in index), may be con-
sidered the “ghost in the machine” susceptible of benevolent and/or malev-
olent issue, depending upon the context, the bearer, the audience, and the
historical “weather.” Why al-Ghazzali and not `Ayn al-Qudat? is a question
left inevitably, marvelously “methodologically” open. We are invited to
explore this opening for the truth about Islam. And behold! That truth is
found circling around the plangent verity that however much the Qur’an is
clearly the Word of God and Muhammad, upon whom be His blessing and
peace, is the shining example of the virtuous life, it is human beings with all
of their plusses and minuses that hear and follow.

It is unfortunate that such an important book is produced so badly; my
brand new paperback copy is already falling apart. While it may be true that
all things are perishing, it would be sporting, at least, if the buyer had a
chance to read the book at least once before pages go missing. This, of course,
is not the author’s responsibility. But perhaps the publisher could consider
charging a little more for a better quality product. With the current US$ 20.96
as the price of admission to this beautifully meditated, researched, and illu-
minating rethinking of one of the more crucial periods in Islamic (and there-
fore world) history, we surely have here a case of inaccurate valuation.

Todd Lawson
Associate Professor of Islamic Thought

Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations
University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada

130 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:3